ABSTRACT
In 1913, the Research Department of the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union of Boston published a pamphlet entitled A Trade School for Girls: Preliminary Investigation in a Typical Manufacturing City, Worcester, Mass. The pamphlet reported on a study that had been designed to explore the need for and feasibility of establishing a trade school for girls in Worcester (members of the business elite had started a Boys’ Trade School in 1910 to prepare boys for work in Worcester’s metal and abrasives industries). In the spring and summer of 1911 the Boston researchers visited 214 Worcester families in their homes to talk with parents and their daughters about school and paid work; they also interviewed employers in 63 Worcester firms about their employment practices. The study was prompted by concern over:
the great army of young girls who go out to employment as soon as they have passed beyond the reach of the compulsory law; the number of girls and women who are employed in undesirable industries; the lack of opportunity for advancement and better wage earning which confronts the average female wage worker; …the instability of female as well as male workers in many industries; the fluctuating character of their employment and the low wage which most of them are able to earn.
