that there are several nationalities (French Canadian, French, German, Italian, and Swiss) in which the percentage of iron and steel workers is higher in the second generation than in the first. These, however, are nationalities in which the occupation does not obtain any very marked importance in either generation.

TEXTILE-MILL OPERATIVES.

The number of white male immigrants (male foreign-born white) employed as textile-mill operatives at the time of the Twelfth Census was 108,877. This represents 2.2 per cent or about one forty-fifth of the total number of male immigrants employed in all occupations, and 40.8 per cent or two-fifths of the total number of textile-mill operatives of all classes.

This industry is conducted in different sections of the country, under widely divergent conditions, and notably in the North as compared with the South. In New England three-fifths (61.6 per cent) of the male operatives in textile mills are immigrants, and more than one-fourth are the native children of immigrants; and the industry absorbs more than one-eighth of the foreign-born male breadwinners in that section and more than one-twelfth of the second generation. In the South, on the other hand, there are comparatively few immigrants in the total population, and of these only a small percentage are employed in the textile mills, the operatives being practically all native white of native parentage.

The following table presents a comparison of the first and second generations of each nationality, as regards the percentage employed in the textile mills:

TABLE 5.-Male breadwinners, classified by nationality and general nativity: Total number, and number and per cent employed as textile-mill operatives.

a Includes also the few foreign-born white whose parents were natives of the United States.

TABLE 5.- Male breadwinners, classified by nationality and general nativity: Total number, and number and per cent employed as textile-mill operatives—Continued.

a Less than 0.1 per cent.

2,914, 323

1,641

Includes also the few foreign-born white whose parents were natives of the United States.

This industry is peculiarly adapted for the employment of young persons and children. But, notwithstanding that, it obtains a proportionately smaller number of recruits from the second generation of male breadwinners than from the first. Of male workers in the second generation (native white of foreign parentage) only 1.5 per cent are in the textile mills, while for the first generation, represented by the foreign-born, the corresponding percentage was, as just noted, 2.2.

The French Canadians are employed in the textile mills to a far greater extent than any other foreign nationality; but the proportion is hardly more than half as great in the second generation as it is in the first, the difference for male breadwinners being that between a percentage of 19.1 in the first generation and 10.9 in the second. Among the English and Welsh male breadwinners the percentage of textile-mill operatives declines from 4.5 for the first generation to 1.9 for the second. The figures for the Irish indicate that the second generation is employed in textile mills to quite as great an extent as the first. In Massachusetts, a State in which the textile industries attain great prominence, 6.6 per cent of the male breadwinners in the first generation of Irish, and 7.1 per cent of those in the second, are textile-mill operatives. It will be found that this small increase represents a decline in the percentage employed in the cotton mills more than offset by an increase in the percentage employed in other textile mills.

THE BUILDING TRADES.

The group of occupations here designated as building trades comprises carpenters, masons, painters, paper hangers, plasterers, plumbers, roofers and slaters, and mechanics (not otherwise specified).

This occupation group represents for the most part skilled labor, requiring technical training or apprenticeship and commanding in general better wages and more favorable conditions of employment than obtain in the textile mills or in iron and steel works or mines. The number of men employed in the building trades is more than twice the number employed in mines and quarries, about four times the number employed in iron and steel works, and more than four times the number of male textile-mill operatives.

About one-fourth, 25.5 per cent, of the males employed in the building trades are immigrants (foreign-born). It will be remembered that immigrant whites (foreign-born) constitute 43.7 per cent of the miners and quarrymen, 40.8 per cent of the textile-mill operatives, and 35.9 per cent of the iron and steel workers. It is apparent, therefore, that they do not attain the same prominence in the building trades that they do in these other occupation groups. This is partly due to the fact that these trades represent a widely diffused class of employments, not being localized or concentrated in any particular sections or communities, but being carried on wherever there are buildings to be constructed, in the country as well as the city and in all sections of the United States. The immigrant population, on the other hand, is largely concentrated in cities, mill towns and mining regions, and in certain sections of the United States, notably in the South, is practically unrepresented.

TABLE 6.-Male breadwinners, classified by nationality and general nativity: Total number, and number and per cent employed in the building trades.

• Includes also the few foreign-born white whose parents were natives of the United States.

TABLE 6.-Male breadwinners, classified by nationality and general nativity: Total number, and number and per cent employed in the building trades-Continued.

a Includes also the few foreign-born white whose parents were natives of the United States.

1.7

There seems to be no marked movement toward this occupation group on the part of the second generation of foreigners. On the contrary, with most of the nationalities distinguished in the census classification this occupation group has a diminished importance in the second generation. For the English Canadians the percentage of male breadwinners employed in the building trades declines from 10.8 in the first generation to 5.9 in the second; for the French Canadians the decline is from 9.4 to 6.3. The percentage for the Scotch declines from 9.6 to 6.7. Each of the three Scandinavian nationalities-the Danes, the Norwegians, and the Swedes-shows a similarly marked decline in the importance of this occupation group in the second generation. the other hand, the Austrians, the French, the Hungarians, the Irish, and, to a more marked degree, the Italians and Poles, show a tendency to enter these occupations in relatively greater numbers in the second generation.

On

On the whole, however, while this comparison of the occupations of the second generation with those of the first indicates a movement away from unskilled manual labor and from work in factories and mines, it does not indicate that the movement is toward the skilled trades.

CLERICAL PURSUITS.

In 1900 there were 754,476 male breadwinners whose occupation was that of clerk, copyist, stenographer, typewriter, bookkeeper, or accountant. These occupations represent varying degrees of ability and include a rather wide range of compensation. They are all, alike, sedentary pursuits, implying in most cases no more general education than may be readily obtained from the public schools, supplemented in the case of bookkeepers and stenographers by some special training. Of the total number in these employments 98,748, or 13.1 per cent, were immigrants.