TABLE 16.-Female breadwinners, classified by nationality and general nativity: Total number, and number and per cent employed as servants and waitresses-Continued.

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

As shown by the foregoing table, the proportion of female breadwinners employed as servants and waitresses is notably large among the Scandinavians. Considering the figures for both generations combined, it appears that 56.4 per cent, or more than one-half, of the Swedish women and girls at work are employed as servants and waitresses; for Norwegians the corresponding percentage is 47, and for the Danes 44. The figures for the Swedes, however, indicate a marked decline in the attractiveness of the servants' occupation for the second generation of female breadwinners, of whom only 44.5 per cent are in this occupation, as compared with 61.5 per cent of those in the first generation. On the other hand, among the Norwegians there is a slight increase in the percentage of servants in the second generation, and among the Danes there is only a slight decrease. With the exception of the Swedes, there is no class of immigrant working women that includes so large a proportion of servants as the Irish, 54 per cent of the total number being reported in this occupation. In the second generation of this nationality, however, the proportion shows a very marked decline, becoming only 16 per cent. The Hungarians are the only other nationality in which the contrast in this respect between the two generations is equally striking. Besides the Norwegians, already mentioned, there are two other nationalities which are exceptional in having proportionately more servants in the second generation than in the first. These are the Russians and the French Canadians. Strictly speaking, the Bohemians also come into this class, but the percentage for the second generation of this nationality is practically the same as for the first.

THE NEEDLE TRADES.

The occupation group here designated by the term "needle trades" includes dressmakers, milliners, seamstresses, and tailoresses. Of the 646,610 women and girls reported in these occupations at the census

of 1900, 120,570, or 18.7 per cent, were immigrants, and 223,247, or 34.5 per cent, were the children of immigrants. The number and proportion of immigrants in each of these four occupations were as follows:

Especially noticeable in this tabulation is the exceptionally large percentage of foreign-born women among tailoresses. Under this designation are probably classified most of the women working on the manufacture of men's clothing, whether in factories or sweat shops or in custom tailors' shops. More than three-fourths of the tailoresses are either immigrants or the children of immigrants. The number in' the second generation is, however, hardly larger than it is in the first, while in the other needle trades the second generation greatly outnumbers the first, the number of dressmakers in the second generation being, in fact, more than twice as great as it is in the first, and the number of milliners more than three times as great.

In New York City, as shown by this tabulation, 71.3 per cent of the women and girls classified as tailoresses are immigrants and 24.7 per cent are the children of immigrants. Taken together these two classes make up 96 per cent of all females reported for that occupation. Of the seamstresses 55.2 per cent are immigrants and 33.6 per cent children of immigrants, making a total of 88.8 per cent. In each of these two occupations the second generation is represented by much smaller numbers than the first; but in the dressmaker's occupation and the milliner's, on the other hand, the second generation outnumbers the first. The difference is probably to be explained by the fact that the latter are skilled trades, better paid and more attractive than the sweatshop occupations of seamstress and tailoress.

The 120,570 female immigrants employed in the needle trades constitute 13.6 per cent or almost one-seventh of the total number employed in all occupations. In the second generation the percentage employed in the needle trades increases to 18.9, a proportion of almost one in five.

Of the foreign-born white female breadwinners, representing the first generation of foreigners, 6.5 per cent were employed as dressmakers; of the native white female breadwinners whose parents were foreign-born, representing the second generation, 10.2 per cent were employed in this occupation. The percentages employed as milliners were 1.1 for the first generation and 2.6 for the second; the percentages employed as seamstresses were 3.1 and 3.8, respectively; the percentages employed as tailoresses were 3 and 2.3, respectively. Thus of the four occupations included under needle trades that of tailoress is the only one which obtains a relatively smaller number of recruits from the second generation than from the first.

TABLE 17.-Female breadwinners, classified by nationality and general nativity: Total number, and number and per cent employed in needle trades.

a Includes dressmakers, milliners, tailoresses, and seamstresses.
Includes also the few foreign-born white whose parents were natives of the United States.

TABLE 17.-Female breadwinners, classified by nationality and general nativity: Total number, and number and per cent employed in needle trades-Continued.

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

As shown by the above table, the Italians and Russians are the only nationalities in which the second generation shows a decrease in the per cent of female breadwinners employed in the needle trades. In each case the decrease is very marked, the percentage declining from 37.7 to 24.3 in the case of the Italians and from 41.2 to 22.9 in the case of the Russians. Statistics (not presented here) show that this decrease is most marked in the occupation of tailoress. The occupation of milliner, on the other hand, attracts an increased percentage

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of the breadwinners of the second generation in these as well as in all other nationalities.

The greatest advance in the relative importance of the needle trades in the second generation as compared with the first is that shown by the Irish. Of the Irish immigrant women who are breadwinners only 7.5 per cent are employed in these occupations, but in the second generation that percentage advances to 17.9, a proportion of approximately 2 out of 11. Most of this increase takes place in the dressmaker's occupation, which attracts 11 per cent of the female breadwinners in the second generation of Irish, as compared with only 4.7 per cent of those in the first generation. Other nationalities in which there is a rather marked movement toward this group of occupations on the part of the second generation as compared with the first are the Germans, the Bohemians, the French Canadians, and the Swiss.

TEXTILE-MILL OPERATIVES.

At the census of 1900 the number of foreign-born, or immigrant, women and girls reported as employed in textile mills was 87,962. This represents one-tenth (9.9 per cent) of the total number of foreignborn women and girls employed in all occupations, and three-tenths (31.6 per cent) of the total number of female textile-mill operatives of all classes, native and foreign born.

In the second generation of female breadwinners of foreign parentage the percentage of textile-mill operatives declines to 7.7, a decline which is less marked than that shown in the percentage of servants. In the first generation the number of textile-mill operatives is less than one-fourth the number of servants; but in the second generation the textile-mill operatives are more than one-third as many as the servants. But there are large sections of the United States in which the option of entering the textile mills is not open to the woman seeking employment. More significance therefore attaches to a comparison restricted to the State of Massachusetts, where the rivalry between the textile mill and domestic service is probably most acute:

As shown by the above tabular statement, in Massachusetts the number of immigrant women and girls who are servants exceeds the number in the textile mills by about one-fourth; but in the next generation the textile mill operatives outnumber the servants by more than two to one.

In the following table the number and percentage employed in textile mills is shown for the first and second generations of female breadwinners in each foreign nationality: