Helena Hardman, an Austrian girl, a fur sewer, had been employed for only twenty weeks in the year.  She sewed by hand on fur garments in a Twelfth Street shop, for $7 a week, working nine hours a day, with a Saturday half-holiday.  The air and odors in the fur shop were very disagreeable, but had not affected her health.

At the end of the twenty weeks she had been laid off, and had looked unsuccessfully for work for seventeen weeks, before she found employment as an operative in an apron factory.  Here, however, in this unaccustomed industry, by working as an operative nine hours a day for five days a week, and six hours on Saturday, she could earn only $3 or $4.

She paid $4 a week for board and a tenement room shared with another girl.  She had been obliged to go in debt to her landlady for part of her long idle time, after her savings had been exhausted.

During this time she had been unable to buy any clothing, though her expense for this before had been slender:  a suit, $18; a hat, $3; shoes, $3; waists, $3; and underwear, $2.50.  She looked very well, however, in spite of the struggle and low wages necessitated by learning a secondary trade.

The dull season is tided over in various ways.  A few fortunate girls go home and live without expense.  Many live partly at the expense of philanthropic persons, in subsidized homes.  In these ways they save a little money for the dull time, and also store more energy from their more comfortable living.

On the horizon of the milliner the dull season looms black.  All the world wants a new hat, gets it, and thinks no more of hats or the makers of hats.  On this account a fast and feverish making and trimming of hats, an exhausting drain of the energy of milliners for a few weeks, is followed by weeks of no demand upon their skill.

Girl after girl told the investigator that the busy season more than wore her out, but that the worry and lower standard of living of the dull season were worse.  The hardship is the greater because the skilled milliner has had to spend time and money for her training.

Many of these girls try to find supplementary work, as waitresses in summer hotels, or in some other trade.  A great difficulty here is the overlapping of seasons.  The summer hotel waitress is needed until September, at least, but the milliner must begin work in August.  To obtain employment in a non-seasonal industry, it is often necessary to lie.  In each new occupation it is necessary to accept a beginner’s wage.

Regina Siegerson had come alone, at the age of fifteen, from Russia to New York, where she had been for seven years.  The first winter was cruel.  She supported herself on $3 a week.  She had been forced to live in the most miserable of tenements with “ignorant” people.  She had subsisted mainly by eating bananas, and had worn a spring jacket through the cold winter.  It seemed, however, that no hardship had ever prevented