In Minnesota, with its average wage of $6 per week, there are few factories,—­manufacturing being confined to clothing, boots and shoes, and a few other forms.  Domestic service has the largest number of women employed, and stores and trades absorb the remainder.  There is no overcrowding save here and there in the cities, as in St. Paul or Minneapolis, where girls often club together in rooming.  While many of the workers are Scandinavian, many are native born; and for the latter there is often much thrift and a comfortable standard of living.  The same complaints as to lowness of wage, resulting from much the same causes as those specified elsewhere, are heard; and in the clothing manufacture wages are kept at the lowest possible point As a whole, the returns indicate more comfort than in Colorado, but leave full room for betterment.  The chapter on “Domestic Service” shows many strong reasons why girls prefer factory or general work to this; and as the views of heads of employment agencies are also given, unusual opportunity is afforded for forming just judgment in the matter.

Next on the list comes the report from California for 1887 and 1888.  The resources of the bureau were so limited that it was impossible to obtain returns for the whole State, and the commissioner therefore limited his inquiry to a thorough investigation of the working-women of San Francisco, in number about twenty thousand.  The State has but one cotton-mill, but there are silk, jute, woollen, corset, and shirt factories, with many minor industries.  Home and general sanitary conditions were all investigated, the bureau following the general lines pursued by all.

Wages are considered at length; and Commissioner Tobin states that the rate paid to women in California “does not compare favorably with the rates paid to women in the Eastern States, as do the wages of men, for the reason that Chinese come more into competition with women than with men.  This is especially the case among seamstresses, and in nearly all our factories ... in other lines of labor the wages paid to females in this State are generally higher than elsewhere.”

Rent, food, and clothing cost more in California than in the Eastern States.  The wage-tables show that the tendency is to limit a woman’s wage to a dollar a day, even in the best paid trades, and as much below this as labor can be obtained.

In shirt-making, Commissioner Tobin states that she is worse off than in any of the Eastern States.  Clothing of all orders pays as little as possible, the best workwomen often making not over $2.87 per week.  Even at these starvation rates, girls prefer factory work to domestic service; and as this phase was also investigated, we have another chapter of most valuable and suggestive information.  In spite of low wages and all the hardship resulting, working women and girls as a whole are found to be precisely what the reports state them to be,—­hard-working, honest, and moral members of the community.  General conditions are much the same as those of Colorado, the summary for all the States from which reports have come being that the average wage is insufficient to allow of much more than mere subsistence.