The ventilation of factories and of workrooms in general is one of the first points considered.  Naturally, facts of this order would be found in the testimony only of the more intelligent.  Where factories are new and built expressly for their own purposes, ventilation is considered, and in many is excellent.  But in smaller ones and in many industries the structures used were not intended for this purpose.  Closely built buildings shut off both light and air, which must come wholly from above, thus preventing circulation, and producing an effect both depressing and wearing.  The agents in a number of cases found employees packed “like sardines in a box;” thirty-five persons, for example, in a small attic without ventilation of any kind.  Some were in very low-studded rooms, with no ventilation save from windows, causing bad draughts and much sickness, and others in basements where dampness was added to cold and bad air.

In many cases the nature of the trade compelled closed windows, and no provision was made for ventilation in any other way.  In one case girls were working in “little pens all shelved over, without sufficient light or air, windows not being open, for fear of cooling wax thread used on sewing-machines."[41]

For a large proportion of the workrooms visited or reported upon was a condition ranging from dirty to filthy.  In some where men and women were employed together in tailoring, the report reads:  “Their shop is filthy and unfit to work in.  There are no conveniences for women; and men and women use the same closets, wash-basins, and drinking-cups, etc."[42] In another a water-closet in the centre of the room filled it with a sickening stench; yet forty hands were at work here, and there are many cases in which the location of these closets and the neglect of proper disinfectants make not only workrooms but factories breeding-grounds of disease.

Lack of ventilation in almost all industries is the first evil, and one of the most insidious.  Other points affecting health are found in the nature of certain of the trades and the conditions under which they must be carried on.  Feather-sorters, fur-workers, cotton-sorters, all workers on any material that gives off dust, are subject to lung and bronchial troubles.  In soap-factories the girls’ hands are eaten by the caustic soda, and by the end of the day the fingers are often raw and bleeding.  In making buttons, pins, and other manufactures of this nature, there is always liability of getting the fingers jammed or caught.  For the first three times the wounds are dressed without charge.  After that the person injured must pay expenses.  In these and many other trades work must be so closely watched that it brings on weakness of the eyes, so that many girls are under treatment for this.