Re: (erielack) Silk Mills and Coal

["Jim Guthrie" <jguthrie_@_pipeline.com>]

Rusty Writes:

> The answer is pretty simple. Large coal and iron towns had a large surplus 
> of under-employed women in the wives and daughters of the male workers' 
> families. They also had good rail service for the delivery of "silk 
> trains" from the West Coast ports.

Management theory was that if the unmarried daughters could be lured into 
work, there'd be far less pressure to raise wages for the miners (or 
whatever other industry employed the men and boys). The main thing was to 
make sure there would be no industries that needed alot of men that would 
then be competing for labor.

Cheers,
Jim



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