OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMMIGRANTS /
and neighborhood industries were included, but in the subsequent
censuses only factory workers were counted, hence in order to
make the 1899 figures comparable with those for the later years,
it was necessary to adjust them to exclude, as far as practicable,
the number of workers in hand and neighborhood industries.
Other Available Monthly Statistics.
Although varying in their comprehensiveness and throughout a
portion of the period lacking in strict continuity, monthly statisties
of the average number of wage earners in Massachusetts factories
are available for the period 1889 to 1922.: For the years 1889 to
1906, inclusive, a census of manufactures was taken annually,
and included the number of wage earners employed by the reporting
concerns, by months, over a period of two years. The fraction of
the total represented by the reporting factories varied from year to
year, but, due to the fact that each annual report covers two years,
it is possible to splice the reports together to produce a consecutive
index.
Beginning with 1907 the annual Massachusetts Census of Manu-
factures is intended to be a substantially complete enumeration
rather than a mere sample, and each census covers only twelve
months instead of tweny-four as previously. An examination of
the data indicates that for the first years following this change in
method the census did not approach a complete enumeration with
equal consistency; and adjustments, more completely indicated
below, have been made to make the series approximately homo-
geneous.
Somewhat similar statistics of wage earners employed are avail-
able for New Jersey. Two special inquiries afford some evidence
of employment conditions in the State from June, 1893, to May,
1895, and an annual survey of factory wage workers, by months,
covers the period from 1895 to 1919, inclusive. The fraction re-
presented by the firms reporting has not been invariable and the
samples do not overlap in the way that the Massachusetts statistics
did prior to 1907, so that splicing estimates have been necessary in
utilizing the New Jersey statistics.
Quarterly statistics of the percentage of trade union members
unemployed in Massachusetts are available beginning with 1908,
. The results of the 1923 Census of Manufactures were not available in time for use
in this study.
‘See Table 16 on a later page in this chapter.
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