Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1878 — MASSACHUSETTS INDUSTRIES. [ARTICLE]

MASSACHUSETTS INDUSTRIES.

Some Interesting Statistics of Labor and Manufactures in the Bay State. From the Massachusetts State report on labor, says the Chicago Tribune, we find that there are 10,395 private establishments and 520 corporations engaged in manufacturing industries in Massachusetts, and there are besides 11,313 minor establishments classed as engaged in occupations related to manufactures. In the private establishments there are 15,733 partners. These establishments produce $351,325,814 worth of manufactured goods annually. They employ $135,892,712 capital, employ 166,588 persons, and pay $79,015,095 wages, or an average of $474.37 to each person employed. These establishments use of materials $201,122,575, leaving a gross profit after paying for materials and wages of $71,188,144. In the 520 corporations there are 26,058 stockholders; they produce SIBO, 810,519 worth of manufactures; they employ 101,337 persons, paying them $38,860,174 wages —an average of $383.47 each person. They have $131,182,090 capital invested, use $93,841,000 of material, and the gross profits are $48,109,345. The whole number of persons employed in both classes of establishments is 267,925, and the total wages paid them is $117,875,269, or an average to each person per year of $439.95. The gross profits are $119,297,489. The average capital invested by each proprietor or stockholder is $6,390.72. From the sum of gross profits are defrayed the expenses of interest, insurance, rent, etc. The value of the leading manufactured products of the State may be thus given: Boots & 5h0e5.,559,375.000 Carpets $ 0,190,000 Clothing 29.340,000 Machinery 16,300,000 Food prep’ions 44,633.000 Paper 15,603,000 Leather 23.680.000 Worsted 3.000,000 Metallic goods. 37.884,000 Miscellaneous. 62.850.000 Woolen 39.566,000 Building 8,656.000 Wooden 7.208.000 Liquors 8,967,000 Total all inCotton goods.. 77,934,000 dustries.. $532,136,333 Furniture 8,422,000 The State contains 631,131 nativeborn females, and of these 190,311 have become mothers, while, of the 222,825 foreign-bom females in the State, 119,209 have become mothers. Of the 330,792 native-born females over 20 years of age, 57 per cent, are mothers, and of the 181,543 foreign-born females over 20 years, 66 per cent, are mothers. The report states the average number of births to Massachusetts mothers, 3.55; to Irish mothers, 5.03; to Canadian mothers, 4.78; to other British mothers, 4.40; to German mothers, 4.23. There are 325 native and 115 foreignborn mothers who have never been married; 37,106 native and 23,379 for-eign-born widows; 1,040 native and 129 foreign-born women divorced. Whole number of married women, 398,759, of which 254,531 are natives; whole number nf married women who have not become mothers is 64,220 natives and 25,019 foreign, or a total of 89,239. Twenty-five per cent, of the nativeborn married women and 17 per cent, of the foreign-born have never been mothers. The number of farm laborers in the State in 1875-’6 was 16,040, of which 11,000 were born in the United States, including those bom of foreign parents. There were 1,718 of these laborers classed as illiterate, of whom 340 were natives.

Of the skilled workmen in forty-seven branches of industry in the State, male and female, 136,503 are native born, 40,868 are Irish, 15,225 English, 24,437 Canadian, 4,011 German, 4,028 Scotch. The total is 316,459, of whom 233,252 are males and 83,207 females. The whole number of unskilled laborers in the State is 52,170, of whom 13,076 are natives, 30,800 are Irish and 3,251 Canadians. The products of manufactures, agriculture, fishing and mining in the State, for the year 1875, reached a value of $643,478,277. This value w'as produced by the labor of 450,742 persons, of whom 70,945 were engaged in manufactures. The productive population of the State was 41.48 per cent, and the unproductive 58.52 per cent. The latter are clas'sed as housewives, retired from business, infirm, children and dependents. The result of these tables shows plainly the presence and the influence of the foreign-born element in the productive industry of the State. When that part of the population descended immediately from those of foreign nativity are added to the foreign-bom, the number and influence of the foreign-bom element in the State can be understood. Happily, however, the descendants of foreignbom parents become rapidly assimilated and blended with the general population of the country.