Technological change and gender division of labour in the canning industry.
Different experiences on American Eastern and European Southwest Shores. 1
Luisa Muñoz Abeledo
Economic History Department
University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain
E-mail: [email protected]
Paper for the XIVth International economic History Congress, Helsinki, Finland, 21-25
August, 2006. Session 14. Technology, Gender and the Division of Labour.
INTRODUCTION
In this paper, I will look at the division of labour under technological change in many
Atlantic canning regions. I will examine different geographical, economic and cultural
contexts, but the same business strategy: the adoption of new technologies in order to
gain labour productivity and to reduce costs and labour disputes. In the first place, I
have chose the Eastern American Coast not only because the canning industry was an
important activity, but also because the most important American canning companies
were pioneers in adopting technological change by the middle decades of the nineteenth
century. The paper focuses particularly on Maryland and Delaware because these states
were relevant in fish and fruit canning respectively. In the second place, I will be
looking at the west of the Iberian Peninsula shore - Spain and Portugal -, in the
Southwest of Europe. This area, mostly specializing in canning sardines, followed the
North American technological path at the beginning of the twentieth century, and part of
the new technology was imported from the United States. Spain and Portugal had
become important producers and exporters of canned fish by the first decades of the
twentieth century. The study period comprises the last two decades of the nineteenth
century and the first third of the twentieth century, not only because the adoption of new
technologies intensified since 1880s, but also because the spread of these technologies
and labour changes related to them occurred in the first decades of the twentieth century
in America as well as in the European canning regions.
In all those canning areas many important changes in technology and the gender division
of labour had occurred. For instance, at the turn of the XIX century, the mechanisation of
soldering and labelling cans engaged women into the food preserving industry. Among
other tasks, canning women worked in tending and feeding the automatic machinery for
making cans as well as in painting and labelling the cans. Indeed, part of the new
machinery seems to have been operated by women almost from the start, and gradually, as
the machinery was improved, women’s employment generally increased in the first
decades of the twentieth century. Furthermore, technological change implied a great
reduction of labour cost and labour disputes because the core of skilled workers, organised
in unions, disappeared and were replaced by women who received low wages.
This paper will be divided in four parts. The first one narrates the evolution of the canning
industry in the mentioned different contexts. The second part describes the principal
technologies adopted by all kinds of canning industries (fish, vegetables, fruits). The third
1
This paper has the financial support of the research project SEJ2004/07 130, Economic growth in
Galicia throughout the twentieth century, Spanish Ministry of Education and Science.
1
part explains the main characteristics of labour market in food processing plants, focusing
on the gender division of labour under technological change. This part has two sections:
the first one refers to the experience of Maryland and Delaware focusing on tomato
canning, the most canned product in the area. The second one refers to Spain and Portugal
which specialized in sardines. Finally, the last part of the paper studies the labour market
under technological change in the can manufacture, an auxiliary activity in the canning
industry. This activity is of interest for this research because the adoption of new
technologies implied great changes in gender division of labour.
1. HISTORICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL CONTEXTS. ORIGINS AND
EVOLUTION OF THE CANNING INDUSTRY
The North American canning region included Delaware and Maryland’s eastern shore.
The expansion of the canning industry in the United States after 1830, and in Delaware
after 1860 followed a path that responded directly to rapidly growing markets as the
population soared, to technological innovations that increased the speed and capacity of
the canning process, and to advances in scientific farming that increased productivity to
meet the ever increasing demand for canned goods. Maryland and Delaware began
canning fruit and vegetables in the 1840’s, and Maryland oysters in the 1830. Since the
1880s the growth of the packing business was enormous, not only in quantity but also in
quality and variety. At first, up to this period in the eighties, packers confined their
operations to peaches and tomatoes, but about this time an epidemic, the “yellows”,
destroyed peach orchards, making it necessary to concentrate all the efforts on packing
tomatoes. By 1913 the Maryland and Delaware Peninsula canned tomatoes production
represented about two-fifths of the entire output in the United States.
The growth of the canning industry in Maryland, focused in Baltimore, was reflected in
the number of operating canning establishments, and by the fact that in 1911 the United
States had 2,400 canning firms listed in the Directory of the National Canners
Association, and 470 were placed in Maryland.2 This state was the second one behind
California, ranked according to the value of products for the census year, and Delaware
occupied the eightieth place.3 The canning companies in Maryland had between 20 and
100 employees.4 At that time, Baltimore was the leading city not only in value of
products, but also in number of establishments, capital invested and workers employed
in canning industry.5 Although Delaware never achieved the national stature of its
neighbouring states, the state’s industry was consistently placed in the top 10 per cent
for number of establishments and employment within the state. From 186 to 1940 the
number of canneries operating within Delaware increased from three to more than
seventy, and the value of cannery products approached 7 million or nearly 5 percent of
the state’s manufacturing production. The canning industry in Delaware attained
2
In 1860 the state of Maryland hosted only four factories; by 1870 nineteen factories existed, and
by 1880 Maryland had one hundred fourteen operating canneries, more than one-quarter of the
nation’s total. Census Reports, Vol IX. Twelfth census of the United States, 1900. Manufactures,
Part III. Special Reports on Selected Industries, p. 470.
3
Ibid. p. 471.
4
One of them had more than one thousand, and only four companies in the United States had this
large number of workers. Two of these factories were in Indiana and on in New York at the
beginning of the twentieth century. Ibid. p. 471.
5
Baltimore represented the 43 per cent of the workers and the 30 per cent of the capital invested
over the United States canning industry. Ibid. p. 479.
2
national significance both, as part of the leading canning region in the United States and
in its own right as a high ranking producer among states.
In South Europe, Portugal and Spain became important producers and exporters of
canned fish throughout the first decades of the twentieth century (Carmona, 1994:127163). By 1880, both countries made the transition from salted-fish to canned-fish, both
due to the absence of fish in Britanny (France). The French entrepreneurs came to Spain
and Portugal for processing fish by creating share companies with half French capital
and half Spanish and Portuguese capital. The immediate consequence of the business
and commercial linkages between Spain, Portugal and France was the spread of external
markets for canning and the technological transfer (machines and workers) in order to
establish the first factories.6 When we speak about canning in Spain, we refer specially
to Galicia which was the leading region in production and exports.7 The region of
Galicia specialized in canning sardines because this was the main fish captured in
coastal waters and because of its historical involvement in the salted fish sector.8 The
industry was located in the Southwest of the region, close to Portugal, particularly in
Rias Baixas and Vigo. Between 1880 and 1905, the number of Galician factories
increased from 16 to 82. Those companies produced basically canned sardines, which
were exported to France, Cuba and Argentina. In 1908 Galician exports represented 40
percent of the total Spanish exports of canned fish (Carmona, 1985:177-191). In the
neighbouring country, Portugal, the first canning companies were placed in the South
Coast: Setubal, Sto. Antonio, Portimao e Olhao were the most important canning
centres.9 Since 1920, Matosinhos has become the most important canning town in the
North (Nunes, 2005). Spain and Portugal specialized in the production of canning
sardines, but this does not mean that other canning products did not exist. For instance,
in the Spanish Basque Country the canning activity was more diversified (López Losa,
2000:515).
From 1880 to the First War World, the number of establishments increased and Spain
and Portugal became important fish-canning exporters in the international market.10 In
both countries the fish-canning industry enjoyed particularly strong growth during the
First World War due to the food demand increase from the countries participating in the
conflict. In fact, Portugal founded more than one hundred canning companies in eleven
years (Parreira, 1934:269-278). The post-war period was characterised by vertical and
horizontal integration within the industry. The industry progress stimulated activity in
related sectors, including shipping, metals and the machinery used in fish processing,
and above all in fishing itself. By 1930, Galicia boasted 45 percent of all Spanish fish
canneries and accounted for half of the national production. Moreover, Galician
6
Carmona (1985: 177-191). This happened in some establishments such as Goday cannery in
Arousa island in 1879. Goday Varela (1954:70-71).
7
In Cantabria the establishments number grew since 1880. Ortega Valcarcel (1996:140-144).
8
The diversification on the Basque Country canning in López Losa (2000:515).
9
French canners arrived in Setubal in 1880. Ouzille (1926:38). Before this date, in 1865, there was
a cannery in Vila Real de Sto. which produced tuna in olive oil. In Peniche worked a small sardines
cannery. Falçao Machado (1946:673-678), Hernani de Barros (1946:701-707).
10
In Spain from 1880 to 1905 the factory number was between 16 at 82, the production multiplied
for 16, reaching the 20,540 Ton. according fishing statistics in 1908. In turn, exports increased from
230 Ton. in the eighties of the ninetieth century to 10.560 Ton. in the first decade of the twentieth
century, representing 40 percent of the total Spanish canning exports. Carmona (1985:177-191).
Between 1896 and 1920 the factory number grew from 76 to 300 in Portugal. Pinto Barbosa
(1941).
3
companies had expanded, establishing factories in Portugal, Andalusia and the
Cantabric Coast. In Portugal, the big canning companies of Algarve e Peniche owned
boats and manufactured cans.11
2. THE CHRONOLOGY OF TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE
In a first period, from the invention of “hermetically sealed foods” by Nicholas Appert
to 1870 no new invention was of considerable importance in the canning industry,
which was very labour intensive.12 Cans were hand-made and processing took place in
open kettles. As from 1870, new technology has been introduced: the large-scale
pressure cookers called retorts. Invented in Baltimore, the retort amounted to little more
than a modified boiler that used pressurized steam to cook and sterilize the contents of
the cans. In spite of its simplicity, the retort offered advantages over the earlier cooking
methods, which mostly consisted in placing trays of cans into open kettles of boiling
water: the retort cooked at higher temperatures than the old method, reducing cooking
time and speeding up production (O’Bannon, 1987:558-578). This innovation had been
previously adopted by eastern canneries in North America, but also in the canning
industry on the Pacific Coast.13 This innovation reduced handling time and eliminated
the need for some workers previously required for loading and unloading, thereby
permitting both, increased productivity and reduced labour costs. The increase in
productivity associated with the retort, which had become a common fixture in most
canneries by 1880, generated opportunities to innovate in other points of the canning
line.
The next step was to eliminate the bottleneck that restricted the flow of cans to the
retorts and prevented their operating at full capacity, thereby limiting gains in
productivity. Soldering the top of the cans was a hand operation: a capper could seal
one can for a minute and this was not enough pace to keep the retorts operating at full
capacity. So, the soldering machine would eliminate this bottleneck. This machine,
made in the East, was introduced as early as 1877 in the fish canning industry in an
Oregon plant14. The soldering machine was far more efficient and economical than hand
soldering: a single machine tended by two unskilled workers closed forty-five to fifty
cans per minute. Later on, by 1887 in Baltimore, another capper machine -invented by
Mr. J.D. Cox- served for capping one dozen cans at the same time as they were fed into
it on a tray and reduced one third the cost of capping.15 This increase in productivity
implied a decrease of labour and canners had greater difficulties in order to spread the
new technology due to the workers’ negative reaction to the new machines.
11
Boletim dos Organismos Económicos criados pelo Ministerio do Comercio e Industria, No. 2,
Dezembro 1935, Relatorio da Gerencia, from 7/11/1932 to 31/12/1934, pp. 52-56.
12
During the Napoleonic era, war and blockade stimulate several advances in technology. In 1795,
the need to provide food for the army combined with the British blockade of trade induced the
French government to offer a prize for a new method of food preservation. Nicholas Appert
responded to the offer and developed a process of heating foods in sealed containers. It was found
that these heated foods will last for several years in their corked glass jars. Appert (1810).
13
For the Pacific coast O’ Bannon (1987:558-578), for the East coast Doerrfeld et al. (1993: 1113).
14
The machine, named Howe floater, worked as follows: as a chain rolled topped cans through a
trough filled with molten solder, the solder “floated” onto the seam between the top and the body,
sealing the can closed. O’ Bannon (1987:558-578).
15
This machine was small and could be moved from place to place. Judge (1914:54-56).
4
Furthermore, another part of the canning process, can labelling, was mechanized during
the eighties. Many different machines were invented for that process. About 1884, an
English mechanic by the name of Hutchins came to America with a labelling machine,
but this machine presented two problems: The first one was that the machine was slow.
The second one was the inefficiency of the paste or gum used. By 1890, a new machine
for labelling cans appeared on the market: the invention of Mr. Knapp improved the
first labelling machine because he had overcome the difficulty about the paste, and the
canned food packers were beginning to believe that a labelling machine was a necessary
addition to a complete canning factory. Two or three years later, Mr. Knapp added a belt
to this machine, which improved its ability by ten (Judge, 1914:56).
The final stage of technological change in fish processing plants began in the late 1890s
with filling machines16, and culminated in the first decade of the twentieth century when
the “sanitary can”, and its associated process equipment, replaced the hand-made can of
the nineteenth century. This can incorporated a gum on the top that guaranteed the food
healthiness inside the can not allowing the weld penetrate to the interior of the tin. We
will explain how the sanitary can was produced later in this section because the
adoption of this new technique was very important not only for processing food but also
for manufacturing the cans, which was a very long-standing activity developed within
canneries for long time, in Europe more than in the United States.
Making cans well and fast was essential for processing food quickly and keeping food
quality. However, in the beginning of the industry every packer made his own cans and
the process was very slow and labour intensive. Therefore, the technological change in
this activity was crucial for the canning industry growth and moved can making from a
craft to the “American System of Manufacture”. As a result, cans were no longer the
product of a single individual responsible for their production from the sheet of tinplated iron to the completed containers. In North America, the canning mechanization
started by the middle of the ninetieth century. In 1849 Henry Evans introduced the
Pendulum Press, and later, William Numsen & Son invented the combination die for
making tops and bottoms, and when, Mr. Stevenson introduced the joker system in
1880, the manufacture of cans took another step forward (Stevenson, 1914:92-93). In
general an automatic system to make cans consisted of the following:
“A man or boy feeds into the locker a tin body blank, cut to a proper size, and it
is automatically fed to an extended horn, which is combined with the locker and which
solders the side seam, From this machine the cans are taken to the heading machine, and
the tops and bottoms are fed to the header by two boys on opposite sides. When the can
is headed it is passed to the crimper to be crimped, which tightens on the top and bottom
and saves solder. The cans are then passed to two machines for soldering on the tops
and bottoms of the can, and when sufficiently cooled they are carried by chute or chain
elevator into the can tester to determine whether or not they contain any leaks”. 17
16
Those filling machines were not useful for all kind of products because the machines could give a
bad appearance to the product and costumers complained about it. O’ Bannon (1987:558-578).
17
This mechanical process increased the labour productivity dramatically as the following text
confirms: “With ten men and a few boys this plant will turn out 60.000 to 65.000 cans per day in
ten hours”. Stevenson (1914:92-93).
5
At the end of the ninetieth century, in 1898, the first sanitary can produced by The Max
Ams Machine Company was tested at a New York cannery.18 The sanitary can spread in
canning areas around the world by the first decades of the twentieth century. The
sanitary can consisted of a cylinder of tin with the ends rolled on in a seaming machine
rather than being soldered in place. While rolled seams were not new, the key to the
success of using them in can manufacturing included the application of a sealing
compound created a container that provided several advantages over early designs:
Sanitary cans proved leak proof, they could be made, filled and sealed by machine, and
they could be sealed coated with special paste to prevent the metal from leaving an
unpleasant taste to the foodstuffs.
Delaware’s canneries incorporated the sanitary can and other technological discoveries
as soon as they went out on the market: retorts by mid-1870, the sanitary can at the
beginning of the twentieth century. They purchased presses and dies from New Jersey,
retorts from Maryland, and empty cans from manufacturers in New York (Doerrfeld
1993:43-71). Spain took the steam retort in 1890, and followed Norway and France in
the process of sealing filled cans with machines in the first years of the twentieth
century (Carmona, 1994:142). In 1900, the French capper machine Lubeck worked in
five factories in Vigo and in 1905 Galician canneries adopted one better version, the
Reinert.19 Leader companies in the sector such as Massó and Curbera bought them as
soon as they were on the market (Massó, 1967:42). Portugal matched exactly the same
pace of technological change that Spain. By 1920, the technology of canning production
largely stabilized and throughout the 1920s canning entered a period of sustained
growth and stability. After 1940, which is beyond the scope of this study, frozen foods
began to replace canning.
All those technical changes would bring dramatic changes in the labour market,
especially as regards the sex division of labour, skills, wages and the progressive
replacement of skilled male hand work for semiskilled female labour. The labour
market under technological change will be studied in the next section of this paper.
3. THE LABOR MARKET
TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE
IN
CANNING
INDUSTRY
UNDER
3.1. Eastern American Shore: Maryland and Delaware
The North American canning industry employed the largest number of women who
worked in food industries since 1850. Women’s employment in different sort of food
preserving industries (fruits, vegetables, meat, fish) increased in the long term. Taking
as an example Maryland and Delaware Peninsula in vegetable and fruit canning the
number of women employed tended to increase over the study period, as can be seen in
Table 1.
The number of women employed in this industry grew in absolute numbers in the
United States and the percentage of women over the total workers grew from 1880 to
1900, remaining constant during the rest of the period represented in the Table 1.
Delaware followed this pattern, being the percentage of cannery women in this state
greater than the percentage of cannery women in the whole country by 1920.
18
19
May, Canning Clan, pp. 88-89.
Industria conservera, 1952, August, p. 303.
6
Maryland’s women canners increased in the overall period, but decreased in 1900
according to the Manufactures Census.
Table 1. Labour in vegetable and fruit canneries in Delaware and Maryland,
1880-1920
Year
1880
State
Delaware
Maryland
USA
Canneries
Number
33
114
411
Total
Workers
1259
14,998
31,905
Male
Workers
428
4,025
10,638
% over
Total
34
26.8
33.3
Female
Workers
643
8,220
15,463
% over
Total
51
54.9
48.5
Children
188
2,753
5,804
% over
Total
15
18.3
18.2
1900
Delaware
Maryland
USA
51
271
1808
1437
7,505
36,401
527
2,980
13,542
36.6
39.7
37.2
750
3,712
19,699
52.3
49.5
54.2
160
813
3,160
11.1
10.8
8.6
1920
Delaware
70
5,244
2,137
40.7
3,100
59.1
Maryland
406
25,002
9,261
37
15,310
61.3
USA
3082
163,346
69,847
42.8
89,306
54.7
Source: Own elaboration based on Manufactures Census, 1880, 1900, 1920.
7
431
4,193
0.2
1.7
2.5
This reduction could be partially explained by the great investment effort in canning
machinery that this State made between 1890 and 1900.20 Then, the number of women
employed increased notably as well as the percentage over the total workers.
In both Delaware and Maryland, the growth of male and female workers in canning
multiplied by four throughout the two first decades of the twentieth century while the
child labour decreased. Economic reasons explained this phenomenon. Child labour was
useful in rural canneries during the first decades of the twentieth century because the
canning season was short, between 8 and 14 weeks, and because canners employed all
the human resources available with low capital investment. However, mechanization
excluded children for preparation work. Thus, child labour, especially in urban
canneries decreased, remaining only in the case that mothers hired by canners who had
to bring children to work. Furthermore, since the beginning of the twentieth century
legislation prohibited child labour less than twelve years old in Maryland and Delaware
(Brown 1992:723-770). We can see the decrease of child labour in Table 1 that almost
disappeared in the census of 1920. 21
In general, whatever the product canned was; there was a clear division of labour
according to sex: men did the supervision of female tasks and some skilled activities
such as controlling the cooking of raw material, attending and repairing machines,
producing cans, etc. Women did the preparatory work of the food that would be
processed (peeling onions tomatoes, peaches, cutting pickles, gutting sardines, etc.), and
they filled cans with the prepared food. Many occupations implied the use of some sort
20
According to the Manufactures Censuses of both years, Maryland double –from 360,311 to 633,
234 the investment in canning machinery, devices and tools. Report on Manufacturing Industries in
the United States at the Eleventh Census, 1890, p. 198. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900.
Manufactures, Part III. Reports on Selected Industries p. 470. The investment in machinery was not
registered in the censuses of 1880, 1910 and 1920.
21
That was not exactly right. By consulting other sources such as labour reports and newspapers
we discover much more child labour than reported in Manufactures Censuses.
7
of machinery such as attending the capping and the labelling machines. Other tasks
were related to supervising, cleaning and packing cans into boxes. All these tasks were
considered semiskilled because they required speed and certain dexterity gained by
informal training and practice. Finally, cleaning the plant was also a daily women’s task
(Chas, 1910: 41,189-190).
The work in the American canning industry was seasonal and irregular. In Delaware, for
example, this industry gave employment to a large number of women and children in
August and September when tomatoes and corn ripped.22 In Maryland, the number of
women employed in canning industry was much greater than in other industries.23
However, the duration of women’ employment in canneries was less than one-half of
that of the other industries such as biscuits, paper-box, cigars, textiles.
Using a report published by the Bureau of Labour and referred to Maryland throughout
the first decade of the twentieth century, it is possible to know the duration of
employment as well as the differences between the city and country canneries.
Table 2. Women’s employment in urban and rural canneries in Maryland
Canneries Location
Nº of canneries
Women
Average weeks
investigated
Employed
employed
Baltimore
10
2,214
25,2
Country
32
2,156
8
Total
42
4,370
18,1
Own elaboration based in data of Bulletin of the Bureau of Labour, Nº 96,
September, 1911, Government Printing Office, Washington, pp. 352-3.
Table 2 shows clearly one of the most remarkable differences between the city and the
country canneries. While in the city canneries the employees worked half a year, the
work in the country canneries was shorter, just two months a year because they worked
the products of the vicinity. Also, in rural canneries the working hours were long and
irregular, and the working conditions frequently undesirable.24 The city canneries
packed from a dozen to twenty different products (spinach, berries of all varieties, peas,
beans, tomato, peaches, and apples) through spring and summer. Many of them,
furthermore, were engaged in the packing of oysters after the fruit and vegetable season
had passed, normally a few weeks in the late autumn and winter. Thus, urban factories
tended to work continuously throughout the year.25
In general, cannery operations employed seasonal labour, mainly women, and just a few
employees, mainly men, were retained beyond the processing season, especially those
who produced cans. Workers were recruited from the local communities near the
factories, but if labour was scarce within the canning area, entire families from other
communities and even other states were recruited. This was, for instance, the case of
Delaware, where canners hired migrant families from New York, Philadelphia and
Baltimore: “Local labor proved unstable, that is, they worked when they pleased, and if
22
Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910. Manufactures, 1909, vol. IX. Reports by States,
with statistics for principal cities, p. 169.
23
Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, 96, Sept, 1911, Government Printing Office, Washington, p.349.
24
Doerrfeld et al. (1993:71). Bulletin of the U.S. Bureau of Labor, No. 96.
25
Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, 96:354.
8
they felt like taking a couple of days off, they did so”.26 These migrant families were
housed in the camps adjoining the various canneries. In 1924, according to estimates
given by the canners, approximately 2,200 women and 1,500 men were working in the
34 canneries visited during the peak weeks.27
We will take the tomato canning industry as example of gender division of labour under
technological change because, as we explained in the first section of this paper,
tomatoes were the principal product canned during the first decades of the twentieth
century in the Delaware and Maryland Peninsula as well as in the United States. The
process of canning tomatoes and the division of labour was as follows. First, men used
to wash tomatoes.28 Ordinarily, the next step was sorting. This task was done by
women, either at tables or along the sides of slowly moving belts. Women who carried
out this task were old and careful employees who were energetic and constant. After
being sorted, tomatoes were sent through the steamer, where hot sprays of water or jets
of steam loosened the skins for peeling. Peelers were almost entirely women, and the
largest group of workers within the cannery. The next step was filling the cans, usually
a machine process. Women inspected the filled cans before being sealed. Closing the
cans was mechanical: the capping machines were common in the canneries. The
capping and labelling of cans was done by women at the end of the study period.
Maryland and Delaware, as well as other canning North American areas, only
mechanized some tasks in tomato canneries, especially those done by men, an expensive
and well organized labour that had power to end the production by provoking strikes
(Brown and Philips, 1986a). In fact, canners did not mechanize their processing plants
because there was a larger supply of women and children, cheap labour, available to
work in the vegetable canneries. Having an excess of perishable goods on hand,
managers wanted to can as much as possible, which translated into excessive overtime
work of cannery women and child labour. In fact, this industry was one exception to the
law limiting the hours of women’s work to 10 a day and 55 a week.29 Also, legislation
favoured child labour in rural cannery areas.30
As we have seen in the second section of this paper, the tasks in which mechanization
influenced changes in the labour market in processing plants were filling, capping, and
labelling cans. With reference to the filling process we found an interesting change in
labour when this process was mechanized. The Stevens tomato filler and can-filling
machines in general were not a great success in the early days, but little by little the
improvement continued until the beginning of the twentieth century, when the tomato26
Upwards of 2,000 men, women and children from other states worked in Delaware during the
canning season. Sunday Morning Star of Wilmington, 1 October 1922.
27
Migrant families constituted one quarter of the canning labour in the twenties. Canners hired
them at the beginning of the season, and most when the plants were in operation. U.S. Bulletin
of the Women´s Bureau, 62, Women’s employment in vegetable canneries in Delaware, United
States Government Printing Office, Washington, 1927, p. 61.
28
The common procedure was to dump the fruit into a tank filled with water, from which it was
carried on a conveyor belt beneath a spray to wash away sand and clay clinging to the skins. U.S.
Bolletin of the Women´s Bureau , 62:75.
29
Ibid. 62:64.
30
Maryland passed laws in 1903 and 1906 prohibiting the employment of children under twelve
and requiring all children between twelve and sixteen to secure a certificate stating that they could
read and write English. But employment in all counties outside Baltimore City from 1 June to 15
October was exempt from this law. Brown et al. (1992:723-770).
9
filling machines would fill six cans at a time, and did a good and clean work. Taking as an
example a tomato cannery in Baltimore area, we learnt that filling cans was a female
manual task in 1865. But, in 1894, an automatic filling machine was managed by 2 adult
males. So, here, mechanization produced a replacement of women by men (Phillips, 1980).
During the first decades of the twentieth century this gender difference under the use of
mechanical devices remained: hand filling was a women’s work, but filling machines were
tended by men.31 In general, hand filling was used to preserve the shape of the vegetables
and fruits in large canneries when high quality was desired and in some of the smaller
canneries, which did not have extensive mechanical equipment.32 To sum up, although
filling the cans was also mechanized as early as 1890s in different food canning products
(corn, peas, sauces, soups), many fruit, vegetables and fish were likely to be damaged
when packed by machine, and continue to be hand packed up to 1936 and later. This
process was to be done by women (Doerrfeld, 1993: 73).
In reference to capping filled cans, up to the 1880s all the capping of tomato as well as
other fruit and vegetables was done by hand by adult males, but mechanization of
capping carried out a progressively replacement of craftsmen by male teenagers and
women. Before mechanization craft labour was expensive and had a greater bargaining
power on the Eastern Shore and abroad.33 After mechanization, the cost of labour
reduced and the changes on age and sex occurred.34 In some canneries the capping
machine was operated by an adult male, helped by a male adolescent, in other the
machine was attended by two adult females. The first machines for capping the sanitary
can appeared in 1903; and they were attended by women and supervised by an adult
man. In the 1920s capping machines, managed by women, were rather common in the
canneries.35 Thus, progressively, semiskilled women replaced the craftsmen at this part
of the tomato canning process. Sometimes, this work was done by female teenagers.36
Labelling was the last mechanized process at the processing plants. This was, before
and after mechanization, a female task that could be carried out during the canning
season, but often after the season’s work was completed. 37 The first part of work in the
vegetable and fruit canning plants, the preparation process, had two fundamental
obstacles for mechanization: the fragility and lack of homogeneity of the products and
the short season of many crops. Thus, most of the preparation tasks were not
mechanized. The first task, peeling, was done by hand. The reason why peeling
machines were not introduced by canners was twofold: first, these machines destroyed
the shape of the fruit, second, caustic solutions used to loose the skins affecting the
31
U.S. Bolletin of the Women´s Bureau , p. 76.
Ibid. Bureau, p. 76.
33
Brown et al (1986a). “We have heard of one capper making as much as 14$ per day”. Cox
(1914:82-85). For instance, the “Boss-Capper” used to draw up the labour contract, furnishing his
men to do all the capping at a stated price for a hundred cans, and if he decided to go on strike this
would cause heavy looses for the canner. Judge (1903): “The Past, Present, and Future of the
Canned Food Industry” in Judge (1914:53-59).
34
For instance, a tomato cannery from Baltimore had as a capper an adult man who used a simple
soldering iron and earned 3 $ per day before mechanization, in 1864. However, in 1894, the
capping machine occupied two male workers: an adult earning 2 $ per day and a teenager helping
him and earning 0.75 cents. Phillips (1980).
35
U.S. Bolletin of the Women´s Bureau , Nº 62, p. 76.
36
“Dangerous capping machines were manned by young girls who suffered from the deadening
monotony, close application, and absence of diversion incidental to the work” McCauly (1961:56).
37
U.S. Bolletin of the Women´s Bureau , p. 77.
32
10
flavour of the tomato. Therefore, at the beginning of the twentieth century machines for
tomato peeling normally remained absent from the canneries (Brown, Christiansen and
Phillips, 1992:733). Although an attempt to speed the peeling process in 1923 by
mechanizing it with the Alfred’s du Pont Machine, this invention had little success as
tomato canneries throughout Delaware and Maryland’s Eastern shore which continued
using hand labour as late as 1970 (Burton, 1986:200). Peelers, mostly women, were the
largest group of time workers within the cannery.
The only new technology applied to this part of the canning process worthy of mention
was the use of the conveyors, applicable to the preparation of a variety of crops, and
adopted in Maryland at the beginning of the twentieth century.38 The division of labour
related to this new technique was as follows: in the canneries that had mechanical
conveyors or male carriers, women and children did not have to carry the heavy
buckets, and were employed in the preparing and canning departments.39 However, in
the canneries that did not have conveyors for the tomato rooms to bring supplies and
carry away the skinned tomatoes and the waste, men brought supplies to the tomato
room, but women and children carried away the finished product. Some canners seemed
to recognize that to provide conveyors or carriers was in interest of both employer and
employee: the employer saved time and energy and the women and children improved
their health conditions at work. However, other canners considered that using men to do
the lifting task would be more expensive than to use women and children. This fact was
proved by the earnings of workers: in the establishments with conveyors the average
earnings per hour were 8.3 cents and if neither conveyors nor men carriers were
provided but women did all the carrying, the average earnings per hour were 6.3 cents.40
Clearly, for canners using female labour was less expensive than using male labour or to
use new devices.
3.2. Southwest Europe: Atlantic Coast of Spain and Portugal
Similar to what we have seen for the American Eastern shore case, the Spanish and
Portuguese canning industry were very intense in female labour since the first stage of
the industrialization process. Unfortunately, in both countries censuses registering the
composition of the labour force in manufactures for the studied period were rare. The
first Spanish canning statistics started in the 1930s and something similar occurred in
Portugal. This is why we cannot estimate the total employment for this industry.
However, Table 3 shows the employment in some principal canning towns in both
countries.
38
As early as 1904, platform-conveying peeling tables with seating capacity for seventy to two
hundred peelers were advertised for $750-1.100. General Catalogue of Canning Machinery and
Canner’s Supplies (Chicago ad Hooperston, 1904), cited by Brown et. al. (1992:733).
39
Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, 96:367.
40
One country employer said to the Bureau’s agent: “No woman has lifted or carried a bucket of
tomatoes or basket of corn in this cannery for the last 15 years. It isn’t at all necessary, and all
canners ought to be compelled to do away with making women carry heavy loads. I tried to
persuade one big corn canner to do as I do – have men to do the lifting and carrying. He objected
on the ground that it would be and additional expense. I figured out the cost after that and,
balancing this with the increased amount of work the people did, I find it is saving to pay men to do
the lifting”. Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, 96:362-368.
11
As happened in the American vegetable industry, women represented the majority of
labour in the fish canning industry, women’s employment being much more intense,
between seventy and eighty per cent.41
Table 3 . Labour in fish canning industry in Spain and Portugal, 1933-1940
Canning Town
Year
1933
1940
Country
Spain
Guetaria
Santoña
Luanco
Riveira
Bueu
Vigo
Total
Workers
804
694
673
1096
1239
4010
Male
Workers
143
46
100
75
105
484
% over
Total
17.8
6.6
14.9
6.9
8.5
12
Female
Workers
661
648
573
1,021
1,134
3,526
Setubal
6,308
1,738
27.6
4,570
Portim o
4,724
1,313
27.8
3,411
Olh o
4,159
1,145
27.6
3,014
Matozinhos
3,050
678
22
2,372
Centro
1,610
450
28
1,160
Source: For Spain, Fishery Statistics in 1933, for Portugal Pinto Barbosa (1941:131)
Portugal
%over
Total
82.3
93.4
85.1
93.1
91.5
88
72.4
72.2
72.4
78
72
This industry was seasonal and specialized in sardines that were captured and canned
six months a year, from June to January. In both Spain and Portugal, women’s work
was temporary and very irregular due to the irregularity of sardines catches, which
meant that women might only work only two or three days each week (Muñoz, 2005:211230). Canners hired women who lived in coastal communities and who performed
domestic, farming and fishing duties but without better alternatives than working in the
local canneries during the sardine season. This is why canners attracted a low-cost
workforce.
Labour organization and gender division of tasks were very similar in both countries.
The fish processing was as follows. First, women removed the sardines' heads and guts
by hand. Then, women washed the sardines and immersed them in salted water while a
man controlled the salting process.42 The women then placed the sardines on grills
(parrillas), the spikes of which split the sardines. The sardines were alternatively fried in
containers of boiling olive oil or steamed. Then, women emptied the sardines into cans.
Women seated close to the canning tables had the grills in one hand and the cans in the
other hand. Cans were normally provided by girls named “raparigas” in Galician and
Portugal. They worked as helpers of female adult workers.43 Afterwards, some women
added olive oil or another sauce. Later, cans were closed hermetically and sterilized. The
same as what occurred in American canning; capping machines in European South
Coast were generally managed by women from 1920s. The sterilization process was
controlled by a man. Then, the cans were washed and checked by women who tested
them to ensure that they had resisted the pressure and had no bumps. Finally, women
proceeded to label and pack the cans in boxes. Summing up, in fish processing plants,
41
For Spain, Ortega Valcárcel (1996:141); Ansola (1996:169); Homobono (1992:22). For Portugal
Faria (1950: 55).
42
For Spain López Capont (2001). For Portugal O Libro d´Ouro das Conservas Portuguesas de
Peixe, Instituto Portugués de Conservas de Peixe, Lisboa, 1938.
43
Interviews to female workers of Massó, August 1998, and interviews to female workers of
Pinhais, October, 2005.
12
there was a clear division of labour by gender. Female workers were involved in a larger
variety of different activities in the processing plant: cleaning and frying fish, filling
cans and packing them. They received a small daily wage for all these tasks.44 However,
men supervised women’s work and did some qualified tasks such as the control of
steam retorts.
As we have explained canning sardines was a very hand intensive process throughout
the first third of the twentieth century, less mechanized than the vegetal, fruit and fish
American canning. The main reasons for this lack of mechanization were two: First,
labour supply was high and wages low in Spain and Portugal. Second, the heterogeneity
and the small size of sardines made it very difficult to mechanize the production
process.45 Therefore, processing sardines remained basically technologically unchanged
in the study period except for the capping cans task. Both countries imported the
Norwegian capping machines, called Reinerts, which were semiautomatics. In the 1920s
the French capper, Lubin was automatic and closed 2.000 cans per hour. The principal
consequence of this technological change was the progressive replacement of male for
female cappers, who, after a short period of training, were able to manage the machine.
This training was given either by the foreman or the section supervisor to the most
careful women. These women did not work this machine all the time. They processed
fish and went to the capping machine when it was necessary. Informal training and
flexible labour were essential characteristics of the labour market in Spanish and
Portuguese fish canneries.
In addition to the processing food, canning firms integrate other activities such as
manufacturing cans and boxes. Although American machinery industry developed
quickly and canning companies started to buy cans to manufacturers early in the
twentieth century, in Spain and Portugal cans manufacturing remained an internal
process in the canning firms. The new technologies in the can workshops and can
manufacturing companies brought important changes in the gender division of labour
that we will see in this last part of the paper.
4. LABOUR MARKET IN CAN MANUFACTURES
Cans were originally made by craftsmen, so at the first stage of can manufacture there
was no competition between sexes. Work which involved the handling of large and
heavy pieces was done by men. In addition, a certain number of skilled workers were
needed to supervise the machinery, make repairs, and so on. Crews of tinsmiths worked
at the canneries during the winter manufacturing the hole-and-cap cans (Doerrfeld,
1993:75). Thus, in can manufacturing the work was stable if companies made a wide
range of goods for different industries, but the work could be seasonal if the can
factories served to a local seasonal industry, which would normally be the case of the
fruit, vegetable or fish processing industries. Right from the beginning of can
manufacture, canners had problems with the can-makers. Workers went on strikes
44
‘They are simple agents that do their work every day at indefinite hours at time fixed by the bell
of the factory. They must be always available to follow the directions of the foremen and the other
authorities of this factory’, Historical Archive of Massó (AHM), Internal Regulations of ‘La
Perfección’ 2 (author’s translation).
45
Carmona (1994:127-163). Caning of salmon gave rise to similar problems. Newell (1984:626655).
13
demanding higher wages and regular employment (McCauly, 1961:45). Strikes
occurred often three times a season, and, of course, at the busiest time of the season.
Therefore, mechanical devices for soldering cans such as the Cox’s, machine mentioned
in the second section of this paper, were very welcome for canners in order to prevent
strikes among can makers (Judge, 1914:53-59). At the turn of the twentieth century,
machines capable of producing almost 7,000 cans an hour provided most of the industry
needs and relieved canneries of this task. Thus, in the American Eastern canneries the
investment in sanitary can-making equipment and can manufacturing was not justified,
and moved to distant cities by 1920s (Doerrfeld, 1993:75). For instance, the last cannery
to make this own cans was Richardson and Robbins which maintained this subsidiary
activity until World War I (McCauly, 1961:3,45). However, in Spain and Portugal, can
workshops remained in the most important canning firms up to the middle of the
twentieth century and later.
With the introduction of machinery which, as we have seen in the second section,
became common in the early eighties in North America, women started to be employed
in the can-making workshops. In the United States, part of the machinery seems to have
been operated by women and, gradually, their employment increased to 1900s when can
manufacturing was externalized from the canning companies.46 Furthermore, some state
reports from the beginning of the twentieth century pointed out that can manufacture
increased female labour.47 New machines facilitated implied the des-killing of
craftsmen and the creation of new semi-skilled positions for women. Soldering, for
example, was hand operated before 1905 in European canneries. Later, soldering was
mechanized, and the number of hand-welders progressively declined. Replacing them
on the cannery line were women and male teenager, who had lower qualifications but
who also received lower pay. They could undertake soldering after an inexpensive and
short period of informal ‘on-the-job-training’ (Brown; Phillips, 1986b:129-145). As a
consequence of the diffusion of technical change, the employment of women and
teenager in canning workshops increased during the 1920s, being their wages half or
less of adult male wages. To prove the gender wage differences we take as example one
of the most relevant Spanish canning companies, Massó Brothers S.A.48 In the can
workshop of this cannery adult women and male adolescents were employed on
different machines, which made different parts of cans, and they received similar wages.
Meanwhile, adult males, who were in the minority in this industry, had higher wages
than the other workers (Table 4).
Table 4 shows the wages of women, men and teenager who were employed in the can
workshop. The comparison of their occupations and wages indicates the earning
differentials between men and women. Male wages were higher than female for doing
similar tasks such as the use of presses. Pressing was the best paid male task. Teenagers
who welded the can bodies earned half of a male adult wage. Female workers received a
daily wage similar to the male adolescent welders. In short, the spread of the new
technologies brought about horizontal occupational mobility of female workers who
46
Twelve Census 1900, Manufactures, Part III, Selected Industries, p. 464.
“Many of the women employed in the canning industries, and most of those in meat packing
are engaged in tending and feeding the automatic machinery for making cans and in painting,
labelling and wrapping the cans after they are filled”. Chas (1910:189-190).
48
This company provided employment to thousand of families for more than one hundred years not
only in the Northwest of Spain, but also in their factories of Avilés in the Spanish Cantabric Coast
and in the South Atlantic Coast too. Muñoz (2005:211-230).
47
14
replaced male workers in semi-skilled tasks such as welding, making can edges or can
flanging, but receiving only half a male wages.
15
Table 4. Daily wages in canning workshop of the Massó Company, 1924
Occupation
Workers
Number
Daily Wage
(Ptas. per day)
Adult male workers
Presses
1
6
Welding
3
5
Male teenagers
Body can soldering
8
2,5-3
Adult female workers
Presses
4
2,5
Can flanging
5
2,5
Making can edges
4
2,5
Welding
5
2,5
Source: Historical Arquive of Massó. Wage Book in 1924.
Workers from the cans workshops received informal training but also vocational
training was given to them. In the North West Spanish canning cities male teenager
were registered in labour schools and this formal education give to them the possibility
to have internal promotion in the canneries. For instance, the “Escuela de Artes y
Oficios” (Labour School of Arts and Trades) was created in Vigo in 1886 and partially
financed by some canners of the city (Herbada, 1995). In Portugal, apprentices of welders
had some months of informal training to become officials but their earnings were
improved after a year or a couple of years, depending on the canner’s decision.49 These
vocational training opportunities that were available to men excluded women. Only men
could access to vocational training during the first third of the twentieth century. For
instance, the ‘Work School’, established in 1930 in Vigo, did not admit women. The
School offered to men the necessary training to achieve skilled and well remunerated
positions in the canneries such as administrative workers, foremen, managers. Thus, we
can that formal education contributed negatively to improve women’s working
conditions.
49
This is the answer of the canning workers of Setubal to an inquiry addressed to labour unions.
Boletim do Traballo Industrial, Ministerio do Fomento. Dirección Geral do Comercio e
Industria. Repartiçao do trabalho industrial, No 46, 1909.
16
CONCLUSION
In this paper we have studied the division of labour under technological change in
different canning regions. From the variety of experiences examined, we can point out
some similar patterns on labour market evolution. First, technological advances did not
radically transform every cannery and the spread of new technologies was in some cases
slow due to the larger supply of cheap and well disciplined labour made up of women
and children that canners hired each season. This occurred in rural vegetable canneries
of Delaware’s and Maryland as well as in the Spanish and Portuguese fish canneries.
Second, canners have institutional support to continue this labour strategy because said
industry was one exception to the law limiting the hours of women’s work and
legislation also favoured the use of child labour in all studied canning regions. Finally,
the heterogeneity in size of raw materials (tomatoes, sardines, etc.) made it very difficult
to mechanize the production process.
However, canners mechanize those tasks developed by craftsmen, which created
expensive and well organized labour with great bargaining power. Mechanization
reshapes the gender division of labour in different spaces and parts of the canning
process: the processing plants and the can manufacture workshops. In the processing
plants, capping cans was commonly mechanized in all the studied regions and products.
While before mechanization cappers were the most well remunerated workers, the
adoption of capping machines from the beginning of the twentieth century implied the
progressive replacement of men by women, being this process completed in the 1920s.
In the can manufacture, mechanization implied the des-killing of craftsmen and the
creation of new semi-skilled positions for women, leading to a decline in the male share
in both the can workshops or can manufacture firms. Male workers were replaced by
women and male teenager on the canning line. These workers learned how to use new
techniques in a short period of time and lowered costs for the employers. However,
being this learning a consequence of informal training, female workers continue to
receive a low wages. So, although the employment of female and male teenagers
increased throughout the first third of the twentieth century in this industry, the wage
gender differences remained. Canners and institutions such as formal education
contributed to maintain the female occupational and wage segregation in the labour
market.
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