Louise Marion Bosworth (1881-1982)
Louise Marion Bosworth grew up in Elgin, Illinois. After attending Elgin Academy she studied at Dana Hall School in Wellesley, Massachusetts (1900-1901) and at Mountain Seminary in Birmingham, Pennsylvania (1901-1902). She entered Wellesley College in 1902 where she became president of the Philosophy Club, a house president, and manager of the senior play. After graduating in 1907 she moved to Boston where she began a research fellowship at the Women's Educational and Industrial Union.
While at the WEIU she participated in the general duties of the Union's research department, but she focused on completing a survey of the incomes and expenses of working women in Boston. The survey asked women about their country of birth, employment history, income and expenditures, and housing. Included in the questionnaires were detailed questions about the amount of money women spent on lodging, food, clothing, health, recreation, and education. The surveys were complimented by reports describing visits to women in their rooming houses and dining halls. From these reports we learn that women participating in the survey were encouraged to keep records of their income and expenses in account books provided by the WEIU. (Bosworth kept similar expense books during this period.) The results of this investigation were later published as The Living Wage of Women Workers, as a supplement to the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (Philadelphia, 1911) and by Longmans, Green & Company (1911).
During the period that she was completing the living wage survey Bosworth herself was learning how to live on her salary of $9.61 a week, share living space with other working women, and find time in her busy schedule for rest and relaxation. Unlike many of the women she studied Bosworth had the advantages of a supportive and generous family and an excellent education. She was active on a number of WEIU committees and continued to take courses at both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at Radcliffe College where she studied economics.
Bosworth left Boston in 1911 to work for settlement houses in Chicago, closer to her family home in Elgin. There she received a certificate from the Chicago School of Philanthropy. She went on to work in Traverse City Michigan and in Philadelphia where she took part in a survey of available housing that would later be published as Housing Conditions in Main Line Towns (Philadelphia: Committee on Investigation of the Main Line Housing Association, 1914). For the remainder of her life she continued to do social welfare research and work, living in St. Paul, Minnesota, New York City, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Elgin, Illinois, and Washington, Connecticut. She died in Connecticut on August 6, 1982.
Collection Summary: Louise Marion Bosworth Papers
The Schlesinger Library of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study houses the correspondence, diaries, and school papers of Bosworth; photographs of her, her family, and Wellesley College; questionnaires, account books, investigators' reports, drafts of chapters and charts for The Living Wage of Women Workers. The bulk of the correspondence is between family members, most notably letters, 1900-1915, between Bosworth and her mother while the former was away at school and then working in settlement houses. Much of Bosworth's correspondence with both friends and relatives concerns her health. There are two diaries: one, 1901, chronicles her life as a student at Dana Hall, the other, 1943, was written in the aftermath of a nervous breakdown.
For a full description of the collection consult the electronic finding aid.
OCP Resources
Bosworth, Louise Marion. The Living wage of women workers; a study of incomes and expenditures of 450 women in the city of Boston. New York: Longmans, Green, 1911.
Bosworth, Louise Marion. Housing conditions in Main Line towns; an investigation. [Philadelphia?: s.n., 1913?] (Philadelphia: Harper Print Co.).
Living Wage Survey. Questionnaires, 1907-1909.
Completed questionnaires for the "Living Wage for Self-Supporting Women;" what would become the raw data for her book. Two very similar questionnaires were used. One, a four page form which was used from 1907-1908 and the other, a 2-page form entitled "Living Wage Schedule" which was used from 1908-1909. The two surveys ask for essentially the same information: occupation, income, expenses, and living arrangements. Particular attention was paid to the amount of money working women spent on clothing.
Questionnaires, 1907-1909
Family Correspondence. Louise Marion Bosworth to Eleanora W. Bosworth
This series of letters exchanged between Louise Marion Bosworth and her mother Eleanora W. Bosworth during the period 1907-1910. Louise's letters to her mother relate the events of her everyday life, including her work at the WEIU, social activities, living arrangements and her own struggles to economize. In her letters to her daughter Eleanora Bosworth apprises her daughter of her own social activities, the health of family members, and her travels with her husband. She offers Louise advice about dealing with "nervousness" and depression, often entreating her to work less or to leave her position and take a sabbatical.
- Family Correspondence- LMB to EWB- September - December 1907
- Family Correspondence- LMB to EWB- January - June 1908
- Family Correspondence- LMB to EWB- July - September 1908
- Family Correspondence- LMB to EWB- December 1909 - June 15, 1910
Unpublished Reports
Investigative Reports related to Living Wage. The reports include accounts of visits to individual women and to boarding houses or residences where they lived and boarded. From these reports we learn that LMB and her fellow researchers were introduced to possible informants by women they had already interviewed or knew from the social work. The reports related to particular women discuss their living arrangements, work situation, and appearance and health. Bosworth encouraged these women to keep expense account books like the examples below, but it is unclear how much success she had. Other reports describe the cost, food, and atmosphere of dining rooms, for example at the YWCA in Boston, that catered to working women.
Expense Account Books
Two handwritten expense account books. One dated 1908-1909 was kept anonymously. The other, dated 1907-1908 belonged to Louise Marion Bosworth who kept meticulous accounts of her own income and expenses during the same period that she was beginning the Living Wage Study.