In 1936, Salvina Sturza, a student at the Superior School of Social Assistance in Bucharest, carried out a research project that today provides a rare, intricately detailed account of the lives of women workers at the Cluj Tobacco Manufactory. While the study was originally conducted to fulfil academic requirements, it also highlights how social research itself can be a form of labour activism.

Sturza collected data on working and living condition of 693 workers, offering a focused look at 100 working mothers. Her approach combined quantitative and qualitative methods: she created hand-drawn bar charts to visualize data on income, education, child care, and health, while also including workers’ personal views gathered through interviews. In doing so, the report does not simply present information, but challenges readers to reflect on the structures that shaped these women’s lives.

A graph from Sturza's report (Source: National Archives, Romania)

The report highlights inequalities at the factory: all 519 women employed at the factory were officially labelled as “unskilled”, in stark contrast to the male workforce, of whom more than half were classified as skilled. Sturza noted that most of these women came from rural backgrounds and were drawn by the promise of steady income, social benefits, a pension, and especially the possibility of eventually purchasing land. Yet, she was also clear that wages ranging from 1000 to 3000 lei per month were not enough to cover even the basic needs like food and clothing.

Much of the report is concerned with health and family life. The women were often the main or only earners in their households, yet their working conditions were harsh. Most women complained of illnesses such as anaemia and rheumatism, and Sturza noted:

The Tobacco factory in Cluj does not meet the requirements of a modern factory. The health of the workers is permanently under threat. They work in the draught, in the cold, and as they also do not have appropriate clothing, they catch colds and get sick very easily.

Poor working conditions, she noted, were exacerbated by a new rationalization policy that standardized work according to the output of an “ideal worker” and increased the pressure on workers.

Although the report reflects some contemporary anxieties about the negative impact of women’s paid labour on family life, it also documents the agency of working mothers and the pressures they faced. Many had limited formal education and little support with childcare: only a minority of husbands helped, and few children used the factory day care. Most children were cared for by female relatives or paid neighbours. The strain of balancing work and care responsibilities came through clearly in Sturza’s account.

Sturza’s report started as a student project, and reflected the authors’ own stance – for instance, she did not see women’s employment, especially at the factory, as emancipatory, but considered it disruptive for women and their families. Yet, it also offers precious records of the experiences of working women and the conditions under which they laboured. It also shows how social research itself had activist potential, making visible the lives of women whose labour sustained families and industries but who often remained invisible in public discourse.

Read more here (Chapter 5) and find the full source here