Working With the Working Woman

by Cornelia Stratton Parker

Whereat we changed to polishing off profiteers and the high cost of living. The Jewish girl's brother knew we were headin' straight for civil war. “They'll be comin' right in folks' homes and killen 'em before a year's out. See if they don't.” I asked her if she'd ever worked in a union shop. “Na, none of that stuff for me! Wouldn't go near a union.” Both girls railed over the way people were losing their jobs. Anyhow, the bride was goin' to a dance that night, you jus' bet.

At last some one with a heart came out and told the girls we could step inside. By that time there were some ten of us, all ages and descriptions. What would a “typical” factory girl be like, I wonder. Statistics prove she is young and unmarried more than otherwise, but each factory does seem to collect the motleyest crew of a little of everything—old, young, married, single, homely, stupid, bright, pretty, sickly, husky, fat, thin, and so on down the line. Certain it is that they who picture a French-heeled, fur-coated, dolled-up creature as the “typical factory girl” are far wide of the mark. The one characteristic which so far does seem pretty universal is that one and all, no matter what the age or looks, are perfectly willing to tell you everything they know on short acquaintance. At first I felt a hesitancy at asking questions about their personal lives, yet I so much wanted to know what they did and thought, what they hoped and dreamed about. It was early apparent that sooner or later everything would come out with scant encouragement, and no amount of questioning ever is taken amiss. They in turn ask me questions, and I lie until I hate myself.

The plump Jewess was the first interviewed. When she heard the pay she departed. The elevator bride and I were taken together, and together we agreed to everything—wages thirteen dollars a week, “with one dollar a week bonus” (the bonus, as was later discovered, had numerous strings to it. I never did get any). Work began at 7.45, half hour for lunch, ended at 5. The bride asked if the work was dangerous. “That's up to you. Goin' upstairs is dangerous if you don't watch where you put your feet. Eh?” We wanted to start right in—I had my apron under my arm—but to-morrow would be time. I got quite imploring about beginning on that day. No use.

The bride and I departed with passes to get by with the next morning. That was the last I saw of the bride—or any of that group, except one little frozen thing without a hat. She worked three days, and used to pull my apron every time she went by and grin.

The factory was 'way over on the East Side. It meant gettin' up in the dark and three Subways—West Side, the Shuttle, East Side which could be borne amicably in the morning, but after eight and three-quarter hours of foot-press work, going home with that 5-6 rush—that mob who shoved and elbowed and pushed and jammed—was difficult to bear with Christian spirit. Except that it really is funny. What idea of human nature must a Subway guard between the hours of 5 and 6 be possessed of?

At noon I used to open my lunch anxiously, expecting to see nothing but a doughy mass of crumpled rye bread and jam. Several times on the Subway the apple got shoved into my ribs over a period where it seemed as if either the apple or the ribs would have to give in. But by noon my hunger was such that any state of anything edible was as nectar and ambrosia.

I am thinking that even a hardened factory hand might remember her first day at the brassworks. Up three flights of stairs, through a part of the men's factory, over a narrow bridge to a back building, through two little bobbing doors, and there you were admitted to that sanctuary where, according to the man who hired you, steady work and advancement to a rosy future awaited one.

True, I had only the candy factory as a basis of comparison, as far as working experience went. But I have been through factories and factories of all sorts and descriptions, and nothing had I ever seen like the brassworks. First was the smell—the stale smell of gas and metal. (Perhaps there is no such smell as stale metal, but you go down to the brassworks and describe it better!) Second, the darkness—a single green-shaded electric light directly over where any girl was working, but there were areas where there were no workers. Up the end of the floor, among the power presses, all belts and machines and whirring wheels, there were only three or four shaded lights. Windows lined both sides of the floor, but they had never been washed since the factory was built, surely. Anyhow, it was dark and rainy outside. The walls once had been white, but were now black. Dim, dirty, uneven boxes containing brass parts filled the spaces between the long tables where the foot presses stood. Third, the noise—the clump of the foot presses, the whirring of the pattern cutters—one sounded ever like a lusty woodpecker with a metal beak pecking on metal; rollings and rumblings from the floor above; jarrings and shakings from below.

Two-thirds of the entire floor was filled with long tables holding the foot presses—tables which years ago were clean and new, tables which now were worn, stained, and uneven, and permanently dirty. On each side of each long table stood five black iron presses, but there seemed to be never more than one or two girls working at a side. Each press performed a different piece of work—cut wick holes, fitted or clamped parts together, shaped the cones, and what not, but with only two general types of operation so far as the foot part went. One type took a long, firm, forward swing on the pedal; the other a short, hard, downward “kick.” With the end of the pressure the steel die cut through the thin brass cone, or completed whatever the job was. As the pedal and foot swung back to position the girl removed the brass part, dropping it in a large box at her right. She kept a small bin on the table at the left of the press filled with parts she was to work on. Around the sides of the floor were the table workers—girls adjusting parts by hand, or soldering.

The other third of the floor was taken up with the machine presses, which mostly clicked away cutting patterns in the brass parts to hold the lamp chimney. In a far corner were the steaming, bleaching tubs where dull, grimy brass parts were immersed in several preparations, I don't know what, to emerge at last shining like the noonday sun.