get their wages promptly and consider themselves fortunate. Men doing the same work would receive about twice as much.
The sewing women who work at home are worse off. They live in the poorer class of tenement houses, and are surrounded with discomfort of every kind. They work as hard as, if not harder than their sisters in the factories, and are even worse paid. They have not the advantage of being compelled to undertake the exercise of walking to and from the factories which the latter enjoy. They sit in their wretched rooms all day, and often late into the night, sewing for a miserable pittance, and for some scoundrel who will perhaps swindle them out of their hard earnings. For making blue cotton shirts, or “hickories” as they are called, a woman receives six cents apiece, and must furnish her own thread; for making linen coats she receives from fifteen to twenty cents apiece; for men’s heavy overalls she gets sixty-two cents a dozen; for flannel shirts one dollar a dozen. These prices are not paid by the Jews alone, but by reputable Broadway dealers, men who style themselves “leading merchants.” No wonder they pile up such large fortunes.
Now, in order to pay the rent of her bare and cheerless room, the sewing woman must make two whole shirts a day. Then she must do work enough to provide for her other expenses. She has to buy fuel in the winter, and kindling wood costs her three cents a bundle and coal fifteen cents a pail. Perhaps she has children, or a sick and helpless, or, worse still, a drunken husband to provide for. All out of her beggarly wages. Her food consists almost entirely of bread and potatoes, and sometimes she treats herself to the luxury of a cup of tea without milk or sugar. If she owns a sewing machine, and very few do, she can earn more than one who sews by hand, but constant work at the machine means a speedy breaking down of her health and a lingering death, or a transfer to the charity hospital.
Small as are her wages, the working woman is not always sure of receiving them. Some rascally employers—and one of the institutions to be mentioned further on, could give a long list of them—will, upon receiving the work, find fault with the sewing, and either deduct a part of the poor creature’s wages for the
alleged fault, or refuse point blank to pay her a cent. Others again will demand a deposit equal to the value of the materials taken home by the sewing women. Upon the return of the completed work, they will not only refuse the promised payment, alleging that the work is badly done, but will also refuse to return the money advanced by the woman. The wretch well knows that the woman is weak and helpless, and that she is ignorant of the mode of protecting herself. More than this, she has not the money to go to law.
These are simple facts, and not “sensational items.” The records of the “Working Women’s Protective Union” will corroborate them, and will furnish many others.
“Among the employés of a certain Israelitish manufacturer of straw goods in New York was a poor French woman, who, with her three small children, occupied apartments in a rear tenement house in Mulberry street. What renders this case of more than ordinary interest, is the fact that the lady had once been in affluent circumstances, and at one period of her life moved in the wealthiest circles of Paris. Misfortune befel her in the death of her husband, who was accidentally killed upon a railroad train. The bulk of the property of her deceased husband was seized upon by her creditors. The widow, however, succeeded in saving from the general wreck a few hundred dollars, and with this she emigrated to America, arriving here in the spring, and bringing with her three little children. Here she anticipated she would be enabled, with the aid of her superior education, to provide for herself and family. For several weeks her efforts at securing employment proved unavailing; but just before her last dollar was expended, she succeeded in forming a class in French, which she instructed for two months, at the expiration of which time she was deprived of this her only support—her pupils leaving her for the purpose of a summer’s holiday at the fashionable watering-places. Other efforts were made to secure the position of teacher of languages (with several of which she is conversant), but all to no effect. Finally, reduced to absolute want, the lady was obliged to resort to manual labor in order to provide herself and little ones with bread.
Unused as she was to toil, her efforts to obtain employment were attended with little or no success. Day by day her case grew more desperate, until, at last, unable to pay the rent of her miserable attic apartment, she and her little ones were thrust into the street. Homeless and friendless, with not sufficient money wherewith to purchase a supper for herself and famishing little ones, the lady was forced to beg; which course, up to this time in her unfortunate career, she had looked upon as barely preferable to death itself. She had a few acquaintances among the parents of her former pupils, and to these she resolved to apply for aid. Her efforts in this direction were but a repetition of the old, old story. Her friends, who, during her prosperity, were lavishing their attentions on her, now that misfortune had overtaken her, refused to recognize her, and thrust her from their doors without a penny. Fortune relented one day, and rewarded her efforts with a situation in a manufactory of straw goods. To be sure, the compensation was small; still, as bread enough might be secured in this manner to keep the wolf from the door until something better might present itself, she resolved to accept the terms of the straw manufacturer, and entered upon her duties. For a week or two the sum earned by the unfortunate lady was faithfully paid her, but on the third week the pusillanimous nature of the Jew cropped out. She had bargained to manufacture straw hats at eighty cents a dozen, or six and two-third cents each. At this rate, she managed to earn two dollars and fifty cents per week. Upon applying for her wages at the close of the third week, the employer informed her that he had discovered that six and two-thirds cents apiece was too large a compensation, and that from eighty cents he had resolved to reduce her pay to seventy cents per dozen, and accordingly presented her with her weekly payment, first deducting one dollar and forty cents from her wages. Pressed as she was for money, the lady refused to accept these terms, and at once set about seeking legal redress. Learning that at the ‘Working Women’s Union’ of Bleecker street legal advice was furnished free of charge to such as herself, she laid her grievances before the officers of the institution, who at once placed the affair in the
hands of their legal adviser, who soon brought the rapacious Israelite to terms. At the time of her application to the institution the lady stated that she had been without fire, and, with the exception of a small loaf or two of bread and what few potatoes her children were enabled to gather from about the stalls in several of the markets, without food for several days.”