White Slaves; or, the Oppression of the Worthy Poor

by Louis Albert Banks

A wise man of the old time, after a tour of observation, came home to say, "So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such, as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter." If this report had been written by one who had been climbing with me through the tenement houses of not less than a score of Boston streets, conversing with the sewing-women, looking on their poverty-lined faces and their ragged children, breathing the poisonous air of the quarters where they work, and listening to their heart-rending stories of cruelty and oppression, it would be an appropriate summary of our observation. It is my purpose, at this time, to take you with me on a tour of observation. As well-lighted streets are better than policemen to insure safety and good order, so I believe that the best possible service I can render the public is to turn on the light, and tell, as plainly and simply as I can, the story of what I have seen and heard and smelled in the white slave-quarters, which are a disgrace to our fair city. I shall confine myself at this time entirely to the work of women and children in their own homes. Most of this work is parcelled out to them by middlemen who are known as "sweaters." That word sweater is not in the old dictionaries. It is a foul word, born of the greed and infernal lust for gold which pervade the most reckless and wicked financial circles of our time. The sweater takes large contracts and divides it out among the very poor, reducing the price to starvation limits, and reserving the profits for himself.

Some of the women whose story I shall tell do not work for sweaters, but are treated almost as badly by the powerful and wealthy firms who employ them. In these cases the firm itself has learned the sweater's secret, and through an agent of its own is sweating the life-blood out of these half-starved victims.

Let us begin near at home with a South Boston case, which came to my notice through the dispensary doctor for the district. It is a widow with one child—a little boy scarcely three years old. The child is just recovering from a troublesome sickness, through which the doctor became acquainted with her. She has been sewing for a good while for one of the largest and most respectable dry-goods houses on Washington Street—a firm whose name is a household word throughout New England. Her sewing has been confined to two lines—cloaks and aprons. For some time she has been making white aprons—a good long apron, requiring a yard, perhaps, of material; it is hemmed across the bottom and on both sides, the band or "apron string" is hemmed on both sides, and then sewed on to the apron, making six long seams. For these she is paid fifteen cents a dozen! And besides that, this great, rich firm, whose members are rolling in wealth and luxury, charges this poor widow fifteen cents expressage on her package of ten dozen aprons, so that for making one hundred and twenty aprons, such as I have described, she receives, net, one hundred and thirty-five cents! If she works from seven o'clock in the morning until eleven o'clock at night, she can make four dozen; but, with the care of her child, she is unable to average more than three dozen, for which, after the expressage is taken out, she receives forty cents a day for the support of herself and child.

Her rent for the one little room is one dollar per week. It is idle to say that this firm is compelled to do this by competition, for the material and making of these aprons cost less than ten cents, and the firm retails them ordinarily at twenty-five cents apiece. On cloaks she did better, receiving from fifty to seventy-five cents apiece, she furnishing her own sewing-silk and cotton. On these she could make, by working from seven A.M. till eleven P.M., nearly a dollar a day, but she could never get more than six cloaks a week, so that the income for the week was about the same.

[ILLUSTRATION: PORTUGUESE WIDOW IN ATTIC.]

Now come with me a little farther around the harbor. Let us climb up three flights, to a little attic suite of two rooms, so low at the side that, with my length of anatomy, I have to keep well to the middle of the room in order to stand upright. Here live a Portuguese mother and five children, the oldest thirteen, the youngest not yet three, a poor, deformed, little thing that has consumption of the bowels, brought on by scanty and irregular food. Its tiny legs are scarcely thicker than my thumb, and you cannot look at its patient, wasted, little face, that looks old enough to have endured twenty-five years of misery, instead of three, without the heartache. I ask the mother how she earns her living, and she points to a package that has just come in. Picking it up, and untying the strings, I find there six pairs of pants, cut out and basted up, ready for making. Looking at the card, we are astonished to find that it bears the name of one of the largest firms in the city of Boston, a firm known, perhaps, as widely as any. Three pairs of these pants are custom-made; they are fashionable summer trousers, with the names and addresses of the men for whom they are made tacked on them. The other three pairs are stamped with "New York" as customer, from which we infer that they are made for a New York house, the Boston firm acting as sweater. This woman and her little children must finish these pants by the same hour to-morrow, when the messenger from the store will bring a new lot and take these away. She receives ten cents a pair—three pairs being custom-made pants! In order to finish the six pairs in the twenty-four hours, she must get to work at six in the morning, and improve every available moment until eleven or twelve in the evening, and sometimes, if the sick child is fretful, until one o'clock in the morning. Her wages for this tremendous strain that is wearing her very life away, until she looks almost as frail as her dying child, is sixty cents! Her rent for these two small attic pockets is one dollar and fifty cents per week. She has one bed for herself and five children. Only through the aid of the Boston Baptist Bethel is she able to keep up the struggle. And yet, O my brothers! this is in sight of the old North Church, and the tower where they hung the lanterns for a signal to Paul Revere, when he rode through the darkness to arouse the Fathers to fight against oppression. God help us to hang another light for liberty in the midst of this cruel slavery!

Perhaps you are tired now, and want to rest, but I am insatiable, and will go on. Let me give you the record of six families found in the same tenement.

Family No. 1. They are Italians. The wife and mother is finishing cheap overcoats at four cents apiece. She can finish from eight to ten in a day. She has two finer coats, lined with handsome satin; of these she can complete only five a day, and receives eight cents apiece. There are three in the family, and they pay a dollar and a half per week for their one room. I asked about the husband, and a neighbor woman from the next room remarked contemptuously, "He is no good."

No. 2. These are Poles. The woman makes knee pants of grammar-schoolboy size; she receives sixteen cents a dozen pairs. Two dozen are as many as she ever gets done in a day.

No. 3. They are Italians here, and are at work on knee pants. This woman receives sixteen cents a dozen pairs for most of them, but for some extra nice ones she gets eighteen cents a dozen. She has two dozen brought to her from the sweater's shop every day about two o'clock. She works from two in the afternoon until ten at night, and from six in the morning until noon the next day, to complete her allowance, for which she receives from thirty-two to thirty-six cents. The rent is a dollar and seventy-five cents per week; she has two children.