My cousin suffered keenly from this almost unexampled cruelty. She came home at night worn out by the strain upon her muscular system. Her spine was the seat of a chronic uneasiness. All day she was upon her feet, being allowed no other rest than such as she might get by leaning against the shelving. At the week's end she was fairly overcome. Sunday was hardly a day of recreation, because she was rarely free from pain induced by this unintermitted standing. All this was suffered for the sum of four dollars a week. It is true that she had earned less at her needle, but then her health had been remarkable for its robustness. Her increased earnings now were the price of that health.
Nor were others among the saleswomen less dangerously affected than herself. Some, of feeble organization, quickly broke down, under this unnatural discipline, and abandoned the shop, sometimes rendered temporary invalids, sometimes permanently disabled, while but few returned to fill their thankless places. Reading, while in the shop, whether employed or not, was out of the question, as that also was strictly prohibited. There was therefore no recreation either of body or mind, even when it might have been harmlessly permitted. It was either work or absolute idleness, but in no case rest or relaxation.
Under this monstrous system of torture my cousin at length broke down so completely that she, too, was compelled to leave the establishment. Her resolute spirit led her to endure it too long. When she did give up, it was in the hope that entire rest would bring relief. But it never came. Her physical organization, strong as it was by nature, had been so deranged that recuperation was impossible. Medicine could do nothing for her. A curvature of the spine had been established,—she soon became unable to sit up,—and at this writing she lies comparatively helpless in her bed, still beautiful in her helplessness. Her health was permanently ruined by the barbarism of a man so destitute of sympathy for a working-girl as to deny her the cheap privilege of sitting down when she could do him no good by standing up. Yet the great establishment is still continued, with all its gorgeous display of plate-glass windows, its polished counters, its wealth of costly goods, and its long array of tortured saleswomen.
These instances of complicated affliction among needle-women by no means embrace all that came under my notice. They were so numerous that it was impossible for me to avoid seeing and feeling that no such grief had been permitted to come over me. I trust that my heart was sufficiently grateful for this immunity,—for I became satisfied, that, if we were to thank God for all His blessings, we should have little time to complain of misfortunes. I know that I endeavored to be so. I labored to take a cheering view of what we then considered a very gloomy prospect. And this disposition to contrast our condition with that of others, while it taught me wisdom, brought with it a world of consolation. I saw that there was a bright side to everything,—that the sky was oftener blue than black; and my floral experiences in the garden taught me that it was the sunshine, and not the cloud, that makes the flower. It became my study to look only on the bright side of things, convinced, that, if the present were a little overcast, there was a future for us that would be all delightful. I was full of hope; and the eye of hope can discover a star in the thickest darkness, a rainbow even in the blackest cloud.
Hence I went cheerfully to learn the art of operating a sewing-machine, in which I soon became so expert as to prove a profitable pupil. There were from a dozen to twenty learners beside myself, some few of whom were educated and agreeable girls, the daughters of families moving in genteel circles, who had come there with a sensible ambition to acquire a thorough knowledge of the art. With these I formed a very pleasant acquaintance, so that my apprenticeship of a few weeks, instead of being a dull and lifeless probation, calculated to depress my spirits, was really an agreeable episode in my quiet career, cheering by its new associations, and invigorating by reason of the unmistakable evidences occurring almost daily that a sewing-girl was probably the last machine whose labor was to become obsolete.
The fame of these schools for female operatives went all over the country, and attracted crowds of visitors. Some of these were fine ladies of superficial minds, who came from mere curiosity, so as to be able to say that they had seen a sewing-machine. I was often struck with the shallow, unmeaning questions which these butterflies of fashion propounded to us. Some of them made the supercilious, but disreputable boast, that they had never taken a stitch in the whole course of their lives. But the great throng of inquirers consisted of women who had families dependent on their needles, and of young girls like myself, obliged also to depend upon the labor of their fingers. All such were deeply interested in the new art, and their inquiries were practical and to the point. They expressed the same astonishment, on seeing the rapidity with which the machine performed its work, that I had felt when first beholding it.
With so great a throng continually around us, asking questions, stopping the machines to examine the sewing, and begging for scraps with a row of stitches made in them, which they might take away to inspect at leisure, as well as to exhibit to others, there were days when the pupils were able to produce only a very small amount of work. But we soon discovered that this deficiency made but little difference to our teacher. The school was in reality a mere show-shop, a place of exhibition established by the machine-makers, in which to display and advertise their wares more thoroughly to the public. We pupils were the unconscious mouthpieces of the manufacturers. We paid the teacher for the privilege of learning to work the machines, and the manufacturers paid her a commission for all that she disposed of. Between the two sets of contributors to her purse she must have done a profitable business. She was at no expense except for rent, as the manufacturers loaned her the machines, while we did all the work. She had more orders for the latter than we could get through with, as the demand from the tailors was so urgent as to show very plainly that the great proportion of all the future sewing was to be done by the machine instead of by hand.
When I first went into this schoolroom I noticed a number of unemployed machines arranged in one part of it. After a week's apprenticeship, I observed some of them leaving the room every day, while new ones came in to occupy the vacant places. The first had been sold, the last were also to be disposed of, and this active sale continued as long as I remained. The fact was very apparent, that this public exhibition of the capacity of the new machine was operating on the community as the most efficient mode of advertising that could have been adopted. The machines went everywhere, over city and country, even at the monstrous prices demanded for them. Many fashionable ladies became purchasers, thinking, no doubt, that clothing could be made up by merely cutting it out and placing it before the machine.
Thus the most ingeniously potent agencies were invoked to bring the new invention rapidly and extensively into use. Its real merit happened to be such that it fulfilled all the promises with which it had been presented to the public. Hence it became a fixture in every great establishment where sewing-women were usually employed. As the latter acquired a knowledge of the machine, each of these establishments became a school in which new hands were converted into skilful operatives, until the primary schools, like that where I had been instructed, were abandoned from lack of pupils.
But I picked up a great many useful ideas at the school, besides acquiring, as already remarked, a new and assured confidence in the future prospects of the sewing-woman. It seemed clear to my mind, that, under the new order of things, the needle was still to be plied by her; whatever work it was to do would be superintended and directed by her. It was in reality only a new turn given to an old employment. Moreover, it struck me that more of it would be called for than ever, because I had noticed that the speed of the machine in making stitches had already led to putting treble and quadruple the usual number into some garments. Having achieved the useful, it was quickly applied to the ornamental. Clothing was not to be made up, in the future, as plainly as it had been in the past. Hence the prospect of more work being required involved the probability of a greater demand for female labor. But whether it was to be more remunerative,—whether the sewing-girl who might turn out ten times as much in a day as she formerly did would receive an increase of wages in any degree proportioned to the increase of work performed, was a problem which the future alone could solve. I did not believe that any such measure of justice would be accorded to her. It would be to the men, but not to the women. Yet I was willing to take the future on trust, for it now looked infinitely brighter than ever.