How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New YorkRiis, Jacob A. (Jacob August)
History
How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York
Riis, Jacob A. (Jacob August)
Poor -- New York (State) -- New York; Tenement houses -- New York (State) -- New York
The bulk of the sweater's work is done in the tenements, which the
law that regulates factory labor does not reach. To the factories
themselves that are taking the place of the rear tenements in rapidly
growing numbers, letting in bigger day-crowds than those the health
officers banished, the tenement shops serve as a supplement through
which the law is successfully evaded. Ten hours is the legal work-day
in the factories, and nine o'clock the closing hour at the latest.
Forty-five minutes at least must be allowed for dinner, and children
under sixteen must not be employed unless they can read and write
English; none at all under fourteen. The very fact that such a law
should stand on the statute book, shows how desperate the plight of
these people. But the tenement has defeated its benevolent purpose. In
it the child works unchallenged from the day he is old enough to pull
a thread. There is no such thing as a dinner hour; men and women eat
while they work, and the "day" is lengthened at both ends far into
the night. Factory hands take their work with them at the close of the
lawful day to eke out their scanty earnings by working overtime at
home. Little chance on this ground for the campaign of education that
alone can bring the needed relief; small wonder that there are whole
settlements on this East Side where English is practically an unknown
tongue, though the people be both willing and anxious to learn. "When
shall we find time to learn?" asked one of them of me once. I owe him
the answer yet.
Take the Second Avenue Elevated Railroad at Chatham Square and ride up
half a mile through the sweaters' district. Every open window of the
big tenements, that stand like a continuous brick wall on both sides of
the way, gives you a glimpse of one of these shops as the train speeds
by. Men and women bending over their machines, or ironing clothes at
the window, half-naked. Proprieties do not count on the East Side;
nothing counts that cannot be converted into hard cash. The road is
like a big gangway through an endless work-room where vast multitudes
are forever laboring. Morning, noon, or night, it makes no difference;
the scene is always the same. At Rivington Street let us get off and
continue our trip on foot. It is Sunday evening west of the Bowery.
Here, under the rule of Mosaic law, the week of work is under full
headway, its first day far spent. The hucksters' wagons are absent or
stand idle at the curb; the saloons admit the thirsty crowds through
the side-door labelled "Family Entrance;" a tin sign in a store-window
announces that a "Sunday School" gathers in stray children of the new
dispensation; but beyond these things there is little to suggest the
Christian Sabbath. Men stagger along the sidewalk groaning under heavy
burdens of unsewn garments, or enormous black bags stuffed full of
finished coats and trousers. Let us follow one to his home and see how
Sunday passes in a Ludlow Street tenement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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