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
Take a row of houses in East Tenth Street as an instance. They
contained thirty-five families of cigarmakers, with probably not half
a dozen persons in the whole lot of them, outside of the children, who
could speak a word of English, though many had been in the country half
a lifetime. This room with two windows giving on the street, and a rear
attachment without windows, called a bedroom by courtesy, is rented at
$12.25 a month. In the front room man and wife work at the bench from
six in the morning till nine at night. They make a team, stripping the
tobacco leaves together; then he makes the filler, and she rolls the
wrapper on and finishes the cigar. For a thousand they receive $3.75,
and can turn out together three thousand cigars a week. The point has
been reached where the rebellion comes in, and the workers in these
tenements are just now on a strike, demanding $5.00 and $5.50 for their
work. The manufacturer having refused, they are expecting hourly to be
served with notice to quit their homes, and the going of a stranger
among them excites their resentment, until his errand is explained.
While we are in the house, the ultimatum of the "boss" is received.
He will give $3.75 a thousand, not another cent. Our host is a man of
seeming intelligence, yet he has been nine years in New York and knows
neither English nor German. Three bright little children play about the
floor.
His neighbor on the same floor has been here fifteen years, but shakes
his head when asked if he can speak English. He answers in a few broken
syllables when addressed in German. With $11.75 rent to pay for like
accommodation, he has the advantage of his oldest boy's work besides
his wife's at the bench. Three properly make a team, and these three
can turn out four thousand cigars a week, at $3.75. This Bohemian has a
large family; there are four children, too small to work, to be cared
for. A comparison of the domestic bill of fare between Tenth and Ludlow
Streets result, in the discovery that this Bohemian's butcher's bill
for the week, with meat at twelve cents a pound as in Ludlow Street,
is from two dollars and a half to three dollars. The Polish Jew fed as
big a family on one pound of meat a day. The difference proves to be
typical. Here is a suit of three rooms, two dark, three flights up.
The ceiling is partly down in one of the rooms. "It is three months
since we asked the landlord to fix it," says the oldest son, a very
intelligent lad who has learned English in the evening school. His
father has not had that advantage, and has sat at his bench, deaf and
dumb to the world about him except his own, for six years. He has
improved his time and become an expert at his trade. Father, mother,
and son together, a full team, make from fifteen to sixteen dollars a
week.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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