Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 — John Shaqi
Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891
Various
Science -- Periodicals
From the equalizing room the sweat boxes are taken to the packing
room. Here they are first weighed. The first and second grades are
passed to the sorter, while the third grade raisins are placed in a
big machine that strips off the stems and grades the loose raisins in
three or four sizes. These are placed in sacks and sold as loose
raisins. The higher grades are carefully sorted into first and second
class clusters. After this sorting the boxes are passed to women and
girls, who arrange the clusters neatly in small five pound boxes with
movable bottoms. These boxes are placed under slight pressure, and
four of them fill one of the regular twenty pound boxes of commerce.
The work of placing the raisins in the small boxes requires much
practice, but women are found to be much swifter than men at this
labor, and, as they are paid by the box, the more skillful earn from
$2 to $3 a day. It is light, pleasant work, as the room is large, cool
and well ventilated, and there is no mixing of the sexes, such as may
be found in many of the San Francisco canneries. For this reason the
work attracts nice girls, and one may see many attractive faces in a
trip through a large packing house. One heavy shouldered,
masculine-looking German woman, who, however, had long, slender
fingers, was pointed out as the swiftest sorter in the room. She made
regularly $3 a day. The assurance of steady work of this kind for
three months draws many people to Fresno, and the regular disbursement
of a large sum as wages every week goes far to explain the thrift and
comfort seen on every hand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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