Women labor union members; Women labor union members -- United States
The Federal Commission on Industrial Relations has brought to light
some startling facts in this phase of our social life, as in many
others. I can refer to the evidence of but one witness. She speaks for
many thousands. This is as it is quoted in the daily press.
Picture for the moment the drama staged at Dallas.
Mrs. I. Borden Harriman of New York is presiding over
the commission. Mrs. Levi Stewart, the wife of a tenant
farmer, is on the witness stand. Mrs. Stewart is a shrinking
little woman with "faded eyes and broken body." She wears
a blue sunbonnet. Her dress of checkered material has lost
its color from long use. In a thin, nervous voice she
answers the questions of the distinguished leader of two
kinds of "society."
"Do you work in the fields?" Mrs. Harriman began.
"Yes, ma'am."
"How old were you when you married?"
"Fifteen."
"How old was your husband?"
"Eighteen."
"Did you work in the fields when you were a child?"
"Oh, yes'm, I picked and I chopped."
"Have you worked in the fields every year?"
"I do in pickin' and choppin' times."
"And you do the housework?'
"There ain't no one else to do it."
"And the sewing?"
"Yes, ma'am. I make all the clothes for the children
and myself. I make everything I wear ever since I was
married."
"Do you make your hats?"
"Yes, ma'am. I make my hats. I had only two since I
was married."
"And how long have you been married?"
"Twenty years."
"Do you do the milking?"
"Most always when we can afford a cow."
"What time do you get up in the morning?"
"I usually gits up in time to have breakfast done by 4
o'clock in summer time. In the winter time we are through
with breakfast by sun-up."
"Did you work in the fields while you were carrying your
children?"
"Oh, yes, sometimes; sometimes almost nigh to birthin'
time."
"Is this customary among the tenant farmers' wives you
have known?"
The answer was an affirmative nod.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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