Women labor union members; Women labor union members -- United States
were one, and they had been too long separated from him and from one
another by the accidents of birth and speech.
So the searchlight turned on then on the sewing trades has since cast
its enlightening beams on industrial conditions in other trades, in
which, too, one race is perpetually played off against another with
the unfailing result of cuts in wages and lowering of standards of
living.
All tests of admission to secure some measure of selection among new
arrivals are but experiments in an untried field. We have no tests but
rough-and-ready ones, and even these are often inconsistent with one
another. For instance, for a good many years now the immigration
inspectors have taken such precautions as they could against the
admission of the insane, but it is only recently that modified Binet
tests have been used to check the entry of a socially far more
injurious class, the congenitally feebleminded.
Those who have worked extensively among newly arrived foreign girls
find that they arrive here with, as a rule, much less idea of what
awaits them, what will be expected of them, and the difficulties
and even dangers they may encounter, than the men. When the Chicago
Women's Trade Union League began its immigration department a few
years ago, it was found that three dollars was about the average
sum which a girl had in her pocket when she reached the city of her
destination. Ten dollars was felt to be a fortune, while I have since
heard of young girls landing alone in a great city, and without a
single cent with which to leave the depot. It is often said, why do
their mothers let them go away (sixteen and eighteen are common ages)
so young, so inexperienced? It must be remembered that many of the
Polish and Lithuanian girls, for example, come from small villages.
The mothers themselves have never seen a big city, and have not
the remotest conception of any place of more than five hundred
inhabitants, where the distances are short, and where everyone knows
everyone else. They have no idea of the value of money, when it comes
to earning and spending it in America. Three dollars a week is to
mother, as to daughter, an ample sum for the young traveler.
It often happens that many of the young immigrants have had letters
from those who had preceded them. But we know what human nature is.
The person who succeeds proudly writes home the good news. The still
more successful person is able to take a trip home and display the
visible signs of his or her wealth. The unsuccessful, as a rule,
either does not write at all, or writing, does not admit the
humiliating truth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account