White Slaves; or, the Oppression of the Worthy Poor — John Shaqi
White Slaves; or, the Oppression of the Worthy PoorBanks, Louis Albert
History
White Slaves; or, the Oppression of the Worthy Poor
Banks, Louis Albert
Poor -- Massachusetts -- Boston; Sweatshops; Working class -- Massachusetts -- Boston
Another physician of standing and repute, Dr. Markierez, who made an
investigation of the sweating district, in connection with a commission
from the advisory board of the operative tailors of Boston, in August,
1889, states that the section of New York City in which the
tenement-house system of clothing manufacture is carried on, is filthy
and infested with vermin; and he further affirms that the sanitary
condition of these tenement houses is so low that the death rate is
frightful and almost beyond comprehension.
That the sweating system in New York degrades the men and women
employed in the sweatshops, may be inferred from the fact that men and
women to the number of twelve have been found sleeping together in one
of these workrooms. The tenement-house factories are so crowded that no
such thing as privacy or modesty, on the part of men or women, is
possible; the usual water-closet is a wooden bucket upon every landing,
which fills the air with its vile and death-breeding stench.
The New York sweaters, like some of their English prototypes, take
advantage of the newly arrived foreigners who do not understand the
language. Green hands, who have just arrived at Castle Garden, are pure
gold for the contractors. Full-grown men among these will receive,
probably, two dollars a week, but one case was discovered where a man
was only paid eighty cents for his week's labor. A fourteen-year-old
boy was found in a Jewish sweatshop, who, although he had been in the
shop eight months, was still receiving only his board. If that is not
slavery, what is it?
But now let us come to Boston. To begin with, I. S. Mullen, State
Inspector of factories and workshops, testified, before the committee
on public health, of the Massachusetts Legislature, on the 30th of last
March, that he had found two places in Boston as bad as anything he had
seen in New York. How much that means, you can imagine, after the
descriptions I have given.
The State inspectors of factories and public buildings, in their report
to Chief Wade of the Massachusetts district police, say that "the
confidential clerk of perhaps the largest concern in town assured us
that but a small part of their goods were made in New York, and that in
shops; that all of their nice work was done in Boston; admitted the
fact of tenement-house clothing, but thought the greater part of it was
worn in New York, and wished that its manufacture could be prohibited
by law. This gentleman, as well as some others questioned, believed
that relatively there was as much tenement-house work done in Boston as
in New York, and under nearly as unwholesome conditions."
[Illustration: PAUL, REVERE HOUSE, NORTH SQUARE.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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