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diff --git a/24959-h/24959-h.htm b/24959-h/24959-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d8cb3f --- /dev/null +++ b/24959-h/24959-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9712 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Working with whe Working Woman, by Cornelia Stratton Parker + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p {margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + text-indent: 1em; + } + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + + h1 {line-height: 150%; + padding-bottom: 2em;} + + h2 {padding-top: 2em; + padding-bottom: 1em;} + + h3 {padding-top: 1em;} + + h4 {padding-bottom: 1em;} + + hr.title {width: 10%; + margin-top: 0em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + height: 1px; + border: 0; + background-color: black; + color: black; + } + + .dropcap { + float: left; + padding-left: 3px; + font-size: 250%; + line-height: 93%; + overflow: visible; + } + + .firstword { + text-transform: uppercase; + } + + p.newchapter { + text-indent: 0em; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + } + + td.rightalign {text-align: right; + padding-left: 4em;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + p.publisher {margin-top: 4em; + text-align: center; + font-size: smaller; + margin-bottom: 4em; + text-indent: 0em; + line-height: 150%; + } + + p.ads {margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + text-indent: -1em; + margin-left: 1em; + } + + p.thought {padding-top: 2em;} + + div.advertisements {margin-top: 1em; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + font-size: smaller; + padding: 1em 2em 1em 2em; + background-color: #FBF5E6; + color: black; + } + + ul {list-style: none; + line-height: 120%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + right: 1%; + font-size: x-small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + font-style: normal; + letter-spacing: 0ex; + text-indent: 0em; + } + + a:link {text-decoration: none; + color: #104E8B; + background-color: inherit; + } + + a:visited {text-decoration: none; + color: #8B0000; + background-color: inherit; + } + + a:hover {text-decoration: underline;} + + a:active {text-decoration: underline;} + + .linenum {position: absolute; + top: auto; left: 4%; + } + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + } + + .center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em;} + + .right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .footnotes {border: dotted 1px; + padding-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 2em; + } + + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + font-size: smaller; + } + + .footnote .label {position: absolute; + right: 84%; + text-align: right; + } + + .fnanchor { vertical-align: baseline; + font-size: 80%; + position: relative; + top: -.4em; + } + + .poem {margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; + font-size: 90%; + } + + .poem br {display: none;} + + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + + .poem span.i0 {display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; + } + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Working With the Working Woman, by +Cornelia Stratton Parker + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Working With the Working Woman + +Author: Cornelia Stratton Parker + +Release Date: March 30, 2008 [EBook #24959] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKING WITH THE WORKING WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Markus Brenner, Irma Spehar and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<h1>WORKING WITH THE<br /> +WORKING WOMAN</h1> + +<p class="center"><i>By</i><br /> +<big>CORNELIA STRATTON PARKER</big><br /> + +<small><i>Author of</i> “AN AMERICAN IDYLL”</small></p> + +<p class="publisher">NEW YORK AND LONDON<br /> + +<big>HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS</big><br /> + +<i>MCMXXII</i></p> + +<p class="center" style="font-size: 70%"><span class="smcap">Working With the Working Woman</span></p> +<hr class="title" /> +<p class="center" style="font-size: 70%">Copyright, 1922, by Harper & Brothers<br /> +Printed in the United States of America</p> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="table of contents"> +<tr><td> </td><td> </td><td class="rightalign"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td><a href="#INTRODUCTION"><span class="smcap">Introduction</span></a></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_vii">vii</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#I">I.</a></td><td><a href="#I"><span class="smcap">No. 1075 Packs Chocolates</span></a></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#II">II.</a></td><td><a href="#II"><span class="smcap">286 on Brass</span></a></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#III">III.</a></td><td><a href="#III"><span class="smcap">195 Irons “Family”</span></a></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#IV">IV.</a></td><td><a href="#IV"><span class="smcap">In a Dress Factory</span></a></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#V">V.</a></td><td><a href="#V"><span class="smcap">No. 536 Tickets Pillow Cases</span></a></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#VI">VI.</a></td><td><a href="#VI"><span class="smcap">No. 1470, “Pantry Girl”</span></a></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_173">173</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td><a href="#CONCLUSION"><span class="smcap">Conclusion</span></a></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td></tr> +</table> + + + +<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></h2> + + +<p class="newchapter"><span class="firstword"><span class="dropcap">T</span>he</span> number of books on the labor problem is +indeed legion. The tragedy of the literature on +any dynamic subject is that most of it is written by +people who have time to do little else. Perhaps the +best books on many subjects will never be written +because those folk, who would be most competent +to do the writing, through their vital connection +with the problem at hand, never find the spare +minutes to put their findings down on paper.</p> + +<p>There could be no more dynamic subject than +labor, since labor is nothing less than human beings, +and what is more dynamic than human beings? It +is, therefore, the last subject in the world to be approached +academically. Yet most of the approach +to the problems of labor is academic. Men in sanctuaries +forever far removed from the endless hum and +buzz and roar of machinery, with an intellectual +background and individual ambitions forever far +removed from the interests and desires of those who +labor in factory and mill, theorize—and another volume +is added to the study of labor.</p> + +<p>But, points out some one, there are books on labor +written by bona-fide workers. First, the number is +few. Second, and more important, any bona-fide +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span>worker capable of writing any kind of book on any +subject, puts himself so far above the rank and file +that one is justified in asking, for how many does he +speak?</p> + +<p>Suppose that for the moment your main intellectual +interest was to ascertain what the average worker—not +the man or woman so far advanced in the cultural +scale that he or she can set his ideas intelligently +on paper—thought about his job and things in +general. To what books could you turn? Indeed I +have come to feel that in the pages of O. Henry +there is more to be gleaned on the psychology of the +working class than any books to be found on economic +shelves. The outstanding conclusion forced +upon any reader of such books as consciously attempt +to give a picture of the worker and his job is that +whoever wrote the books was bound and determined +to find out everything that was wrong in every +investigation made, and tell all about the wrongs +and the wrongs only. Goodness knows, if one is +hunting for the things which should be improved in +this world, one life seems all too short to so much as +make a start. In all honesty, then, such books on +labor should be classified under “Troubles of Workers.” +No one denies they are legion. Everybody's +troubles are, if troubles are what you want to find.</p> + +<p>The Schemer of Things has so arranged, praise be, +that no one's life shall be nothing but woe and misery. +Yea, even workers have been known to smile.</p> + + +<p class="thought">The experiences lived through in the following +pages may strike the reader as superficial, artificial.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span> +In a way they were. Yet, they fulfilled their object +in my eyes, at least. I wanted to feel for myself +the general “atmosphere” of a job, several jobs. I +wanted to know the worker without any suspicion +on the part of the girls and women I labored among +that they were being “investigated.” I wanted to +see the world through their eyes—for the time +being to close my own altogether.</p> + +<p>There are no startling new facts or discoveries +here recorded. Nothing in these pages will revolutionize +anything. To such as wish the lot of the +worker painted as the most miserable on earth, they +will be disappointing.</p> + +<p>Yet in being as honest as I could in recording the +impressions of my experiences, I am aware that I +have made possible the drawing of false conclusions. +Already such false conclusions have been drawn. +“See,” says an “old-fashioned” employer, “the +workers are happy—these articles of Mrs. Parker's +show it. Why should they have better conditions? +They don't want them!”</p> + +<p>A certain type of labor agitator, or a “parlor +laborite,” prefer to see only the gloomy side of the +worker's life. They are as dishonest as the employer +who would see only the contentment. The picture +must be viewed in its entirety—and that means +considering the workers not as a labor problem, but +as a social problem. Workers are not an isolated +group, who keep their industrial adversities or industrial +blessings to themselves. They and their +families and dependents are the majority of our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span> +population. As a nation, we rise no higher in the +long run than the welfare of the majority. Nor can +the word “welfare,” if one thinks socially, ever be +limited to the word “contentment.” It is quite +conceivable—nay, every person has seen it in actuality—that +an individual may be quite contented in +his lot and yet have that lot incompatible with the +welfare of the larger group.</p> + +<p>It is but as a part of the larger group that worker, +employer, and the public must come to view the +labor problem. When a worker is found who appears +perfectly amenable to long hours, bad air, +unhygienic conditions in general—and many are—somebody +has to pay the price. There are thousands +of contented souls, as we measure contentment, in +the congested tenement districts of East Side New +York. Does that fact add to our social welfare? +Because mothers for years were willing to feed their +children bad milk, was then the movement to provide +good milk for babies a waste of time and money? +Plenty of people always could be found who would +willingly drink impure water. Society found that +too costly, and cities pride themselves to-day on their +pure water supply and low typhoid rate.</p> + +<p>There are industrial conditions flourishing which +insidiously take a greater toll of society than did +ever the death of babies from unclean milk, the death +of old and young from impure water. The trouble +is that their effects permeate in ways difficult for the +unwilling eye to see.</p> + +<p>Perhaps in the long run, one of the most harmful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span> +phases of modern civilization is this very contentment +of not only the workers, but the employer and +society at large, under conditions which are not +building up a wholesome, healthy, intelligent population. +Indeed, it is not so much the fault of modern +industrialism as such. Perhaps it is because there +are so many people in the world and the ability of +us human beings, cave men only ten thousand years +ago, to care for so many people has not increased +with the same rapidity as the population. Our numbers +have outrun our capacities. Twentieth century +development calls for large-scale organization for +which the human mind has shown itself inadequate.</p> + +<p>It is well to keep in mind that no situation is the +product of its own day. The working woman, for +instance, we have had with us since the beginning +of women—and they began a good spell ago. The +problem of the working woman, as we think of it +to-day, began with the beginning of modern industry. +Nor is it possible to view her past without realizing +that the tendency has ever been, with but few +interruptions, toward improvement.</p> + +<p>In the early factory days in our country it is known +that women rose at four, took their breakfast with +them to the mills, and by five were hard at work in +badly constructed buildings, badly heated, badly +lighted. From seven-thirty to eight-thirty there +was an hour for breakfast, at noon half an hour, +and from then on steady work until half past seven +at night. It would be perhaps eight o'clock before +the mill girls reached home, sometimes too tired to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span> +stay awake till the end of supper. Later, hours were +more generally from five in the morning until seven +at night. In Lowell the girls worked two hours before +breakfast and went back to the mills again in the +evening after supper. By 1850 twelve hours had come +to be the average working day.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Abbot, <i>Women in Industry</i>.</p></div> + +<p>Wages were very low—around seventy-five cents +or a dollar a week with board. Mills and factories +were accustomed to provide room and board in the +corporation boarding houses, poorly constructed, +ill-ventilated buildings, girls often sleeping six and +eight in a room. In 1836 it was estimated that the +average wage for women in industry (excluding +board) was thirty-seven and one-half cents a day, +although one thousand sewing women investigated +received on an average twenty-five cents a day. In +1835 the New York <i>Journal of Commerce</i> estimated +that at the beginning of the century women's labor +brought about fifty cents a week, which was equivalent +to twenty-five cents in 1835. In 1845 the New +York <i>Tribune</i> reported fifty thousand women averaging +less than two dollars a week wages, and thousands +receiving one dollar and fifty cents. Another +investigation in 1845 found “female labor in New +York in a deplorable degree of servitude, privation +and misery, drudging on, miserably cooped up in +ill-ventilated cellars and garrets.” Women worked +fifteen to eighteen hours a day to earn one to three +dollars a week.</p> + +<p>And yet authorities tell us that some of the mill +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span>towns of New England, Lowell in particular, are +looked back upon as being almost idyllic as regards +the opportunities for working women. On examination +it is found that what was exceptional from our +point of view was not the conditions, but the factory +employees. In those days work in the mills was +“socially permissible.” Indeed there was practically +no other field of employment open to educated +girls. The old domestic labors had been removed +from the household—where could a girl with spirit +and ability make the necessary money to carry out +her legitimate desires? Her brothers “went west”—she +went into the factories—with the same spirit. +Ambitious daughters of New England farmers formed +the bulk of cotton mill employees the first half of the +nineteenth century. Their granddaughters are probably +college graduates of the highest type to-day. +After the long factory hours they found time for +reading, debating clubs, lectures, church activities, +French, and German classes. Part of the time some +of the mill operatives taught school. Many of them +looked forward to furthering their own education in +such female seminaries as existed in those days, the +expense to be met from their mill earnings. Poorly +paid as mill hands were, it was often six to seven +times what teachers received.</p> + +<p>“The mills offered not only regular employment +and higher wages, but educational advantages which +many of the operatives prized even more highly. +Moreover, the girl who had worked in Lowell was +looked upon with respect as a person of importance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</a></span> +when she returned to her rural neighborhood. Her +fashionable dress and manners and her general air of +independence were greatly envied by those who had not +been to the metropolis and enjoyed its advantages.”<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Abbot, <i>Women in Industry</i>.</p></div> + +<p>By 1850 the situation had altered. With the opening +of the west, opportunities for women of gumption +and spirit increased. The industrial depression of +1848-49 lowered wages, and little by little the former +type of operative left the mill, her place being filled +largely by Irish immigrants.</p> + +<p>The Civil War saw a great change in the world +of working women. Thousands of men were taken +from industry into war, and overnight great new +fields of opportunity were opened to women. The +more educated were needed as nurses, for teaching +positions, and for various grades of clerical work +deserted by men. After the close of the war farmers +became more prosperous and their daughters were +not forced to work for the wherewithal to acquire +advantages. Add to all this the depression caused +in the cotton industry due to the war—and the +result of these new conditions was that when the +mills reopened it was with cheap immigrant labor. +What then could have been considered high wages +were offered in an attempt to induce the more efficient +American women operatives back to the +mills, but the cost of living had jumped far higher +even than high wages. The mills held no further +attractions. Even the Irish deserted, their places +being filled with immigrants of a lower type.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[xv]</a></span></p> +<p>Since the Civil War look at us—8,075,772 women +in industry, as against 2,647,157 in 1880. Almost a +fourth of the entire female population over ten years +of age are at work, as against about one-seventh in +1880. The next census figures will show a still larger +proportion. Those thousands of women the World +War threw into industry, who never had worked +before, did not all get out of industry after the war. +Take just the railroads, for example. In April, 1918, +there were 65,816 women employed in railroad work; +in October, 1918, 101,785; and in April, 1919, 86,519. +In the 1910 census, of all the kinds of jobs in our +country filled by men, only twelve were not also +filled by women—and the next census will show a +reduction there: firemen (either in manufacturing +or railroads), brakemen, conductors, plumbers, common +laborers (under transportation), locomotive +engineers, motormen, policemen, soldiers, sailors, +and marines. The interesting point is that in only +one division of work are women decreasing in proportion +to men—and that was women's work at the +beginning—manufacturing. In agriculture, in the +professions, in domestic and personal service, in +trade and transportation, the number of women is +creeping up, up, in proportion to the number of men. +From the point of view of national health and vitality +for this and the next generation, it is indeed a +hopeful sign if women are giving way to men in factories, +mills, and plants, and pushing up into work +requiring more education and in turn not demanding +such physical and nervous strain as does much of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</a></span> +the machine process. Also, since on the whole as it +has been organized up to date, domestic service has +been one of the least attractive types of work women +could fill, it is encouraging (though not to the housewife) +to find that the proportion of women going into +domestic and personal service has fallen from forty-four +and six-tenths per cent, in 1880, to thirty-two +and five-tenths per cent, in 1910.</p> + +<p>Women working at everything under the sun—except +perhaps being locomotive engineers and +soldiers and sailors. Why?</p> + +<p>First, it is part of every normal human being to +want to work. Therefore, women want to work. +Time was when within the home were enough real +life-sized jobs to keep a body on the jump morning +and night. Not only mother but any other females +handy. There are those who grumble that women +could find enough to do at home now if they only +tried. They cannot, unless they have young children +or unless they putter endlessly at nonessentials, the +doing of which leaves them and everybody else no +better off than before they began. And it is part of +the way we are made that besides wanting to work, +we need to work at something we feel “gets us some +place.” We prefer to work at something desirable +and useful. Perhaps what we choose is not really so +desirable and useful, looked at in the large, but it +stacks up as more desirable and more useful than +something else we might be doing. And with it all, +if there is to be any real satisfaction, must go some +feeling of independence—of being on “one's own.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[xvii]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>So, then, women go out to work in 1921 because +there is not enough to do to keep them busy at +home. They follow in part their age-old callings, +only nowadays performed in roaring factories instead +of by the home fireside. In part they take to new +callings. Whatever the job may be, women <i>want</i> to +work in preference to the nonproductiveness of most +home life to-day.</p> + +<p>Graham Wallas, in his <i>Great Society</i>, quotes the +answers given by a number of girls to a woman who +held their confidence as to why they worked. He +wished to learn if they were happy. The question +meant to the girls evidently, “Are you happier than +you would have been at home?” and practically +every answer was “Yes.”</p> + +<p>In a “dismal and murky,” but fairly well-managed +laundry, six Irish girls all answered they were happy. +One said the work “took up her mind, she had been +awfully discontented.” Another that “you were of +some use.” Another, “the hours went so much +faster. At home one could read, but only for a short +time. Then there was the awful lonesome afternoon +ahead of you.” “Asked a little girl with dyed hair +but a good little heart. She enjoyed her work. It +made her feel she was worth something.”</p> + +<p>At another laundry, the first six girls all answered +they were happy because the “work takes up your +mind,” and generally added, “It's awful lonesome at +home,” or “there is an awful emptiness at home.” +However, one girl with nine brothers and sisters +was happy in the collar packing room just because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[xviii]</a></span> +“it was so awful lonesome”—she could enjoy her +own thoughts. An Irishwoman at another laundry +who had married an Italian said, “Sure I am always +happy. It leaves me no time to think.” At a knitting +plant one girl said “when she didn't work, she +was always thinking of dead people, but work always +made her cheer up directly.”</p> + +<p>The great industrial population comes from +crowded tenements. It is inconceivable that enough +work could be found within those walls to make life +attractive to the girls and young women growing to +maturity in such households.</p> + +<p>So much for the psychological side. The fact remains +that the great bulk of women in industry work +because they <i>have</i> to work—they enter industrial +life to make absolutely necessary money. The old +tasks at which a woman could be self-supporting in +the home are no longer possible in the home. She +earns her bread now as she has earned it for thousands +of years—spinning, weaving, sewing, baking, +cooking—only to-day she is one of hundreds, thousands +in a great factory. Nor is she longer confined +to her traditional tasks. Men are playing a larger +part in what was since time began and up to a few +years ago woman's work. Women, in their need, are +finding employment at any work that can use unskilled +less physically capable labor.</p> + +<p>Ever has it been the very small proportion of men +who could by their unaided effort support the entire +family. At no time have all the men in a country +been able to support all the women, regardless of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">[xix]</a></span> +whether that situation would be desirable. Always +must the aid of womenfolk be called in as a matter +of course. We have a national ideal of a living wage +to the male head of the family which will allow him +to support his family without forcing his wife and +children into industry. Any man who earns less than +that amount during the year must depend on the +earnings of wife and children or else fall below the +minimum necessary to subsistence, with all which +that implies. In 1910, four-fifths of the heads of +families in the United States earned under eight hundred +dollars a year. At that same time, almost nine-tenths +of the women workers living at home in New +York City working in factories, mills, and such +establishments, paid their entire earnings to the +family. Of 13,686 women investigated in Wisconsin +in 1914, only 2 per cent gave nothing to the family +support. Of girls in retail stores living at home in +New York City, 84 per cent paid their entire earnings +to the family. Work, then, for the majority of +women, is more apt to be cold economic necessity—not +only for herself, but for her family.</p> + +<p>Besides the fact that great numbers of women +must work and many want to work, there are the +reasons for women's work arising in modern industry +itself. First, a hundred years ago, there was the +need for hands in the new manufactures, and because +of the even more pressing agricultural demands, +men could not be spared. The greater the subdivisions +of labor up to a certain point, the simpler the +process, and the more women can be used, unskilled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xx" id="Page_xx">[xx]</a></span> +as they are ever apt to be. Also they will work at +more monotonous, more disagreeable work than +men, and for less wages. Again, women's entrance +into new industries has often been as strike breakers, +and once in, there was no way to get them out. +Industrial depressions throw men out of work, and +also women, and in the financial pressure following, +women turn to any sort of work at any sort of pay, +and perhaps open a new wedge for women's work in +a heretofore untried field, desirable or undesirable.</p> + +<p>The freedom from having to perform every and +all domestic functions within the four walls of home +is purchased at the expense of millions of toilers outside +the home, the majority of whom do not to-day +receive enough wages, where they are the menfolk, +to support their own families; nor where they are +single women, to support themselves. The fact that +men cannot support their families forces women in +large numbers into industry. There would be nothing +harmful in that, if only industry were organized so +that participation in it enriched human lives. Remembering +always that where industry takes women +from the care of young children, society and the +nation pay dearly; for, inadequate and ignorant as +mothers often are regarding child care, their substitutes +to-day are apt to be even less efficient.</p> + +<p>Pessimists marshal statistics to show that modern +industrialism is going to rack and ruin. Maybe it is. +But pessimism is more a matter of temperament than +statistics. An optimist can assemble a most cheerful +array of figures to show that everything is on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxi" id="Page_xxi">[xxi]</a></span> +up. Temperament again. Industry is what industry +does. If you are feeling gloomy to-day, you can visit +factories where it is plain to see that no human +being could have his lot improved by working there. +Such factories certainly exist. If you would hug +your pessimism to your soul, then there are many +factories you must stay away from. Despite all the +pessimists, there is a growing tendency to increase +the welfare of human beings in industry.</p> + +<p>It is but an infinitesimal drop any one individual +can contribute to hasten a saner industrialism. Yet +some of us would so fain contribute our mite! Where +the greatest need of all lies is that the human beings +in industry, the employer and the employees, shall +better understand one another, and society at large +better understand both. My own amateur and +humble experiences here recorded have added much +to my own understanding of the problems of both +manager and worker.</p> + +<p>Can they add even a fraction to the understanding +of anyone else?</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Cornelia Stratton Parker.</span></p> + +<p>Woods Hole,<br /> +<span style="padding-left: 2em"><i>August</i>, 1921.</span></p> + + + +<h2><a name="WORKING_WITH" id="WORKING_WITH"></a>WORKING WITH<br /> +THE WORKING WOMAN</h2> + + + +<h3><a name="I" id="I"></a>I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></h3> + +<h4><i>No. 1075 Packs Chocolates</i></h4> + + +<p class="newchapter"><span class="firstword"><span class="dropcap">W</span>ise</span> heads tell us we act first—or decide to act +first—and reason afterward. Therefore, what +could be put down in black and white as to why we +took up factory work is of minor value or concern. +Yet everyone persists in asking why? So then, being +merely as honest as the Lord allows, we answer first +and foremost because we wanted to. Isn't that +enough? It is the why and wherefore of almost +everything anyone does any place at any time. +Only the more adept can concoct much weightier +reasons as an afterthought. There is only one life +most of us doubting humans are absolutely sure of. +That one life gets filled with so much of the same +sort of performance day in and day out; usually +only an unforeseen calamity—or stroke of luck—throws +us into a way of living and doing things +which is not forever just as we lived and did things +yesterday and the day before.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p> + +<p>Yet the world is so full of the unexplored! To +those who care more for people than places, around +every corner is something new—a world only dreamt +of, if that. Why should all one's life be taken up +with the kind of people we were born among, doing +the sort of things our aunts and our uncles and our +cousins and our friends do? Soon there creeps in—soon? +yes, by six years or younger—that comforting +belief that as we and our aunts and our uncles and +our cousins and our friends do, so does—or should +do—the world. And all the time we and our aunts +and our uncles and our cousins and our friends are +one little infinitesimal drop in one hundred million +people, and what those above and below and beyond +and around about think and do, we know nothing, +nor care nothing, about. But those others are the +world, with us, a speck of—well, in this case it happened +to be curiosity—in the midst of it all.</p> + +<p>Therefore, being curious, we decided to work in +factories. In addition to wanting to feel a bona-fide +part of a cross section of the world before only +viewed second or third hand through books, there was +the desire better to understand the industrial end +of things by trying a turn at what some eight million +or so other women are doing. “Women's place is the +home.” All right—that side of life we know first +hand. But more and more women are not staying +home, either from choice or from necessity. Reading +about it is better than nothing. Being an active +part of it all is better still. It is one thing to lounge +on an overstuffed davenport and read about the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> +injurious effect on women of long hours of standing. +It is another to be doing the standing.</p> + +<p>Yet another reason for giving up some months to +factory work, besides the adventure of it, besides the +desire to see other angles of life for oneself, to experience +first hand the industrial end of it. So much +of the technic of the world to-day we take as a matter +of course. Clothes appear ready to put on our backs. +As far as we know or care, angels left them on the +hangers behind the mirrored sliding doors. Food is +set on our tables ready to eat. It might as well have +been created that way, for all our concern. The +thousands of operations that go into an article before +the consumer buys it—no, there is no reason why +use and want should make us callous and indifferent +to the hows and wherefores. Never was there such +an age. Let's poke behind the scenes a bit.</p> + +<p>So, factories it was to be. Not as a stranger +snooping in to “investigate.” As a factory girl +working at her job—with all that, we determined to +peek out of the corner of our eyes, and keep both +ears to the wind, lest we miss anything from start to +finish. Artificial, of course. Under the circumstances, +since we were born how and as we were, and +this had happened and that, we were not an honest +Eyetalian living in a back bedroom on West Forty-fourth +Street near the river.</p> + +<p>We did what we could to feel the part. Every +lady in the land knows the psychology of dress—though +not always expressed by her in those terms. +She feels the way she looks, not the other way round.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> +So then, we purchased large green earrings, a large +bar pin of platinum and brilliants ($1.79), a goldy box +of powder (two shades), a lip stick. During the +summer we faded a green tam-o'shanter so that it +would not look too new. For a year we had been +saving a blue-serge dress (original cost $19) from the +rag bag for the purpose. We wore a pair of old spats +which just missed being mates as to shade, and a +button off one. Silk stockings—oh yes, silk—but +very darned. A blue sweater, an orange scarf, and +last, but not least—</p> + +<p>If you had been brought up in a fairly small city +by female relatives who were one and all school-teachers, +who had watched over your vocabulary +(unsuccessfully) as they hung over your morals; +if you had been taught, not in so many words, but +insidiously, that breaking the Ten Commandments +(any one or the entire ten), split infinitives, and chewing +gum, were one in the sight of God, or the devil—then +you could realize the complete metamorphosis +when, in addition to the earrings and the bar pin, +the green tam and the lip stick, you stepped up to +the Subway newsstand and boldly demanded a +package of—chewing gum. And then and there got +out a stick and chewed it, and chewed it on the +Subway and chewed it on the streets of New York. +Some people have to go to a masquerade ball to feel +themselves some one else for a change. Others, if +they have been brought up by school-teachers, can +get the same effect with five cents' worth of chewing +gum.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p> + +<p>After all, one of the most attractive features about +being “well brought up” is the fun of sloughing off. +The fun of sloughing off a lot at once! Had it ever +been known ahead of time the fascination of doing +forbidden things, just that first factory morning +would have been worth the whole venture. To read +the morning paper over other people's shoulders—not +furtively, but with a bold and open eye. To stare +at anything which caught one's attention. (Bah! all +that is missed in New York because it has been so +ground into the bone that it is impolite to stare!) +And to talk to any one, male or female, who looked or +acted as if he or she wanted to talk to you. Only +even a short experience has taught that that abandon +leads to more trouble than it is worth. What a pity +mere sociability need suffer so much repression! We +hate to make that concession to our upbringers.</p> + +<p>When the time for beginning factory work came +there appeared but one advertisement among “Help +Wanted—Female” which did not call for “experience.” +There might have to be so much lying, direct +and indirect, to do. Better not start off by claiming +experience when there was absolutely none—except, +indeed, had we answered advertisements for cooks +only, or baby tenders, or maids of all work. One +large candy factory bid for “girls and women, good +wages to start, experience not necessary,” and in a +part of town which could be reached without starting +out the night before. At 7.15 of a Monday morning +we were off, with a feeling something akin to stage +fright. Once we heard a hobo tell of the first time he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> +ever tried to get on a freight train in the dark of +night when it was moving. But we chewed our gum +very boldly.</p> + +<p>One of the phases of finding a job often criticized +by those who would add somewhat of dignity to +labor is the system of hiring. Like a lot of other +things, perhaps, you don't mind the present system +if you get by. Here was this enormous good-looking +factory. On one side of the front steps, reaching all +the way up into the main entrance hall, stood a line +of men waiting for jobs; on the other side, though +not near so long a line, the girls. The regular employees +file by. At last, about eight o'clock, the first +man is beckoned. Just behind the corner of a glassed-in +telephone booth, but in full view of all, he is questioned +by an employee in a white duck suit. Man +after man is sent on out, to the growing discouragement, +no doubt, of those remaining in line. At last, +around a little corner in the stairs, the first girl is +summoned. The line moves up. A queer-looking +man with pop eyes asks a few questions. The girl +goes on upstairs. I am fourth in line—a steam heater +next and the actions of my insides make the temperature +seem 120 at least. My turn.</p> + +<p>“How much experience you've had?”</p> + +<p>“None.”</p> + +<p>“What you work in last?”</p> + +<p>“Didn't work in a factory—been doin' housework—takin' +care of kids.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I start you packing. You get thirteen dollars +this week, fourteen dollars next—you understand?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>He writes something on a little card and I go upstairs +with it. There I am asked my name, age (just +did away with ten years while I was at it). Married +or single? Goodness! hadn't thought of that. In +the end a lie there would make less conversation. +Single. Nationality—Eyetalian? No, American. +It all has to be written on a card. At that point my +eye lights on a sign which reads: “Hours for girls +8 <small>A.M.</small>-6 <small>P.M.</small> Saturdays 8-12.” Whew! My +number is 1075. The time clock works so. My key +hangs on this hook; then after I ring up, it hangs +here. (That was an entrancing detail I had not anticipated—made +me wish we had to ring up at noon +as well as morning and night.) Locker key 222. A +man takes me in the elevator to the third floor and +there hands me over to Ida. The locker works thus +and so. Didn't I have no apron? No—but to-morrow +I'd bring it, and a cap. Sure.</p> + +<p>Three piles of boxes and trucks and barrels and +Ida opens a great door like a safe, and there we are +in the packing room—from the steam heater downstairs +to the North Pole. Cold? Nothing ever was +so cold. Ten long zinc-topped tables, a girl or two +on each side. At the right, windows which let in no +air and little light, nor could you see out at all. On +the left, shelves piled high with wooden boxes. +Mostly all a body can think of is how cold, cold, cold +it is. Something happens to chocolates otherwise.</p> + +<p>That first day it is half-pound boxes. My side of +the table holds some sixty at a time. First the date +gets stamped on the bottom, then partitions are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> +fitted in. “Here's your sample. Under the table +you'll find the candies, or else ask Fannie, there. +You take the paper cups so, in your left hand, give +them a snap so, lick your fingers now and then, slip +a cup off, stick the candy in with your right hand.” +And Ida is off.</p> + +<p>The saints curse the next person who delicately +picks a chocolate from its curled casing and thinks +it grew that way—came born in that paper cup. +May he or she choke on it! Can I ever again buy +chocolates otherwise than loose in a paper bag? +You push and shove—not a cup budges from its +friends and relatives. Perhaps your fingers need +more licking. Perhaps the cups need more “snapping.” +In the end you hold a handful of messed-up +crumpled erstwhile cup-shaped paper containers, the +first one pried off looking more like a puppy-chewed +mat by the time it is loose and a chocolate planted +on its middle. By then, needless to remark, the +bloom is off the chocolate. It has the look of being +clutched in a warm hand during an entire circus +parade. Whereat you glance about furtively and +quickly eat it. It is nice the room is cold; already +you fairly perspire. One mussed piece of naked +brown paper in a corner of a box.</p> + +<p>The table ahead, fingers flying like mad over the +boxes, works Annie. It is plain she will have sixty +boxes done before I have one. Just then a new girl +from the line of that morning is put on the other +side of my table. She is very cold. She fares worse +with brown paper cups than I. Finally she puts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> +down the patient piece of chocolate candy and takes +both hands to the job of separating one cup from the +others. She places what is left of the chocolate in the +middle of what is left of the paper, looks at me, and +better than any ouija board I know what is going on in +her head. I smile at her, she smiles back, and she eats +that first chocolate. Tessie and I are friends for life.</p> + +<p>Then we tackle the second union of chocolate and +paper. Such is life. Allah be praised, the second +goes a shade less desperately than the first, the +third than the second, and in an hour chocolate and +paper get together without untoward damage to +either. But the room stays feeling warm. Anon a +sensation begins to get mixed up with the hectic +efforts of fingers. Yes, yes—now it's clear what it is—feet! +Is one never to sit down again as long as +one lives? Clumsy fingers—feet. Feet—clumsy +fingers. Finally you don't give a cent if you never +learn to pry those paper cups loose without wrenching +your very soul in the effort. If once before you die—just +once—you can sit down! Till 12 and then after, +1 till 6. Help!</p> + +<p>A bell rings. “All right, girls!” sings Ida down the +line. Everyone drops everything, and out into the +warm main third floor we go. All the world is feet. +Somehow those same feet have to take their possessor +out to forage for food. Into a little dirty, +crowded grocery and delicatessen store we wedge +ourselves, to stand, stand, stand, until at last we +face the wielder of a long knife. When in Rome do +as the Romans do. “A bologna and a ham sandwich<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> +and five cents' worth of pickles.” Slabs of rye bread, +no butter, large, generous slices of sausage and ham +which hang down curtainlike around the bread—twenty-one +cents. Feet take me back to the factory +lunch room. At last I flop on a chair. Sing songs +to chairs; write poems to chairs; paint chairs!</p> + +<p>Dear German Tessie, pal of the morning, she who +ate more chocolates than I and thus helped to sustain +my moral courage—Tessie and I eat bologna sausage +sandwiches together and <i>sit</i>. The feet of Tessie +are very, very badly off—ach!—but they feel—they +feel—jus' fierce—and till six o'clock—“Oh, my +Gawd!” says Tessie, in good English.</p> + +<p>A gong sounds. Up we go to the ice box packing +room. It sends the shivers down our spines. But +already there is a feeling of sauntering in like an old +hand at the game. What's your business in life? +Packing chocolates. The half-pound boxes get +finished, wax paper on top, covered, stacked, counted, +put on the truck.</p> + +<p>“Lena! Start the girl here in on 'assorteds.'”</p> + +<p>Pert little Lena sidles up alongside and nudges +me in the ribs.</p> + +<p>“Say, got a fella?”</p> + +<p>I give Lena one look, for which Belasco should +pay me a thousand dollars a night. Lena reads it +out loud quick as a wink. She snickers, pokes me +in the ribs again, and, “What to hell do I think you +are, hey?” That's just what I'd meant. “Gee!” +says Lena. “Some fool what can't get some kind of +a dope!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“You said it!”</p> + +<p>“Say, got more 'n one dope?” asks Lena, hopefully. +Meanwhile she sets out, with my aid, row +after row of dinky little deep boxes.</p> + +<p>“Say now,” say I to Lena, “and what would a +girl be doin' with jus' <i>one</i> dope?”</p> + +<p>“You said it!” says Lena.</p> + +<p>At which follows a discussion on dopes, ending +by Lena's promising never to vamp my dope if I +won't vamp hers.</p> + +<p>“Where'd ya work last?” asks Lena.</p> + +<p>One thing the first day taught me. If you want to +act the part and feel the part, earrings and gum help, +but if there is one thing you are more conscious of +than all else, it is such proper English as you possess—which +compared to Boston is not much, but compared +to Lena and Ida and Mary and Louise and +Susie and Annie is painfully flawless. Chew hard as +ever you can, if you tell Fannie, “There aren't any +more plantations,” it echoes and re-echoes and shrieks +at you from the four sides of Christendom. But +holler, “Fannie, there ain't no more plantations!” +and it is like the gentle purring of a home cat by +comparison. Funny how it is easier to say “My +Gawd!” and “Where t' hell's Ida!” than “I 'ain't +got none.” Any way round, you never do get over +being conscious of your grammar. If it is correct, it +is lonesome as the first robin. If it is properly awful, +there are those school-teacher upbringers. I am just +wondering if one might not be dining with the head +of the university philosophy department and his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> +academic guests some night and hear one's voice +uttering down a suddenly silent table, “She ain't +livin' at that address no more.” Utterly abashed, +one's then natural exclamation on the stillness would +be, “My Gawd!” Whereat the hostess would busily +engage her end of the table in anguished conversation, +giving her husband one look, which, translated +into Lena's language, would say, “What t' hell did +we ask her for, anyhow?”</p> + +<p>Is one to write of factory life as one finds it, or +expurgated? I can hear the upbringers cry “expurgated”! +Yet the way the girls talked was one of +the phases of the life which set the stamp of difference +on it all. What an infinitesimal portion of the +population write our books! What a small proportion +ever read them! How much of the nation's +talking is done by the people who never get into +print! The proportion who read and write books, +especially the female folk, live and die in the belief +that it is the worst sort of bad taste, putting it mildly, +to use the name of the Creator in vain, or mention +hell for any purpose whatsoever. Yet suddenly, +overnight, you find yourself in a group who would +snap their fingers at such notions. Sweet-faced, +curly-headed Annie wants another box of caramels. +Elizabeth Witherspoon would call, “Fannie, would +you be so kind as to bring me another box of caramels?” +Annie, without stopping her work or so +much as looking up, raises her voice and calls down +the room—and in her heart she is the same exactly +as Elizabeth W.—“Fannie, you bum, bring me a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> +box of car'mels or I'll knock the hell clean out o' +ya.”</p> + +<p>According to Elizabeth's notions Fannie should +answer her, “One moment, Miss Elizabeth; I'm +busy just now.” What Fannie (with her soul as +pure as drifted snow) does call back to Annie is, +“My Gawd! Keep your mouth shut. 'Ain't you +got sense enough to see I'm busy!”</p> + +<p>Annie could holler a hundred times, and she does, +that she'd knock the hell out of Fannie, and God +would love her every bit as much as he would love +Miss Elizabeth Witherspoon, who has been taught +otherwise and never said hell in her life, not even in +a dark closet. Fannie and all the other Fannies and +Idas and Louisas, say, “My Gawd!” as Miss Elizabeth +says “You don't say!” and it is all one to the +Heavenly Father. Therefore, gentle reader, it must +be all one to you. There is not the slightest shade of +disrespect in Annie's or Fannie's hearts as they +shower their profanity on creation in general. There +is not the slightest shade in mind as I write of them.</p> + +<p>So then, back that first day Lena asked, “Where'd +ya work last?”</p> + +<p>“Didn't work in a factory before.”</p> + +<p>“'Ain't ya?”</p> + +<p>“No, I 'ain't.” (Gulp.) “I took care of kids.”</p> + +<p>“Gee! but they was fresh.”</p> + +<p>“You said it!”</p> + +<p>“Lena!” hollers Ida. “Get ta work and don't +talk so much!” Whereat Lena gives me another +poke in my cold ribs and departs. And Tessie and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> +pack “assorteds”: four different chocolates in the +bottom of each box, four still different ones in the +top—about three hundred and fifty boxes on our +table. We puff and labor on the top layer and Ida +breezes along. “My Gawd! Look at that! Where's +your cardboards?”</p> + +<p>Tessie and I look woebegone at one another. +Cardboards? Cardboards?</p> + +<p>Ida glues her Eyetalian eye on Lena down the line. +“Lena, you fool, didn't you tell these here girls about +cardboards?... My Gawd! My Gawd!” says Ida. +Whereat she dives into our belabored boxes and grabs +those ached-over chocolates and hurls them in a pile. +“Get all them top ones out. Put in cardboards. +Put 'em all in again.” Tessie and I almost could +have wept. By that time it is about 4. We are all +feet, feet, <small>FEET</small>. First I try standing on one foot to +let the other think I might really, after all, be sitting +down. Then I stand on it and give the other a delusion. +Then try standing on the sides, the toes, the +heels. <span class="smcap">Feet!</span> “Ach! Mein Gott!” moans Tessie. +“To-morrow I go look for a job in a biscuit factory.”</p> + +<p>“Leave me know if you get a sit-down one.”</p> + +<p>And in that state—<small>FEET</small>—Ida makes us pack over +the whole top layer in three hundred and fifty boxes. +Curses on Lena and her “dopes.” Or curses on me +that I could so suddenly invent such picturesque love +affairs that Lena forgot all about cardboards.</p> + +<p>About then my locker key falls through a hole in +my waist pocket and on to the floor and out of sight. +In the end it takes a broom handle poked about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> +diligently under the bottom shelf of our table to +make a recovery. Before the key appear chocolates +of many shapes and sizes, long reposing in oblivion +under the weighty table. The thrifty Spanish woman +behind me gathers up all the unsquashed ones and +packs them. “Mus' be lots of chocolates under +these 'ere tables, eh?” she notes wisely and with +knit brows. As if to say that, were she boss, she'd +poke with a broom under each and every bottom +shelf and fill many a box.</p> + +<p>At least my feet get a moment's rest while I am +down on my hands and knees among the debris from +under the tables.</p> + +<p>By five o'clock Tessie thinks she'll throw up her +job then and there. “Ach! Ach! My feet!” she +moans. I secretly plan to kill the next person who +gives me a box of chocolate candy.</p> + +<p>Surely it is almost 6.</p> + +<p>Five minutes after 5.</p> + +<p>The bell has forgotten to ring. It must be 7.</p> + +<p>Quarter after 5.</p> + +<p>Now for sure and certain it is midnight.</p> + +<p>Half-past 5.</p> + +<p>My earrings begin to hurt. You can take off earrings. +But <small>FEET</small>—</p> + +<p>Tessie says she's eaten too many candies; her +stomach does her pain. Her feet aren't so hurting +now her <i>magen</i> is so bad. I couldn't eat another +chocolate for five dollars, but my stomach refused to +feel in any way that takes my mind in the least off +my feet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p> + +<p>Eternity has passed on. It must be beyond the +Judgment Day itself.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes to 6.</p> + +<p>When the bell does ring I am beyond feeling any +emotion. There is no part of me with which to feel +emotion. I am all feet, and feet either do not feel +at all or feel all weary unto death. During the summer +I had played one match in a tennis tournament +7-5, 5-7, 13-11. I had thought I was ready to drop +dead after that. It was mere knitting in the parlor +compared to how I felt after standing at that table +in that candy factory from 8 <small>A.M.</small> to 6 <small>P.M.</small>, with a +bit of a half-hour's sitting at noon.</p> + +<p>Somehow you could manage to endure it all if it +were not for the crowning agony of all—standing up +on the Subway going home. I am no aggressive +feminist, and I am no old-fashioned clinging vine, +but I surely do hate, hate, hate every man in that +Subway who sits back in comfort (and most of them +look as if they had been sitting all day) while I and +my feet stand up. When in my utter anguish I find +myself swaying with the jerks and twists of the express +in front of a person with a Vandyke beard reading +<i>The Gospel According to St. John</i>, I long with all +the energy left in me (I still have some in my arms) +to grab that book out of his hands, fling it in his face, +and hiss, “Hypocrite!” at him. I do not believe I +ever knew what it was really and honestly to hate a +person before. If it had been the <i>Police Gazette</i> I +could have borne up under it. But <i>The Gospel According +to St. John</i>—my Gawd!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p> + +<p>Thus ends my first factory day. It is small comfort +to calculate I stepped on more chocolates in +those nine hours than I usually eat in a year. To +be sure, it was something new on the line of life's +experiences. If that man in front of me were only a +chocolate with soft insides and I could squash him +flat! Yes, there was enough energy in my feet for +that. To get my heel square above him and then +<i>stamp</i>—ugh! the sinner! He continues reading <i>The +Gospel According to St. John</i>, nor so much as looks +up to receive my last departing glare as I drag myself +off at 116th Street.</p> + +<p>Bless the Lord, O my soul, the next morning my +feet feel as if they had never been stood on before. +What if we do have to stand up in the Subway all +the way down? Who minds standing in the Subway? +And then stand in the jammed and elbowing cross-town +car. Who cares? And how we do walk up +those factory steps as if we owned the world! The +chestiness of us as we take our key off left-hand hook +1075, ring up under the clock (twenty minutes early +we are) and hang up on No. 1075 right; but it seems +you are late if you are not ten minutes early. It is +the little tricks like that you get wise about.</p> + +<p>I saunter over to the elevator with a jam of colored +girls—the majority of the girls in that factory were +colored. I call out, “Third, please.” Oh, glory be! +Why were we ever born? That elevator man turns +around and pierces me with his eye as though I were +the man with the Vandyke beard in the Subway, and +he, the elevator man, were I. “<i>Third</i> floor did ya<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> +say? And since when does the elevator lift ya to +the <i>third</i> floor? If ya want the sixth floor ya can +ride. <i>Third</i> floor! My Gawd! <i>Third</i> floor!” And +on and on he mutters and up and up I go, all the +proud feelings of owning the world stripped from me—exposed +before the multitudes as an ignoramus +who didn't know any better than to ride in the elevator +when she was bound only for the third floor. +“<i>Third</i> floor,” continues muttering the elevator man. +At last there is no one left in the elevator but the +muttering man and me. “Well,” I falter, chewing +weakly on my Black Jack, “What shall I do, then?”</p> + +<p>“I'll leave ya off at the third this time, but don't +ya try this trick again.”</p> + +<p>“Again? Goodness! You don't think I'd make +this mistake twice, do you?”</p> + +<p>“<i>Twice?</i>” he bellows. “<i>Twice?</i> Didn't I have +this all out with ya yesterday mornin'?”</p> + +<p>“Goodness, no!” I try to assure him, but he is +putting me off at third and calling after me: “Don't +I know I did tell ya all this yesterday mornin'? +And don't ya forget it next time, neither.” It must +be awful to be that man's wife. But I love him compared +to the Vandyke beard in the Subway reading +<i>The Gospel According to St. John</i>.</p> + +<p>Everybody is squatting about on scant corners +and ledges waiting for the eight o'clock bell. I squat +next the thrifty Spanish lady, whereat she immediately +begins telling me the story of her life.</p> + +<p>“You married?” she asks. No. “Well don' you +do it,” says the fat and mussy Espaniole, as the girls<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> +called her. “I marry man—five years, all right. +One morning I say, 'I go to church—you go too?' +He say 'No, I stay home.' I go church. I come +home. I fin' him got young girl there. I say, 'You +clear out my house, you your young girl!' Out he +go, she go. 'Bout one year 'go he say he come back. +I say no you don'. He beg me, beg me come home. +I say no, no, no. He write me letter, letter, letter. +I say no, no, no. Bymby I say alright, you come +live my house don't you <i>touch</i> me, hear? Don' you +<i>touch</i> me. He live one room, I live one room. He +no touch me. Two weeks 'go he die. Take all my +money, put him in cemetery. I have buy me black +waist, black skirt. I got no money more. I want +move from that house—no want live that house no +more—give me bad dreams. I got no money move. +Got son thirteen. He t'ink me fool have man around +like that. I no care. See he sen's letter, letter, +letter. Now I got no money. I have work.” The +bell rings. We shiver ourselves into the ice box.</p> + +<p>No Tessie across the table. Instead a strange, +unkempt female who sticks it out half an hour, announces +she has the chills in her feet, and departs. +Her place is taken by a slightly less disheveled young +woman who claims she'd packed candy before where +they had seats and she thought she'd go back. +They paid two dollars less a week, but it was worth +two dollars to sit down. How she packs! The sloppiest +work I ever saw. It outrages my soul. The +thrill of new pride I have when Ida gets through +swearing at her and turns to me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Keep your eye on this girl, will ya? Gee! she +packs like a fright!” And to the newcomer: “You +watch that girl across the table” (me, she means—me!) +“and do the way she does.”</p> + +<p>No first section I ever got in economics gave me +such joy.</p> + +<p>But, ah! the first feeling of industrial bitterness +creeps in. Here is a girl getting fourteen dollars a +week. Tessie was promised fourteen dollars a week. +I packed faster, better, than either of them for thirteen +dollars. I would have fourteen dollars, too, or +know the reason why. Ida fussed and scolded over +the new girls all day. The sweetness of her entire +neglect of me!</p> + +<p>By that noon my feet hardly hurt at all. I sit in +a quiet corner to eat rye-bread sandwiches brought +from home, gambling on whom I will draw for luncheon +company. Six colored girls sit down at my +table. A good part of the time they spend growling +on the subject of overtime. I am too new to know +what it is all about.</p> + +<p>The lunch room is a bare, whitewashed, huge affair, +with uplifting advice on the walls here and there. +“Any fool can take a chance; it takes brains to be +careful,” and such like. One got me all upset: +“America is courteous to its women. Gentlemen +will, therefore, please remove their hats in this room.” +That Vandyke beard in the Subway!</p> + +<p>By 4.30 again I think my feet will be the death of +me. That last hour and a half! Louie, the general +errand boy of our packing room, brushes by our table<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> +with some trays and knocks about six of my carefully +packed boxes on the floor. “You Louie!” I holler, and +I long to have acquired the facility to call lightly +after him, as anyone else would have done, “Say, +you go to hell!” Instead, mustering all the reserve +force I can, the best showing I am able to make is, +“You Louie! Go off and die!” I almost hold my +own—468 boxes of “assorteds” do I pack. And +again the anguishing stand in the Subway. I hate +men—hate them. I just hope every one of them gets +greeted by a nagging wife when he arrives home. +Hope she nags all evening.... If enough of those +wives really did do enough nagging, would the men +thereupon stay downtown for dinner and make room +in the Subway for folk who had been standing, except +for one hour, from 7.15 <small>A.M.</small>? At last I see a silver +lining to the dark cloud of marital unfelicity....</p> + + +<p class="thought">Lillian of the bright-pink boudoir cap engaged me +in conversation this morning. Lillian is around the +Indian summer of life—as to years, but not atmosphere. +Lillian has seen better days. Makes sure you +know it. Never did a lick of work in her life. At +that she makes a noise with her upper lip the way a +body does in southern Oregon when he uses a toothpick +after a large meal. “No, sir, never did a lick.” +Lillian says “did” and not “done.” Practically no +encouragement is needed for Lillian to continue. +“After my husband died I blew in all the money he +left me in two years. Since then I have been packing +chocolates.” How long ago was that?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Five years.”</p> + +<p>“My Gawd,” I say, and it comes natural-like. +“What did you do with your feet for five years?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you get used to it,” says Lillian. “For +months I cried every night. Don't any more. But I +lie down while I'm warmin' up my supper, and then +I go to bed soon as its et.”</p> + +<p>Five years!</p> + +<p>“Goin' to vote?” asks Lillian.</p> + +<p>“Sure.”</p> + +<p>“I'm not,” allows Lillian. “To my notions all +that votin' business is nothing for a lady to get mixed +up in. No, sir.” Lillian makes that noise with her +upper lip again. Lillian's lips are very red, her eyebrows +very black. I'll not do anything, though, with +my eyebrows. Says Lillian: “No, siree, not for a +lady. I got a good bet up on the election. Yes, sir!—fifty +dollars on Harding.”</p> + +<p>And five years of going to bed every night after +supper.</p> + +<p>Tessie is back. I do love Tessie, and I know Tessie +loves me. She had not gone hunting for another job, +as I thought. Her husband had had his elbow broken +with an electric machine of some sort where he works +on milk cans. The morning before she had taken +him to the hospital. That made her ten minutes late +to the factory. The little pop-eyed man told her, +“You go on home!” and off she went. “But he tell +me that once more I no come back again,” said Tessie, +her cheeks very red.</p> + +<p>I begin to get the “class feeling”—to understand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> +a lot of things I wanted to know first hand. In the +first place, there is no thought ever, and I don't see +in that factory how there can be, for the boss and his +interests. Who is he? Where is he? The nearest +one comes to him is the pop-eyed man at the door. +Once in a while Ida hollers “For Gawd's sake, girls, +work faster!” Now that doesn't inspire to increased +production for long. There stands Tessie across the +table from me—peasant Tessie from near München, +with her sweet face and white turned-up cap. She +packs as fast as she can, but her hands are clumsy +and she can't seem to get the difference between +chocolates very well. It is enough to drive a seer +crazy. They change the positions on the shelves +every so often; the dipping-machine tenders cut +capers and mark the same kind of chocolates differently +to-day from yesterday. By three in the afternoon +you're too sick of chocolates to do any more investigating +by sampling. Even Ida herself has sometimes +to poke a candy in the bottom—if it feels one +way it's “marsh”; another, it's peach; another, it's +coconut. But my feeling is not educated and I poke, +and then end by having to bite, and then, just as I +discover it is peach, after all, some one has run off +with the last box and Ida has to be found and a substitute +declared.</p> + +<p>Tessie gives up in despair and hurls herself on me. +So then Tessie is nearest to me in the whole factory, +and Tessie is slow. The faster I pack the more it +shows up Tessie's slowness. If Ida scolded Tessie +it would break my heart. The thought of the man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> +who owns that factory, and his orders and his profits +and his obligations, never enter my or any other +packer's head. I will not pack so many boxes that +Tessie gets left too far behind.</p> + +<p>Then a strange thing happens. All of a sudden I +get more interested in packing chocolates than anything +else on earth. A little knack or twist comes to +me—my fingers fly (for me). I forget Tessie. I +forget the time. I forget my feet. How many boxes +can I pack to-day? That is all I can think of. I +don't want to hear the noon bell. I can't wait to get +back after lunch. I fly out after the big boxes to +pack the little boxes in. In my haste and ignorance +I bring back covers by mistake and pack dozens of +little boxes in covers. It must all be done over again. +Six hundred boxes I pack this day. I've not stopped +for breath. I'm not a bit tired when 6 o'clock comes +round. I ask Ida when she will put me on piecework—it +seems the great ambition of my life is to +feel I am on piecework. “When you can pack about +two thousand boxes a day,” says Ida. Two thousand! +I was panting and proud over six hundred! +“Never mind,” says Ida, “you're makin' out fine.” +Oh, the thrill of those words! I asked her to show +me again about separating the paper cups. I didn't +have it just right, I was sure. “My Gawd!” sighed +Ida, “what ambition!” Yes, but the ambition did +not last more than a few days at that pitch.</p> + +<p>Tessie wanted to tell me something about her <i>Mann</i> +to-day so badly, but could not find the English words. +Her joy when I said, “Tell me in German”! How<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> +came I to speak German? I'd spent three years in +Germany with an American family, taking care of +the children. Honest for once.</p> + +<p>“That was luck for you,” says Tessie.</p> + +<p>“That was sure luck for me,” says I—honest again.</p> + +<p>Wherever Lena works there floats conversation for +a radius of three tables. The subject matter is ever +the same—“dopes.” “Is he big?... Gee! I say!... +More like a sister to him.... He never sees the letters.” +“Lena” (from Ida), “shut up and get to +work!” ... “I picked him up Sunday.... Where's +them waxing papers?... Third she vamped in two +days.... Sure treats a girl swell.... Them ain't +pineapples....” “Lee-na! get to work or I'll +knock the hell out a ya!” And pretty Lena giggles +on: “He says.... She says to him.... Sure my +father says if he comes 'round again....”</p> + +<p>And Tessie and I; I bend over to hear Tessie's +soft, low German as she tells me how good her <i>Mann</i> +is to her; how he never, never scolds, no matter if +she buys a new hat or what; how he brings home all +his pay every week and gives it to her. He is such a +good <i>Mann</i>. They are saving all their money. In +two years they will go back near München and buy a +little farm.</p> + +<p>Tessie and her poor <i>Mann</i>, with his broken elbow +and his swollen arm all black and blue, couldn't +sleep last night. Oh dear! this New York! One man +at one corner he talk about Harding, one man other +corner he talk about Cox; one man under their window +he talk MacSwiney—New York talk, talk, talk!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p> + +<p>Looked like rain to-day, but how can a body buy +an umbrella appropriate to chocolate packing at +thirteen dollars a week when the stores are all closed +before work and closed after? I told Lillian my +troubles. I asked Lillian if a cheap umbrella could +be purchased in the neighborhood.</p> + +<p>“Cheap,” sniffs Lillian. “I don't know. I got +me a nice one—sample though—at Macy's for twelve-fifty.” +Lillian may take to her bed after supper, +but while she is awake she is going to be every inch +to the manner born.</p> + +<p>By the time I pack the two thousandth box of “assorteds” +my soul turns in revolt. “If you give me +another 'assorted' to pack,” says I to Ida, “I'll lie +down here on the floor and die.”</p> + +<p>“The hell you will,” says Ida. But she gets me +fancy pound boxes with a top and bottom layer, +scarce two candies alike, and Tessie beams on me +like a mother with an only child. “That takes the +brains!” says Tessie. “Not for me! It gives me the +ache in my head to think of it.”</p> + +<p>Indeed it near gives me the ache in mine. Before +the next to the last row is packed the bottom looks +completely filled. Where can four fat chocolates in +cups find themselves? I push the last row over +gently to make room,—three chocolates in the middle +rear up and stand on end. Press them gently down +and two more on the first row get out of hand. At last +the last row is in—only to discover four candies here +and there have all sprung their moorings. For each +one I press down gently, another some place else acts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> +up. How long can my patience hold out? Firmly, +desperately I press that last obstreperous chocolate +down in its place. My finger goes squash through +the crusty brown, and pink goo oozes up and out. +A fresh strawberry heart must be found. “Ain't no +more,” announces Fannie. Might just as well tell +an artist there is only enough paint for one eye on +his beautiful portrait. Of course another chocolate +can be substituted. But a strawberry heart was +what belonged there!</p> + +<p>At last the long rows of boxes are packed, wax +paper laid over each—to blow off every time Louie +goes by. Then come covers with lovely ladies in +low-neck dresses on the tops—and the room so cold, +anyhow. Why are all the pictures on all the boxes +smiling ladies in scanty attire, instead of wrapped to +the ears in fur coats so that a body might find comfort +in gazing on them in such a temperature?</p> + +<p>Ida comes along and peers in one box. “You can +consider yourself a fancy packer now—see?” Harding +the night of the election felt less joyous than do +I at her words.</p> + +<p>This night there is a lecture at the New School for +Social Research to be attended. If some of those +educated foreigners in our room can go to night +school, I guess I can keep up my school. They are +all foreigners but Lillian and Sadie and I. Sadie +is about the same Indian-summer stage as Lillian +and uses even better English. Her eyebrows are also +unduly black; her face looks a bit as if she had been +trying to get the ring out of the flour with her teeth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> +Halloween. Her lips are very red. Sadie has the +air of having just missed being a Vanderbilt. Her +boudoir cap is lacy. Her smile is conscious kindness +to all as inferiors. One wonders, indeed, what +brought Sadie to packing chocolates in the autumn +of life—a very wrinkly, powdered autumn. So Lillian, +Sadie, and I are the representatives of what the +nation produces—not what she gets presented with. +As for the rest, there are a Hungarian, two Germans, +four Italians, two Spaniards, a Swede, an Englishwoman, +and numerous colored folk. Louie is an +Italian. Fannie (bless her dear heart! I love Fannie) +is colored, with freckles. She is Indian summer too—with +a heart of gold. Fannie trudges on her feet +all day. Years and years she has been there. At +noon she sits alone in the lunch room, and after eating +puts her head on her arms and, bending over the +cold marble-topped table, gets what rest she can. +She was operated on not so long ago, and every so +often still has to go to the hospital for a day or so. +Everything is at sixes and sevens when Fannie is +away.</p> + +<p>So then, that night I take my sleepy way to a +lecture on “The Role of the State in Modern Civilization.” +And it comes over me in the course of the +evening, what a satisfactory thing packing chocolates +is. The role of the State—some say this, some +say that. A careful teacher guards against being +dogmatic. When it comes to the past, one interpreter +gives this viewpoint, due to certain prejudices; +another that viewpoint, due to certain other prejudices.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> +When it comes to the future, no sane soul +dare prophesy at all. Thus it is with much which +one studies nowadays—we have evolved beyond the +era of intellectual surety. What an almighty relief +to the soul, then, when one can pack six rows of four +chocolates each in a bottom layer, seven rows of four +chocolates each in the top, cover them, count them, +stack them, pile them in the truck, and away they +go. One job <i>done</i>—done now and forever. A definite +piece of work put behind you—and no one coming +along in six months with documents or discoveries +or new theories or practices to upset all your labors. +I say it is blessed to pack chocolates when one has +been studying labor problems for some years. Every +professor ought to have a fling at packing chocolates.</p> + +<p>Folks wonder why a girl slaves in a factory when +she could be earning good money and a home thrown +in doing housework. I think of that as I watch +Annie. Imagine Annie poking about by her lonesome, +saying, “No, ma'm,” “Yes, ma'm,” “No, sir,” +“Yes, sir.” “Can I go out for a few moments, Mrs. +Jones?” “Oh, all right, ma'm!” Annie, whose talk +echoes up and down the room all day. She is Annie +to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who pokes his nose +in our packing room, but they are Tom, Dick, and +Harry to her. It is not being called by your first +name that makes the rub. It is being called it when +you must forever tack on the Mr. and the Mrs. and +the Miss. Annie is in awe of no human being. Annie +is the fastest packer in the room and draws the most +pay. Annie sasses the entire factory. Annie never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> +stops talking unless she wants to. Which is only +now and then when her mother has had a bad spell +and Annie gets a bit blue. Little Pauline, an Italian, +only a few months in this country, only a few weeks +in the factory, works across the table from Annie. +Pauline is the next quickest packer in our room. She +cannot speak a word of English. Annie gives a sigh +audible from one end of the room to the next. “My +Gawd!” moans Annie to the entire floor. “If this +here Eyetalian don't learn English pretty soon I gotta +learn Eyetalian. I can't stand here like a dead one +all day with nobody to talk to.” Pauline might perhaps +be reasoning that, after all, why learn English, +since she would never get a silent moment in which +to practice any of it.</p> + +<p>I very much love little Pauline. All day long her +fingers fly; all day long not a word does she speak, +only every now and then little Pauline turns around +to me and we smile at each other. Once on the street, +a block or so from the factory, little Pauline ran up +to me, put her arm through mine, and caught my +hand. So we walked to work. Neither could say +a word to the other. Each just smiled and smiled. +For the first time in all my life I really felt the melting +pot first hand. To Pauline I was no agent of Americanization, +no superior proclaiming the need of bathtubs +and clean teeth, no teacher of the “Star-spangled +banner” and the Constitution. To Pauline +I was a fellow-worker, and she must know, for such +things are always known, that I loved her. To myself, +I felt suddenly the hostess—the generation-long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> +inhabitant of this land so new and strange to little +Pauline. She was my guest here. I would indeed +have her care for my country, have her glad she came +to my home. That day Pauline turned around and +smiled more often than before.</p> + +<p>I finally settled down to eating lunch daily between +Tessie and Mrs. Lewis, the Englishwoman. We do +so laugh at one another's jokes. I know everything +that ever happened to Tessie and Mrs. Lewis from +the time they were born; all the heartbreaking stories +of the first homesick months in this my land, all the +jobs they have labored at. Mrs. Lewis has worked +“in the mills” ever since she was born, it would +seem, first in England, later in Michigan. Tessie +and her husband mostly have hired out together in +this country for housework, and she likes that better +than packing chocolates standing up, she says. Mrs. +Lewis is—well, she's Indian summer, too, along with +Lillian and Sadie and Fannie, only she makes no +bones about it (nor does black Fannie, for that +matter). Mrs. Lewis is thin and wrinkled, with a +skimpy little dust cap on her head. Her nose is very +long and pointed, her teeth very false. Her eyes are +always smiling. She loves to laugh. One day we +were talking about unemployment.</p> + +<p>“Don't you know, it's awful in Europe,” volunteers +Mrs. Lewis.</p> + +<p>“One hundred thousand unemployed in Paris +alone—saw it in headlines this morning,” I advance.</p> + +<p>“Paris?” said Tessie. “Paris? Where's Paris?”</p> + +<p>If one could always be so sure of one's facts.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p> + +<p>“France.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Lewis wheels about in her chair, looks at me +sternly over the top of her spectacles, and:</p> + +<p>“Do you know, they're telling me that's a pretty +fast country, that France.”</p> + +<p>“You don't say!” I look interested.</p> + +<p>“No—no I haven't got the details <i>yet</i>”—she +clasped her chin with her hand—“but 'fast' was the +word I heard used.”</p> + +<p>Irene is a large, florid, bleached blonde. She +worked at the table behind me about four days. +“Y'know”—Irene has a salon air—“y'know, I jus' +can't stand steppen on these soft chocolates. Nobody +knows how I suffer. It just goes through me +like a knife.” She spent a good part of each day +scraping off the bottoms of her French-heeled shoes +with a piece of cardboard. It evidently was too +much for her nerves. She is no more.</p> + +<p>The sign reads, “Saturdays 8-12.” When Saturday +came around Ida hollered down the room, +“Everybody's gotta work to-day till five.” The howl +that went up! I supposed “gotta” meant “gotta.” +But Lena came up to me.</p> + +<p>“You gonna work till five? Don't you do it. We +had to strike to get a Saturday half holiday. Now +they're tellin' us we gotta work till five—pay us for +it, o' course. If enough girls'll stay, pretty soon +they'll be sayin: 'See? What ud we tell ya? The +girls want to work Saturday afternoons'; and they'll +have us back regular again.” In the end not a girl +in our room stayed, and Ida wrung her hands.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p> + +<p>Monday next, though, Ida announced, “Everybody's +gotta work till seven to-night 'cause ya all +went home Saturday afternoon. Three nights a +week now you gotta work till seven.” To stand from +1 to 7! One girl in the room belonged to some union +or other. She called out, “Will they pay time and +a half for overtime?” At which everyone broke into +laughter. “Gee! Ida, here's a girl wants time and +a half!” Tessie, Mrs. Lewis, Sadie, and I refused to +work till 7. Ida used threats and argument. “I +gotta put down your numbers!” We stood firm—6 +o'clock was long enough. “Gee! You don't notice +that last hour—goes like a second,” argued Ida. +We filed out when the 6-o'clock bell rang.</p> + +<p>The girls all fuss over the hour off at noon. It +takes at best twenty minutes to eat lunch. For the +rest of the hour there is no place to go, nothing to +do, but sit in the hard chairs at the marble-topped +tables in the whitewashed room for half an hour till +the bell rings at 12.50, and you can sit on the edge of +a truck upstairs for ten minutes longer. They all +say they wish to goodness we could have half an hour +at noon and get off half an hour earlier at night.</p> + + +<p class="thought">A tragedy the first pay day. I was so excited when +that Saturday came round, to see what it would all +be like—to get my first pay envelope. About 11.30 +two men came in, one carrying a wooden box filled +with little envelopes. Girls appear suddenly from +every place and crowd around the two men. One +calls out a number, the girl takes her envelope and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> +goes off. I keep working away, thinking you are not +supposed to step up till your number is called. But, +lo! everyone seems paid off and the men departing, +whereat I leave my work with beating heart and +announce: “You didn't call 1075.” But it seems I +was supposed to step up and give 1075. I get handed +my little envelope. Connie Parker in one corner, +1075 in the other, the date, and $6.81. Six dollars +and eighty-one cents, and I had expected fourteen +dollars. (I had told Ida at last that I thought I +ought to get fourteen dollars, and she thought so, +too, and said she'd “speak to the man” about it.) +I clutched Ida—“only six dollars and eighty one +cents!” “Well, what more do ya want.”</p> + +<p>“But you said fourteen dollars.”</p> + +<p>It seems the week goes Thursday to Thursday, +instead of Monday to Saturday, so my first pay +covered only three days and a deduction for my +locker key.</p> + +<p>At that moment a little cry just behind me from +Louisa. Louisa had been packing with Irene—dark +little, frail little Yiddish Louisa; big brawny bleached-blond +Irene.</p> + +<p>“I've lost my pay envelope!”</p> + +<p>Wan little Louisa! She had been talking to +Topsy, Fannie's helper. Her envelope had slipped +out of her waist, and when she went to pick it up, lo! +there was nothing there to pick—fourteen dollars +gone! There was excitement for you. Fourteen +dollars in Wing 13, Room 3, was equal to fourteen +million dollars in Wall Street. Everybody pulled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> +out boxes and searched, got down on hands and knees +and poked, and the rest mauled Louisa from head to +foot.</p> + +<p>“Sure it ain't in your stocking? Well, look <i>again</i>.”</p> + +<p>“What's this?”—jabbing Louisa's ribs—“this?”</p> + +<p>Eight hands going over Louisa's person as if the +anguished slip of a girl could not have felt that stiff +envelope with fourteen dollars in it herself had it +been there. She stood helpless, woebegone.</p> + +<p>Ida rose Napoleon-like to the rescue. “I'll search +everybody in the room!”</p> + +<p>Whereat she made a grab at Topsy and removed +her. “They” say Topsy was stripped to the breezes +in Ida's fury, but no envelope.</p> + +<p>Topsy, be it known, was already a suspicious +character. That very week Fannie's purse had disappeared +under circumstances pointing to Topsy. +Which caused a strained relationship between the +two. One day it broke—such relationship as existed.</p> + +<p>Fannie up at her end of the boxes was heard to +screech down the line to where Topsy was sorting +chocolate rolls:</p> + +<p>“How dare you talk to me like that?”</p> + +<p>“I ain't talkin' to you!”</p> + +<p>“You am. You called me names.”</p> + +<p>“I never. I called you nothin', you ole white +nigger.”</p> + +<p>“You stand lie to me like that and call me names?”</p> + +<p>“Who say lie? I ain't no liar. You shut up; you +ain't my boss. I'll call you anythin' I please, sassin' +me that way!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“I didn't sassed you. You called me names.”</p> + +<p>“I don't care what I called you—I know what you +<i>is</i>.” Here Topsy gathered all her strength and +shouted up to Fannie, “You're a <i>heifer</i>, you is.”</p> + +<p>Now there is much I do not know about the +world, and maybe heifer is a word like some one or +two others you are never supposed to set down in so +many letters. If so, it is new to me and I apologize. +The way Topsy called it, and the way Fannie acted +on hearing herself called it, would lead one to believe +it is a word never appearing in print.</p> + +<p>“You—call—me a <i>heifer</i>?” shrieked Fannie. “I'll +tell ya landlady on ya, I will!”</p> + +<p>“Don' yo' go mixin' up in my private affairs. +You shut yo' mouth, yo' hear me? yo' <i>heifer</i>!”</p> + +<p>“I <i>ain't</i> no heifer!”</p> + +<p>Fortunately Ida swung into our midst about then +and saved folk from bodily injury. A few days later +Fanny informed me privately that she don't say +nothin' when that nigger starts rowin' with her, but +if she jus' has her tin lunch box with her next time +when that nigger starts talkin' fresh—callin' her a +heifer—<i>her!</i>—she'll slug her right 'cross the face +with it.</p> + +<p>So Topsy was searched. When she got her garments +back on she appeared at the door—a small +black goddess of fury. “Yo' fresh Ida, yo'—yessa—yo' +jus' searched me 'cause I'm black. That's all, +'cause I'm black. Why don't you search all that +white trash standin' there?” And Topsy flung herself +out. Monday she appeared with a new maroon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> +embroidered suit. Cost every nickel of thirty-eight +dollars, Fannie informed me. In the packing room +she had a hat pin in her cap. Some girl heard Topsy +tell some other girls she was going stick that pin +in Fannie if Fannie got sassin' her again. Ida made +her remove the hat pin. In an hour she disappeared +altogether and stayed disappeared forever after. +“Went South,” Fannie told me. “Always said she +was goin' South when cold weather started.... +Huh! Thought she'd stick me with a hat pin. I was +carryin' a board around all mornin'. If she so +much as come near me I was goin' to give her a crack +aside the head.”</p> + + +<p class="thought">But there was little Louisa—and no longer could +she keep back the tears. Nor could ever the pay +envelope be unearthed. Later I found her sitting +on the pile of dirty towels in the washroom, sobbing +her heart out. It was not so much that the money +was gone—that was awful enough—fourteen dollars!—fourteen +dollars!—oh-h-h,—but her mother and +father—what would they do to her when she came +home and told 'em? They mightn't believe it was +lost and think she'd spent it on somethin' for herself. +The tears streamed down her face. And that was +the last we ever saw of Louisa.</p> + +<p>Had “local color” been all we were after, perhaps +Wing 13, Room 3, would have supplied sufficient of +that indefinitely, with the combination of the ever-voluble +Lena and the ever-present labor turnover. +Even more we desired to learn the industrial feel of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> +the thing—what do some of the million and more +factory women think about the world of work? +Remaining longer in Wing 13 would give no deeper +clue to that. For all that I could find out, the candy +workers there thought nothing about it one way or +the other. The younger unmarried girls worked because +it seemed the only thing to do—they or their +families needed the money, and what would they be +doing otherwise? Lena claimed, if she could have her +way in the world, she would sleep until 12 every day +and go to a show every afternoon. But that life +would pall even on Lena, and she giggled wisely when +I slangily suggested as much.</p> + +<p>The older married women worked either because +they had to, since the male breadwinner was disabled +(an old fat Irishwoman at the chocolate dipper +had a husband with softening of the brain. He was +a discharged English soldier who “got too much in +the sun in India”) or because his tenure of job was +apt to be uncertain and they preferred to take no +chances. Especially with the feel and talk of unemployment +in the air, two jobs were better than none. +A few, like Mrs. Lewis, worked to lay by toward their +old age. Mrs. Lewis's husband had a job, but his +wages permitted of little or no savings. Some of her +friends told her: “Oh, well, somebody's bound to +look out for you somehow when you get old. They +don't let you die of hunger and cold!” But Mrs. +Lewis was not so sure. She preferred to save herself +from hunger and cold.</p> + +<p>Such inconveniences of the job as existed were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> +taken as being all in the day's work—like the rain or +a cold in the head. At some time they must have +shown enough ability for temporary organization to +strike for the Saturday half holiday. I wish I could +have been there when that affair was on. Which +girls were the ringleaders? How much agitation +and exertion did it take to acquire the momentum +which would result in enforcing their demands? Had +I entered factory work with any idea of encouraging +organization among female factory workers, I should +have considered that candy group the most hopeless +soil imaginable. Those whom I came in contact +with had no class feeling, no ideas of grievances, no +ambitions over and above the doing of an uninteresting +job with as little exertion as possible.</p> + +<p>I hated leaving Tessie and Mrs. Lewis and little +Pauline. Already I miss the life behind those candy +scenes. For the remainder of my days a box of +chocolates will mean a very personal—almost too +personal for comfort!—thing to me. But for the rest +of the world....</p> + + +<p class="thought">Some place, some moonlight night, some youth, +looking like a collar advertisement, will present his +fair love with a pound box of fancy assorted chocolates—in +brown paper cups; and assured of at least +a generous disposition, plus his lovely collar-advertisement +hair, she will say yes. On the sofa, side by +side, one light dimly shining, the nightingale singing +in the sycamore tree beside the front window, their +two hearts will beat as one—for the time being.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> +They will eat the chocolates I packed and life will +seem a very sweet and peaceful thing indeed. Nor +will any disturbing notion of how my feet felt ever +reach them, no jarring “you heifer!” float across the +states to where they sit. Louie to them does not +exist—Louie, forever on the run with, “<i>Louie</i>, move +these trays!” “<i>Louie</i>, bottoms!” “<i>Louie</i>, tops!” +“<i>Louie</i>, cardboards!” “<i>Louie</i>, the truck!” “<i>Louie</i>, +sweep the floor! How many times I told you that +to-day!” “<i>Louie</i>, get me a box a' ca'mels, that's a +good dope!” “<i>Louie</i>, turn out them lights!” “<i>Louie</i>, +turn on them lights!” “<i>Louie</i>, ya leave things settin' +round like that!” “<i>Louie</i>, where them covers?” +and then Louie smashes his fingers and retires for +ten minutes.</p> + +<p>Nor is Ida more than a strange name to those two +on the sofa. No echoes reach them of, “Ida, where +them wax papers?” “Ida, where's Fannie?” “Ida, +where them picture tops?” “Ida, ain't no more +'coffees.' What'll I use instead?” “Ida! Where's +Ida? Mike wants ya by the elevator.” “Ida, I +jus' packed sixty; ten sixty-two is my number.” +“Ida, Joe says they want 'drops' on the fifth.” “Ida, +ain't no more trays.” “Ida, gimme the locker-door +key. 'M cold—want ma sweater. (Gee! it 'u'd freeze +the stuffin' outa ya in this ice box!)”</p> + +<p>Those chocolates appeared in a store window in +Watertown, and that's enough. Not for their moonlit +souls the clang of the men building a new dipper +and roller in our room—the bang of the blows of +metal on metal as they pierce your soul along about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> +5 of a weary afternoon. Lena's giggles and Ida's +“Lee-na, stop your talk and go to work!... Louie, +stop your whistlin'!... My Gawd! girls, don' you +know no better n' to put two kinds in the same box? ... +Hey, Lena, this yere Eyetalian wants somethin'; +come here and find out what's ailin' her.... Fannie, +ain't there no more plantations?... Who left that +door open?... Louie, for Gawd's sake how long you +gonna take with that truck?... Lena, stop your +talkin' and go to work....”</p> + +<p>And 'round here, there, and every place, “My +Gawd! my feet are like ice!” “Say, len' me some of +yo'r cardboards—hey?” “You Pearl White [black +as night], got the tops down there?” “Hey, Ida, the +Hungarian girl wants somethin'. I can't understand +her....”</p> + +<p>Those two sit on the sofa. The moon shines on +the nightingale singing in the sycamore tree. Nor +do they ever glimpse a vision of little Italian Pauline's +swift fingers dancing over the boxes, nor do +they ever guess of wan Louisa's sobs.</p> + + + +<h3><a name="II" id="II"></a>II<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></h3> + +<h4><i>286 On Brass</i></h4> + + +<p class="newchapter"><span class="firstword"><span class="dropcap">S</span>weetness</span> and Light.</p> + +<p>So now appears the candy factory in retrospect.</p> + +<p>Shall we stumble upon a job yet that will make +brass seem as a haven of refuge? Allah forbid!</p> + +<p>After all, factory work, more than anything so +far, has brought out the fact that life from beginning +to end is a matter of comparisons. The factory girl, +from my short experience, is not fussing over what +her job looks like compared to tea at the Biltmore. +She is comparing it with the last job or with home. +And it is either slightly better or slightly worse than +the last job or home. Any way round, nothing to get +excited over. An outsider, soul-filled college graduate +with a mission, investigates a factory and calls aloud +to Heaven: “Can such things be? Why do women +<i>stay</i> in such a place?”</p> + +<p>The factory girl, if she heard those anguished +cries, would as like as not shrug her shoulders and +remark: “Ugh! she sh'u'dda seen ——'s factory +where I worked a year ago.” Or, “Gawd! what does +she think a person's goin' to do—sit home all day and +scrub the kitchen?”</p> + +<p>And yet the fact remains that some things get too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> +much on even a philosophical factory girl's nerves. +Whereat she merely walks out—if she has gumption +enough. The labor turnover, from the point of view +of production and efficiency, can well be a vital industrial +concern. To the factory girl, it saves her +life, like as not. Praise be the labor turnover!</p> + +<p>If it were not for that same turnover, I, like the +soul-filled college graduate, might feel like calling +aloud, not to Heaven, but to the President of the +United States and Congress and the Church and +Women's clubs: “Come quick and rescue females +from the brassworks!” As it is, the females rescue +themselves. If there's any concern it's “the boss he +should worry.” He must know how every night +girls depart never to cross those portals again, so +help them Gawd. Every morning a new handful is +broken in, to stay there a week or two, if that long, +and take to their heels. Praise be the labor turnover, +as long as we have such brassworks.</p> + +<p>Before eight o'clock of a cold Monday morning +(thank goodness it was not raining, since we stood in +shivering groups on the sidewalk) I answered the +Sunday-morning “ad”:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="center">GIRLS AND WOMEN</p> + + +<p style="text-indent: 0em">between 16 and 36; learners and experienced assemblers and +foot-press operators on small brass parts; steady; half day +Saturday all year around; good pay and bonus. Apply Superintendent's +office.</p></div> + +<p>The first prospects were rather formidable—some +fifty men and boys, no other girl or woman. Soon +two cold females made their appearance and we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> +shivered together and got acquainted in five minutes, +as is wont under the circumstances. One rawboned +girl with a crooked nose and frizzled blond hair had +been married just two months. She went into immediate +details about a party at her sister-in-law's +the night before, all ending at a dance hall. The +pretty, plump Jewess admitted she had never +danced.</p> + +<p>“What?” almost yelled the bride, “Never <i>danced</i>? +Good Gawd! girl, you might as well be <i>dead</i>!”</p> + +<p>“You said it!” I chimed in. “Might as well dig +a hole in the ground and crawl in it.”</p> + +<p>“You said it!” and the husky bride and erstwhile +(up to the week before) elevator operator at twenty-three +dollars a week (she said) gave me a smart +thump of understanding. “Girl, you never <i>danced</i>? +It's—it's the grandest thing in <i>life</i>!”</p> + +<p>The plump Jewess looked a little out of things. “I +know,” she sighed, “they tell me it 'u'd make me +thin, too, but my folks don't let me go out no place.”</p> + +<p>Whereat we changed to polishing off profiteers and +the high cost of living. The Jewish girl's brother +knew we were headin' straight for civil war. “They'll +be comin' right in folks' homes and killen 'em before +a year's out. See if they don't.” I asked her if she'd +ever worked in a union shop. “Na, none of that stuff +for me! Wouldn't go near a union.” Both girls +railed over the way people were losing their jobs. +Anyhow, the bride was goin' to a dance that night, +you jus' bet.</p> + +<p>At last some one with a heart came out and told<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> +the girls we could step inside. By that time there +were some ten of us, all ages and descriptions. What +would a “typical” factory girl be like, I wonder. +Statistics prove she is young and unmarried more +than otherwise, but each factory does seem to collect +the motleyest crew of a little of everything—old, +young, married, single, homely, stupid, bright, +pretty, sickly, husky, fat, thin, and so on down the +line. Certain it is that they who picture a French-heeled, +fur-coated, dolled-up creature as the “typical +factory girl” are far wide of the mark. The one +characteristic which so far does seem pretty universal +is that one and all, no matter what the age or +looks, are perfectly willing to tell you everything +they know on short acquaintance. At first I felt a +hesitancy at asking questions about their personal +lives, yet I so much wanted to know what they did +and thought, what they hoped and dreamed about. +It was early apparent that sooner or later everything +would come out with scant encouragement, +and no amount of questioning ever is taken amiss. +They in turn ask me questions, and I lie until I hate +myself.</p> + +<p>The plump Jewess was the first interviewed. When +she heard the pay she departed. The elevator bride +and I were taken together, and together we agreed to +everything—wages thirteen dollars a week, “with +one dollar a week bonus” (the bonus, as was later +discovered, had numerous strings to it. I never did +get any). Work began at 7.45, half hour for lunch, +ended at 5. The bride asked if the work was dangerous.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> +“That's up to you. Goin' upstairs is dangerous +if you don't watch where you put your feet. Eh?” +We wanted to start right in—I had my apron under +my arm—but to-morrow would be time. I got quite +imploring about beginning on that day. No use.</p> + +<p>The bride and I departed with passes to get by +with the next morning. That was the last I saw of +the bride—or any of that group, except one little +frozen thing without a hat. She worked three days, +and used to pull my apron every time she went by +and grin.</p> + +<p>The factory was 'way over on the East Side. It +meant gettin' up in the dark and three Subways—West +Side, the Shuttle, East Side which could be +borne amicably in the morning, but after eight and +three-quarter hours of foot-press work, going home +with that 5-6 rush—that mob who shoved and elbowed +and pushed and jammed—was difficult to +bear with Christian spirit. Except that it really is +funny. What idea of human nature must a Subway +guard between the hours of 5 and 6 be possessed of?</p> + +<p>At noon I used to open my lunch anxiously, expecting +to see nothing but a doughy mass of crumpled +rye bread and jam. Several times on the Subway the +apple got shoved into my ribs over a period where it +seemed as if either the apple or the ribs would have +to give in. But by noon my hunger was such that +any state of anything edible was as nectar and +ambrosia.</p> + +<p>I am thinking that even a hardened factory hand +might remember her first day at the brassworks.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> +Up three flights of stairs, through a part of the men's +factory, over a narrow bridge to a back building, +through two little bobbing doors, and there you were +admitted to that sanctuary where, according to the +man who hired you, steady work and advancement to +a rosy future awaited one.</p> + +<p>True, I had only the candy factory as a basis of +comparison, as far as working experience went. +But I have been through factories and factories of all +sorts and descriptions, and nothing had I ever seen +like the brassworks. First was the smell—the stale +smell of gas and metal. (Perhaps there is no such +smell as stale metal, but you go down to the brassworks +and describe it better!) Second, the darkness—a +single green-shaded electric light directly over +where any girl was working, but there were areas +where there were no workers. Up the end of the +floor, among the power presses, all belts and machines +and whirring wheels, there were only three or four +shaded lights. Windows lined both sides of the +floor, but they had never been washed since the factory +was built, surely. Anyhow, it was dark and +rainy outside. The walls once had been white, but +were now black. Dim, dirty, uneven boxes containing +brass parts filled the spaces between the long +tables where the foot presses stood. Third, the noise—the +clump of the foot presses, the whirring of the +pattern cutters—one sounded ever like a lusty woodpecker +with a metal beak pecking on metal; rollings +and rumblings from the floor above; jarrings and +shakings from below.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p> + +<p>Two-thirds of the entire floor was filled with long +tables holding the foot presses—tables which years +ago were clean and new, tables which now were worn, +stained, and uneven, and permanently dirty. On +each side of each long table stood five black iron +presses, but there seemed to be never more than one +or two girls working at a side. Each press performed +a different piece of work—cut wick holes, +fitted or clamped parts together, shaped the cones, +and what not, but with only two general types of +operation so far as the foot part went. One type +took a long, firm, forward swing on the pedal; the +other a short, hard, downward “kick.” With the +end of the pressure the steel die cut through the thin +brass cone, or completed whatever the job was. As +the pedal and foot swung back to position the girl +removed the brass part, dropping it in a large box +at her right. She kept a small bin on the table at +the left of the press filled with parts she was to work +on. Around the sides of the floor were the table +workers—girls adjusting parts by hand, or soldering.</p> + +<p>The other third of the floor was taken up with the +machine presses, which mostly clicked away cutting +patterns in the brass parts to hold the lamp chimney. +In a far corner were the steaming, bleaching +tubs where dull, grimy brass parts were immersed +in several preparations, I don't know what, to +emerge at last shining like the noonday sun.</p> + +<p>The cold little girl with no hat, a strange, somewhat +unsociable, new person, and I stood there +waiting one hour. Some one took our names. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> +experienced feeling when they asked me where I +had worked last and how long was I there, and why +did I leave! At the end of an hour the forelady +beckoned me—such a neat, sweet person as she was—and +I took my initial whack at a foot press. If ever +I do run an automobile the edge of first enjoyment is +removed. A Rolls-Royce cannot make me feel any +more pleased with life than the first ten minutes of +that foot press. In ten minutes the job was all done +and there I sat for an hour and a half waiting for +another. Hard on a person with the foot-press fever. +The times and times later I would gratefully have +taken any part of that hour and a half to ease my +weary soul!</p> + +<p>Be it known, if I speak feelingly at times of the +weariness of a foot press, that, though nothing as to +size, I am a very husky person—perhaps the healthiest +of the eight million women in industry! It was +a matter of paternal dismay that I arrived in the +world female instead of male. What Providence had +overlooked, mortal ability would do everything possible +to make up for—so argued a disappointed +father. From four years of age on I was taught to +do everything a boy could or would do; from jumping +off cars while they were moving to going up in a +balloon. A good part of my life I have played tennis +and basketball and hockey, and swum, and climbed +mountains, and ridden horseback, and rowed, and +fished. I do not know what it is to have an ache or +a pain from one end of the year to the other. All of +which is mentioned merely because if certain work<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> +taxes my strength, who seldom has known what it +is to be weary, what can it do to the average factory +worker, often without even a fighting physical chance +from birth on?</p> + +<p>The jobs on our third floor where the girls and +women worked concerned themselves with lamps—the +old-fashioned kind, city folks are apt to think. +Yet goodness knows we seemed during even my sojourn +to make more lamp parts than creation ever +had used in the heyday of lamps. Well, all but five +per cent of farm women still use kerosene lamps, so +the government tells us. Also fat Lizzie informed +me, when I asked her who in the world could ever use +just them lamp cones I made some one particular +day, “Lor', child, they send them lamps all over the +world!” She made a majestic sweep with both arms. +“Some of 'em goes as far—as far—as <i>Philadelphia</i>!” +Once we were working on a rush order for fifty thousand +lamps of one certain kind. Curiosity got the +better of me and I took occasion to see where the +boxes were being addressed. It was to a large mail-order +house in Chicago.</p> + +<p>The first noon whistle—work dropped—a rush for +the washroom. Let no one think his hands ever +were dirty until he labors at a foot press in a brassworks. +Such sticky, grimy, oily, rough blackness +never was—and the factory supplies no soap nor +towels. You are expected to bring your own—which +is all right the second day when you have found it +out and come prepared.</p> + +<p>The third floor had seemed dark and dismal enough<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> +during the morning; at noon all lights are turned off. +Many of the workers went out for lunch, the rest got +around in dismal corners, most of them singly, and +ate by their machines, on the same hard seats they +have been on since a quarter to 8. What a bacchanal +festival of color and beauty now appeared +the candy-factory whitewashed lunch room with the +marble-topped tables! The airy sociability of it! +I wandered about with my lunch in my hand, to see +what I could see. Up amid the belts and power +machines sat one of the girls who began that morning—not +the cold, hatless one.</p> + +<p>“You gonna stick it out?” she asked me.</p> + +<p>“Sure. I guess it's all right.”</p> + +<p>“Oh gee! Ain't like no place I ever worked yet. +Don't catch me standin' this long.”</p> + +<p>She did stand it four days. Minnie suggested then +she stick it out till Christmas. “You'll need the +money for Christmas y'know, an' you might not get +the next job so easy now.”</p> + +<p>“Damn Christmas!” was all the new girl had to +say to that.</p> + +<p>“Sure now,” said Irish Minnie, “an' she's takin +her chances. It's an awful disgrace y'know, to be +gettin' presents when y'ain't got none to give back. +Ain't it, now? I'd never take no chances on a job +so close to Christmas.”</p> + +<p>I talked to five girls that noon. None of them had +been there longer than a week. None of them +planned to stay.</p> + +<p>All afternoon I worked the foot press at one job.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> +My foot-press enthusiasm weakened—four thousand +times I “kicked”—two thousand lamp-wick slots I +make in the cones. Many of the first five hundred +looked a bit sad and chewed at. The “boss” came +by and saw that I was not one hundred per cent perfect. +He gave me pointers and I did better. Each cone got +placed over a slanted form just so; kick, and half the +slot is made. Lift the cone up a wee bit, twist it +round to an exact position, hold it in place, kick, and +the other half is cut. The kick must be a stout kick—bing! +down hard, to make a clean job of it. The +thing they gave you to sit on! A high, narrow, homemade-looking, +wooden stool, the very hardest article +of furniture under the blue canopy of heaven. Some +of them had little, narrow, straight backs—just +boards nailed on behind. All of them were top heavy +and fell over if you got off without holding on. By +4.30 standing up at the candy job seemed one of the +happiest thoughts on earth. What rosy good old +days those were! Dear old candy factory! Happy +girls back there bending over the chocolates!</p> + +<p>Next sat Louisa, an Italian girl who stuttered, and +I had to stop my press to hear her. She stopped hers +to talk. She should worry. It's the worst job she ever +saw, and for thirteen dollars a week why should she +work? She talked to me, kicked a few times, got a drink, +kicked, talked, stood up and stretched, kicked, talked, +got another drink. She is married, has a baby a year +old, another coming in three months. She will stay +her week out, then she goes, you bet. Her husband +was getting fifty dollars a week in a tailor job—no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> +work now for t-t-t-two months. He does a little +now and then in the b-b-barber business. Oh, but +life was high while the going was good! She leaned +way over and told me in a hushed, inspired tone, to +leave me awestruck, “When we was m-m-married we +t-t-took a h-h-h-honeymoon!” I gasped and wanted +details. To West Virginia they'd gone for a month. +The fare alone, each way, had come to ten dollars +apiece, and then they did no work for that month, +but lived in a little hotel. Her husband was crazy +of her, and she was of him now, but not when she +was married. He's very good to her. After dinner +every single night they go to a show.</p> + +<p>“Every night?”</p> + +<p>“Sure, every night, and Sundays two times.”</p> + +<p>It all sounded truly glowing.</p> + +<p>“You married?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“Well, don' you do it. Wish I wasn't married. +Oh gee! Wish I wasn't married. I'm crazy of my +husband, but I wish I wasn't married. See—once +you married—pisht!—there you are—stay that way.”</p> + +<p>I agreed I was in no hurry about matrimony.</p> + +<p>“Hurry? Na, no hurry; that's right. The h-h-hurrier +you are the b-b-b-badder off you get!”</p> + +<p>The next morning the Italian girl was late. The +forelady gave her locker to some one else. Such a +row! Louisa said: “I got mad, I did. I told her to +go to hell. That's only w-w-w-way anybody gets +anything in this world—get mad and say you go to +h-h-hell. Betcha.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>A little later the forelady, when the Italian was on +one of her trips after a drink, leaned over and gave +me her side of the story. She is such a very nice +person, our forelady—quiet, attractive, neat as a +pin. Her sister addresses boxes and does clerical +work of one sort or another. Two subdued old maids +they are; never worked any place but right on our +third floor. “Ain't like what it used to be,” she told +me. “In the old days girls used to work here till +they got married. We used to have parties here +and, say! they was nice girls in them days. Look at +'em now! Such riffraff! New ones comin' in all the +time, new ones worse each time. Riffraff, that's +what they are. It sure looks nice to see a girl like +you.” (What good were the earrings doing?) “We'll +make it just as nice here for you as we can.” (Oh, how +guilty I began to feel!)</p> + +<p>She looked around to see if the Italian was about.</p> + +<p>“Now you take this Eyetalian girl next to you. +Gee! she's some fright. Oughtta heard her this +morning. 'Spected me to keep her locker for her +when she was late. How'd I know she was comin' +back? I gave it to another girl. She comes tearin' +at me. 'What the hell you think you're doin'?' +she says to me. Now I ain't used to such talk, and +I was for puttin' my hat and coat on right then and +there and walkin' out. I must say I gotta stand all +sorts of things in my job. It's awful what I gotta +put up with. I never says nothin' to her. But any +girl's a fool 'l talk to a person that way. Shows she's +got nothin' up here [knocking her head] or she sure'd<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> +know better than get the forelady down on her like +that. Gee! I was mad!”</p> + +<p>Louisa returned and Miss Hibber moved on. +“Some fright, that forelady,” remarked Louisa. +That night Louisa departed for good.</p> + +<p>The second day I kicked over six thousand times. +It seemed a lot when you think of the hard stool. +It was a toss between which was the worse, the stool +or the air. This afternoon, I was sure it must be +3.30. I looked back at the clock—1.10. It had +seemed like two hours of work and it was forty minutes. +No ventilation whatever in that whole room—not +a crack of air. Wonder if there ever was any +since the place was built decades ago. Once Louisa +and I became desperate and got Tony to open a +window. The forelady had a fit; so did Tillie. +Both claimed they'd caught cold.</p> + +<p>Tony is the Louis of the brassworks. He is young +and very lame—one leg considerably shorter than +the other. It makes me miserable to see him packing +heavy boxes about. He told me he must get another +job or quit. Finally they did put him at a small +machine press. So many maimed and halt and decrepit +as they employed about the works! Numbers +of the workers were past-telling old, several were +very lame, one errand boy had a fearfully deformed +face, one was cross-eyed. I remarked to Minnie +that the boss of the works must have a mighty +good heart. Minnie has been working twenty-three +years and has had the bloom of admiration for +her fellow-beings somewhat worn off in that time.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> +“Hm!” grunted Minnie. “He gets 'em cheaper +that way, I guess.”</p> + +<p>The elevator man is no relation to the one at the +candy factory. He is red faced and grinning, most +of his teeth are gone, and he always wears a derby +hat over one eye. One morning I was late. He +jerked his head and thumb toward the elevator. +“Come on, I'll give ya a lift up!” and when we +reached our floor, though it was the men's side, +“Third Avenue stop!” he called out cheerily, and +grinned at the world. He had been there for years. +The boss on our floor had been there for years—forty-three, +to be exact. Miss Hibber would not tell +how many years she had worked there, nor would +Tillie. Tillie said she was born there.</p> + +<p>If it were only the human element that counted, +everyone would stay at the brassworks forever. I +feel like a snake in the grass, walking off “on them” +when they all were so nice. Nor was it for a moment +the “dearie” kind of niceness that made you feel it +was orders from above. From our floor boss down, +they were people who were born to treat a body +square. All the handicaps against them—the work +itself, the surroundings, the low pay—had so long +been part of their lives, these “higher ups” seemed +insensible to the fact that such things were handicaps.</p> + +<p>To-day was sunny and the factory not so dark—in +fact, part of the time we worked with no electric +lights. The crisp early morning air those four blocks +from the Subway to the factory—it sent the spring +fever through the blood. In the gutter of that dirty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> +East Side street a dirty East Side man was burning +garbage. The smoke curled up lazily. The sun just +peeping up over the hospital at the end of the street +made slanting shafts through the smoke. As I +passed by it suddenly was no longer the East Side +of New York City....</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Now the Four Way Lodge is open,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now the hunting winds are loose,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now the smokes of spring go up to clear the brain....<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Breakfast in a cañon by the side of a stream—the +odor of pines.... The little bobbing doors went to +behind me and there I stood in floor three, the stale +gas and metal smell ... the whirs of the belts ... the +jarring of the presses....</p> + +<p>Next to me this glorious morning sat a snip of a +little thing all in black—so pretty she was, so very +pretty. I heard the boss tell her it's not the sort of +work she's been used to, she'll find it hard. Is she +sure she wants to try it? And in the course of the +morning I heard the story of Mame's life.</p> + +<p>Mame's husband died three weeks ago. They had +been married one month and two days—after waiting +three years. Shall I write a story of Mame on the +sob-sister order to bring the tears to your eyes? It +could easily be done. But not honestly. Little +Mame—how could her foot ever reach the press? +And when she walked off after a drink, I saw that +she was quite lame. A widow only three weeks. +She'd never worked before, but there was no money. +She lived all alone, wandered out for her meals—no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> +mother, no father, no sisters or brothers. She cried +every night. Her husband had been a traveling +salesman—sometimes he made eighty-five dollars a +week. They had a six-room apartment and a servant! +She'd met him at a dance hall. A girl she +was with had dared her to wink at him. Sure she'd +do anything anybody dared her to. He came over +and asked her what she was after, anyhow. That +night he left the girl he'd taken to the dance hall to +pilot her own way back to home and mother, and he +saw Mame to her room. He was swell and tall. +She showed me his picture in a locket around her +neck. Meanwhile Mame kicked the foot press about +twice every five minutes.</p> + +<p>Why had they waited so long to get married? +Because of the war. He was afraid he'd be killed +and would leave her a widow. “He asked me to +promise never to get married again if he did marry +me and died. But,”—she leaned over my way—“that +only meant if he died during the war, ain't +that so? Lookit how long the war was over before he +died.”</p> + +<p>He was awful good to her after they got married. +He took her to a show every night—jes swell; and +she had given him a swell funeral—you bet she did. +The coffin had cost eighty-five dollars—white with +real silver handles; and the floral piece she bought—“Gee! +What's your name?... Connie, you oughtta +seen that floral piece!” and Mame laid off work altogether +to use her hands the better. It was shaped so, +and in the middle was a clock made out of flowers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> +with the hands at the very minute and hour he'd +died. (He passed away of a headache—very sudden.) +Then below, in clay, were two clasped hands—his +and hers. “Gee! Connie, you never seen nothin' so +swell. Everybody seen it said so.”</p> + +<p>Once he bought her a white evening dress, low +neck, fish-tail train, pearls all over the front—cost +him one whole week's salary, eighty-five dollars! +She had diamond earrings and jewels worth at least +one thousand dollars. She had lovely clothes. +Couldn't she just put a black band around the arms +and go on wearing them? She took a look at my earrings. +Gee! they were swell. She had some green +ones herself. Next morning she appeared in her +widow's weeds with bright-green earrings at least a +quarter of an inch longer than mine.</p> + +<p>From the first Mame clung to me morning and +night. Usually mornings she threw her arms around +me in the dressing room. “Here's my Connie!” I +saw myself forced to labor in the brassworks for life +because of Mame's need of me. This need seemed +more than spiritual. One day her pocketbook with +twelve dollars had been stolen in the Subway. I +lent her some cash. Another time she left her money +at the factory. I lent her the wherewithal to get home +with, etc. One day I was not at work. Somehow the +other girls all were down on Mame. I have pondered +much on that. When it came to the needed collection +Mame found it hard pickings. She got a penny +from this girl, another from that one, until she had +made up a nickel to get home with. Irish Minnie<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> +gave her a sandwich and an apple. The girls all +jumped on me: “The way you let that Frenchie +work ya! Gee! you believe everything anybody tells +ya.”</p> + +<p>“But,” says I, “she's been a widow only three +weeks and I'm terrible sorry for her.”</p> + +<p>“How d'ya know she ever had a husband?” +“How d'ya know he's dead?” “How'd ya....”</p> + +<p>The skepticism of factory workers appals me. +They suspect everybody and everything from the +boss down. I believed almost everything about +Mame, especially since she paid back all she ever +borrowed. No one else in that factory believed a +word she said. They couldn't “stand her round.”</p> + +<p>“How d'ya know she lost her pocketbook?” +(Later she advertised and got it back—a doctor's +wife found it on the early Subway.)</p> + +<p>“Doctor's wife,” sniffed Minnie. “Who ever heard +of a doctor's wife up at seven o'clock in the mornin'?”</p> + +<p>And now I have walked off and left Mame to that +assemblage of unbelievers. At least Mame has a +tongue of her own she is only too glad of a chance +to use. It is meat and drink to Mame to have a +man look her way. “Did you see that fella insult +me?” and she calls back protective remarks for half +a block. Sentiments that usually bring in mention +of the entertained youth's mother and sisters, and +wind up with allusions to a wife, which if he doesn't +possess now, he may some day. Once I stopped +with Mame while she and Irene phoned a “fella” +of Irene's from a drug-store telephone booth. Such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> +gigglings and goings on, especially since the “fella” +was unknown to Mame at the time. Outside in the +store a pompous, unromantic man grew more and +more impatient for a turn at that booth. When +Mame stepped out he remarked casually that he +hoped she felt she'd gotten five cents' worth. The +dressing down Mame then and there heaped upon +that startled gentleman! Who was he to insult her? +I grew uneasy and feared a scene, but the pompous +party took hasty refuge in the telephone booth and +closed the door. Mame was very satisfied with the +impression she must have made. “The fresh old +guy!”</p> + +<p>Another time Mame sought me out in the factory, +her eyes blazing. “Connie, I been insulted, horribly +insulted, and I don't see how I can stay in this +factory! You know that girl Irene? Irene she +says to me, 'Mamie, you plannin' to get married +again?'</p> + +<p>“'I dunno,' I says to her, 'but if I do it'll be to +some single fella.'</p> + +<p>“'Huh!' Irene says to me, 'You won't get no single +fella; you'll have to marry a widower with two or +three children.' Think of her insultin' me like that! +I could 'a' slapped her right in the face!”</p> + +<p>I asked Mame one Saturday what she'd be doing +Sunday. She sighed. “I'll be spendin' the day at the +cemetery, I expect.”</p> + +<p>Monday morning I asked Mame about Sunday. +She'd been to church in the morning (Mame, like +most of the girls at the brassworks, was a Catholic),<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> +a show in the afternoon, cabaret for dinner, had +danced till 1, and played poker until 4 <small>A.M.</small> “If only +my husband was alive,” said Mame, “I'd be the +happiest girl on earth.”</p> + +<p>One night Mame's landlady wanted to go out and +play poker. She asked Mame to keep her eye and +ear out for the safety of the house. Every five minutes +Mame thought she heard a burglar or somethin'. +“Gee! I hardly slept at all; kep' wakin' up all the +time. An' that landlady never got in till six this +mornin'!”</p> + +<p>“My Gawd!” I exclaimed. “Hope she was lucky +after playin' poker that long!”</p> + +<p>“She sure was,” sighed Mame. “Gee! I jus' wish +ya c'u'd see the swell prize she won!—the most +beau-teful statue—stands about three feet high—of +Our Blessed Lady of the Immaculate Conception.”</p> + +<p>Mame's friendship could become almost embarrassing. +One day she announced she wanted me to +marry one of her brothers-in-law. “I got two nice +ones and we'll go out some Sunday afternoon and +you can have your pick. One's a piano tuner; the +other's a detective.” I thought offhand the piano +tuner sounded a bit more domestic. He was swell, +Mame said.</p> + +<p>Mame didn't think she'd stay long in the brassworks. +It was all right—the boss she thought was +sort of stuck on her. Did he have a wife? (The boss, +at least sixty years old.) Also Charlie was making +eyes at her. (Charlie was French; so was Mame. +Charlie knew six words of English. Mame three<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> +words of French. Charlie was sixteen). No, aside +from matrimony, Mame was going to train in Bellevue +Hospital and earn sixty dollars a week being a children's +nurse. She'd heard if you got on the right side +of a doctor it was easy, and already a doctor was +interested in getting Mame in.</p> + +<p>And I've just walked off and left Mame.</p> + + +<p class="thought">Kicked the foot press 7,149 times by the meter +to-day and expected to die of weariness. Thumped, +thumped, thumped without stopping. As with +candy, I got excited about going on piecework. Asked +Miss Hibber what the rates were for my job—four +and a half cents for one hundred and fifty. Since +I had to kick twice for every cone top finished, that +would have meant around one dollar fifteen cents for +the day. Vanished the piece-rate enthusiasm. Tillie +seemed the only girl on our floor doing piecework. +Tillie, who “was born there.” She was thin and +stoop shouldered, wore spectacles, and did her hair +according to the pompadour styles of some twenty +years ago. The work ain't so bad. Tillie don't mind +it. There's just one thing in the world Tillie wants. +What's that? “A man!” Evidently Tillie has made +no bones of her desire. The men call back kindly to +Tillie as she picks her way up the dark stairs in the +morning, “Hello there, sweetheart!” That week +had been a pretty good one for Tillie—she'd made +sixteen dollars forty-nine cents.</p> + +<p>“Ain't much, p'raps, one way, but there's jus' +this about it, it's steady. They never lay anybody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> +off here, and there's a lot. You hear these girls 'round +here talk about earnin' four, five, six dollars a day. +Mebbe they did, but why ain't they gettin' it now? +'Shop closed down,' or, 'They laid us off.' That's it. +Add it up over a year and my sixteen forty-nine'll +look big as their thirty dollars to forty dollars a week, +see if it don't.”</p> + +<p>Tillie's old, fat, wheezy mother works on our floor—maybe +Tillie really was born there.</p> + +<p>One day I decided to see what could be done if I +went the limit. Suppose I had a sick mother and a +lame brother—a lot of factory girls have. I was on +a press where you had to kick four separate times on +each piece—small lamp cones, shaped, slot already +in. My job was to punch four holes for the brackets +to hold the chimney. The day before I had kicked +over 10,000 times. This morning I gritted my teeth +and started in. Between 10 and 11 I had gotten up +to 2,000 kicks an hour. Miss Hibber went by and I +asked her what piece rates for that machine were. +She said six and one-quarter cents for one hundred +and fifty. I did not stop then to do any figuring. +Told her rather chestily I could kick 2,000 times an +hour. “That all? You ought to do much more than +that!” Between 11 and 12 I worked as I had never +worked. It was humanly impossible to kick that +machine oftener than I did. Never did I let my eyes +or thoughts wander. When the whistle blew at 12 +I had kicked 2,689. For a moment I figured. It +takes about an hour in the morning to get on to the +swing. From 11 to 12 was always my best output.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> +After lunch was invariably deadly. From 12.30 +until 2.30 it seemed impossible to get up high speed. +That left at best 2.30 to 4 for anything above average +effort. From 4 to 5 it was hard again on account of +physical weariness. But say I could average 2,500 +an hour during the day. That would have brought +me in, four kicks to each cone, around two dollars +and a quarter a day. The fact of the matter was +that after kicking 8,500 times that morning I gave +up the ghost as far as that job went. I ached body +and soul. By that time I had been on that one job +several days and was sick to death of it. Each cone +I picked up to punch those four holes in made something +rub along my backbone or in the pit of my +stomach or in my head—or in all of them at once. +Yet the old woman next me had been at her same job +for over a week. The last place she'd worked she'd +done the identical thing six months—preferred it to +changing around. Most of the girls took that attitude. +Up to date that is the most amazing thing I +have learned from my factory experiences—the +difference between my attitude toward a monotonous +job, and the average worker's. In practically every +case the girl has actually preferred the monotonous +job to one with any variety. The muscles in my legs +ached so I could almost have shed tears. The day +before I had finished at 5 tired out. That morning +I had wakened up tired—the only time in my life. +I could hardly kick at all the first half hour. There +was a gnawing sort of pain between my shoulders. +Suppose I really had been on piecework and had to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> +keep up at that breaking rate, only to begin the next +morning still more worn out? My Gawd!</p> + +<p>Most of the girls kick with the same leg all the time. +I tried changing off now and then. With the four-hole +machine, using the left leg meant sitting a little +to the right side. Also I tried once using my left +hand to give the right a rest. Thus the boss observed +me.</p> + +<p>“Now see here, m'girl, why don't you do things +the way you're taught? That ain't the right way!”</p> + +<p>He caught me at the wrong moment. I didn't +care whether the earth opened up and swallowed me.</p> + +<p>“I know the right way of runnin' this machine +good as you do,” I fairly glared at him. “I'm sick +and tired of doin' it the right way, and if I want to +do it wrong awhile for a change I guess I can!”</p> + +<p>“You ain't goin' to get ahead in this world if you +don't do things <i>right</i>, m'girl.” And he left me to my +fate.</p> + +<p>At noon that day the girls got after me. “You're +a fool to work the way you do. You never took a +drink all this mornin'—jus' sit there kickin', kickin', +kickin'. Where d'ya think ya goin' to land? In a +coffin, that's where. The boss won't thank ya for +killin' yourself on his old foot press, neither. You're +jus' a fool, workin' like that.” And that's just what +I decided. “Lay off now and then.” Yes indeed, I +was going to lay off now and then.</p> + +<p>“I see myself breakin' my neck for thirteen dollars +a week,” Bella chipped in.</p> + +<p>“You said it!” from all the others.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p> + +<p>So I kicked over 16,000 times that day and let +it go as my final swan song. No more breaking +records for me. My head thumped, thumped, +thumped all that night. After that I strolled up +front for a drink and a gossip or back to a corner +of the wash room where two or three were sure to be +squatting on some old stairs, fussing over the universe. +When the boss was up on the other end of the +floor, sometimes I just sat at my machine and did +nothing. It hurt something within my soul at first, +but my head and hands and legs and feet and neck +and general disposition felt considerably better.</p> + +<p>Lunch times suited me exactly at the brassworks, +making me feel I was getting what I was after. +Three of us used to gather around Irish Minnie, put +two stools lengthwise on the floor, and squat along +the sides. Bella, who'd worked in Detroit for seven +dollars a day (her figures), a husky good-looking +person; Rosie, the prettiest little sixteen-year-old +Italian girl; and I. Such conversations! One day +they unearthed Harry Thaw and Evelyn Nesbit and +redid their past, present, and probable future. We +discussed whether Olive Thomas had really committed +suicide or died of an overdose of something. +How many nights a week could a girl dance and +work next day? Minnie was past her dancing days. +She'd been married 'most twenty years and was +getting fat and unformed-looking; shuffled about in +a pair of old white tennis shoes and a pink boudoir +cap. (No one else wore a cap at the brassworks.) +Minnie had worked fifteen years at a power press,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> +eleven years at her last job. She was getting the +generous stipend of fourteen dollars a week (one +dollar more than the rest of us). She had earned as +much as twenty-five dollars a week in her old job +at the tin can company, piecework. Everybody +about the factory told her troubles to Minnie, who +immediately told them to everybody else. It made +for a certain community interest. One morning +Minnie would tell me, as I passed her machine, +“Rosie 'n' Frank have had a fight.” With that cue +it was easy to appear intelligent concerning future +developments. Frank was one of the machinists, an +Italian. Rosie had let him make certain advances—put +his arm around her and all that—but she told us +one lunch time, “he'd taken advantage of her,” so +she just sassed him back now. Bella announced +Frank was honeying around her. “Well, watch +out,” Rosie advised, with the air of Bella's greataunt.</p> + +<p>As to dancing, Bella's chum in Detroit used to go +to a dance every single night and work all day. +Sundays she'd go to a show and a dance. Bella tried +it one week and had to lay off three days of the next +week before she could get back to work. Lost her +twenty-one dollars. No more of that for Bella. Just +once in a while was enough for her.</p> + +<p>They did not talk about “vamping dopes” at the +brassworks. Everyone asked you if you were “keepin' +company,” and talked of fellas and sweethearts +and intended husbands. That was the scale. As +before, all the married ones invariably advised +against matrimony. Irish Minnie told us one lunch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> +time that it was a bad job, this marrying business. +“Of course,” she admitted, pulling on a piece of +roast pork with her teeth, “my husband ain't what +you'd call a <i>bad</i> man.” That was as far as Minnie +cared to go.</p> + +<p>Perhaps one reason why the brassworks employed +so many crooked and decrepit was as an efficiency +measure. The few males who were whole caused so +many flutterings among the female hands that it +seriously interfered with production. Rosie's real +cause for turning Frank down was that she was +after Good Lookin'. Good Lookin' would not have +been so good lookin' out along the avenue, but in +the setting of our third floor he was an Adonis. +Rosie worked a power press. I would miss the clank +of her machine. There she would be up in the corner +of the floor where Good Lookin' worked. Good +Lookin' would go for a drink. Rosie would get +thirsty that identical moment. They would carry +on an animated conversation, to be rudely broken +into by a sight of the boss meandering up their way. +Rosie would make a dash for her machine, Good +Lookin' would saunter over to his.</p> + + +<p class="thought">From the start I had pestered the boss to be allowed +on a power press, for two reasons: one just +because I wanted to—the same reason why a small +boy wants to work at machinery; secondly, I wanted +to be able to pose at the next job as an experienced +power-press worker and sooner or later get a high-power +machine. One day the boss was watching me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> +at the foot press. “Y'know, m'girl, I think you +really got intelligence, blessed if I don't. I'm goin' +to push you right ahead. I'll make a machinist out +of you yet, see if I don't. You stay right on here +and you'll be making big money yet.” (Minnie—eleven +years in her last job—fourteen dollars a week +now.) Anyway, one morning he came up—and that +morning foot presses of every description had lost +all fascination for me—and he said, “You still want +a power press?”</p> + +<p>“Bet your life I do!”</p> + +<p>And he gave me a power press deserted that morning +by one of the boys. Life looked worth living +again. All I had to do to work miracles was press +ever so lightly a pedal. The main point was to get +my foot off it as quick as I got it on, or there was +trouble. I wasn't to get my fingers here or there, or +“I'd never play the piano in this life.” If the belt +flew off I wasn't to grab it, or I'd land up at the +ceiling. For the rest, I merely clamped a round piece +on the top of a nail-like narrow straight piece—the +part that turned the lamp wick up and down. Hundreds +and thousands of them I made. The monotony +did not wear on me there; it was mixed with +no physical exertion. I could have stayed on at the +brassworks the rest of my life—perhaps.</p> + +<p>One night I was waiting at a cold, windy corner on +Fifth Avenue for a bus. None came. A green +Packard limousine whirled by. The chauffeur waved +and pointed up the Avenue. In a flash I thought, +now if I really were a factory girl I'd surely jump at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> +a chance to ride in that green Packard. Up half a +block I ran, and climbed in the front seat, as was +expected of me. He was a very nice chauffeur. +His mistress, “the old lady,” was at a party and he +was killing time till 11.30. Would I like to ride till +then? No, I wanted to get home—had to be up too +early for joy riding. Why so early? The factory. +And before I realized it there I sat, the factory girl. +Immediately he asked me to dinner any night I said. +Now I really thought it would be worth doing; no +one else I knew had been out to dine with a chauffeur. +Where would he take me? What would he talk +about? But my nerve failed me. No, I didn't think +I'd go. I fussed about for some excuse. I was sort +of new in New York—out West, it was different. +There you could pick up with anybody, go any place. +“Good Gawd! girl,” said the chauffeur, earnestly, +“don't try that in New York; you'll get in awful +trouble!” All through Central Park he gave me +advice about New York and the pitfalls it contained +for a Westerner. He'd be very careful about me if +I'd go out with him, any place I said, and he'd get +me home early as I said. But I didn't say. I'd have +to think it over. He could telephone to me. No, he +couldn't. The lady I lived with was very particular. +Well, anyhow, stormy days he'd see to it he'd be +down by the factory and bring me home. Would I +be dressed just the way I was then? Just the way—green +tam and all.</p> + +<p>The next day while I thumped out lamp parts I +tried to screw my courage up to go out with that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> +chauffeur. Finally I decided to put it up to the +girls. I meandered back to the wash room. There on +the old stairs sat Irish Minnie and Annie, fat and +ultradignified. They were discussing who the father +of the child really was. I breezed in casually.</p> + +<p>“Vamped a chauffeur last night.”</p> + +<p>“Go-an.”</p> + +<p>“Sure. He asked me to ride home with him an' I +did.”</p> + +<p>“Got in the machine with him?”</p> + +<p>“Sure!”</p> + +<p>“You <i>fool</i>! You young <i>fool</i>!”</p> + +<p>Goodness! I was unprepared for such comment.</p> + +<p>“What did he do to ya?”</p> + +<p>“Nothin'. An' he wants me to go to dinner with +him. What'll I say?”</p> + +<p>Both pondered. “Sure,” said Minnie, “I b'lieve +in a girl gettin' all that's comin' to her, but all I want +to tell ya is, chauffeurs are a bad lot—the worst, I +tell ya.”</p> + +<p>“You said it!” nodded fat Annie, as if years of +harrowing experience lay behind her. “He was all +right to ya the first time so as to lure you out the +next.”</p> + +<p>“But,” says Minnie, “if ya go to dinner with him, +don't you go near his machine. Steer clear of machines. +Eat all ya can off him, but don't do no +ridin'.”</p> + +<p>“You said it!” again Annie backed her up. Annie +was a regular sack slinger. She could have hurled +two men off Brooklyn Bridge with one hand. “If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> +you was as big an' strong as me you c'u'd take 'most +any chance. I'd like to see a guy try to pull anythin' +on me.” I'd like to see him, too.</p> + +<p>“Some day”—Minnie wanted to drive her advice +home by concrete illustration—“some day a chauffeur'll +hold a handkerchief under your nose with +somethin' on it. When ya come to, goodness knows +where you'll be.”</p> + +<p>I began to feel a little as if I'd posed as too innocent.</p> + +<p>“You see, out West—” I began.</p> + +<p>“My Gawd!”—Minnie waved a hand scornfully—“don't +be tryin' to tell me all men are angels out +West.”</p> + +<p>Just then Miss Hibber poked her head in and we +suddenly took ourselves out.</p> + +<p>“You go easy, now,” Minnie whispered after me.</p> + +<p>I lacked the nerve, anyhow, and they put on the +finishing touches. A bricklayer would not have been +so bad. How did I know the chauffeur was not +working for a friend of mine? That, later on, would +make it more embarrassing for him than me. I +should think he would want to wring my neck.</p> + +<p>It was about time to find a new job, anyhow. But +leaving the brassworks is like stopping a novel in the +middle. What about Rosie and good looking +Bella and her brother she was trying to rescue from +the grip of the poolroom? Mame—Mame and her +kaleidoscope romances, insults, and adventures? I +just hate walking off and leaving it all. And the +boss and Miss Hibber so nice to me about everything.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p> + +<p>Before a week is gone Minnie will be telling in an +awed voice that she knows what happened. She told +me not to go out with that chauffeur. I went, anyhow, +and they found my mangled body in the gutter +in Yonkers.</p> + + + +<h3><a name="III" id="III"></a>III<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></h3> + +<h4><i>195 Irons “Family”</i></h4> + + +<p class="newchapter"><span class="firstword"><span class="dropcap">H</span>ow</span> long, I wonder, does one study or work at +anything before one feels justified in generalizing?</p> + +<p>I have been re-reading of late some of the writings +of some of the women who at one time or another +essayed to experience first hand the life of the working +girl. They have a bit dismayed me. Is it exactly +fair, what they do? They thought, because they +changed their names and wore cheap clothes, that, +presto! they were as workers and could pass on to an +uninformed reading public the trials of the worker. +(Incidentally they were all trials.) I had read in the +past those heartrending books and articles and found +it ever difficult to hold back the tears. Sometimes +they were written by an immigrant, a bona-fide +worker. The tragedy of such a life in this business-ridden +land of ours tore one's soul.</p> + +<p>An educated, cultured individual, used to a life +of ease, or easier, if she had wished to make it that, +would find the life of the factory worker well-nigh +unbearable. An emotional girl longing for the higher +things of life would find factory life galling beyond +words. It is to be regretted that there are not more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> +educated and cultured people—that more folk do not +long for the higher things of life—that factory work +is not galling to everybody. But the fact seems to +be, if we dare generalize, that there are a very great +many persons in this world who are neither educated +nor “cultured” nor filled with spiritual longings. +The observation might be made that all such are not +confined to the working classes; that the country at +large, from Fifth Avenue, New York, to Main Street, +Gopher Prairie, to Market Street, San Francisco, +is considerably made up of folk who are not educated +or “cultured” or of necessity filled with unsatiable +longings of the soul.</p> + +<p>It is partly due to the fact that only recently—as +geologic time is reckoned—we were swinging in +trees, yearning probably for little else than a nut to +crack, a mate, a shelter of sorts, something of ape +company, and now and then a chance for a bit of a +scrap. It is partly due to the fact that for the great +majority of people, the life they live from the cradle +up is not the sort that matures them with a growing +ambition or opportunity to experience the “finer” +things of life. One point of view would allow that the +reason we have so few educated, cultured, and aspiring +people is due to a combination of unfortunate +circumstances to do with heredity and environment. +They would be cultured and spiritual if only....</p> + +<p>The other viewpoint argues that the only reason +we have as many cultured and spiritual people as +we have is due to a fortunate—“lucky”—combination +of circumstances to do with heredity and environment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> +These more advanced folk would be far fewer +in number if it had not happened that....</p> + +<p>It is mostly the “educated and cultured” persons +who write the more serious books we read and who +tell us what they and the rest of the world think +and feel and do—or ought to do. The rest of the +world never read what they ought to think and +feel and do, and go blithely—or otherwise—on their +way thinking and feeling and doing—what they +please, or as circumstances force them.</p> + +<p>After all, the world is a very subjective thing, and +what makes life worth living to one person is not +necessarily what makes it worth living to another. +Certain fundamental things everybody is apt to want: +enough to eat (but what a gamut that “enough” can +run!); a mate (the range and variety of mates who +do seem amply to satisfy one another!); a shelter +to retire to nights (what a bore if we all had to live +complacently on the Avenue!); children to love and +fuss over—but one child does some parents and ten +children do others, and some mothers go into a decline +if everything is not sterilized twice a day and +everybody clean behind the ears, and other mothers +get just as much satisfaction out of their young when +there is only one toothbrush, if that, for everybody +(we are writing from the mother's viewpoint and not +the welfare of the offspring); some possessions of +one's own, but not all stocks and bonds and a box of +jewels in the bank, or a library, or an automobile, +or even a house and lot, before peace reigns.</p> + +<p>Everyone likes to mingle with his kind now and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> +then; to some it is subjectively necessary to hire a +caterer, to others peanuts suffice. Everyone likes to +wonder and ponder and express opinions—a prize +fight is sufficient material for some; others prefer +metaphysics. Everyone likes to play. Some need +box seats at the Midnight Frolic, others a set of +second-hand tools, and yet others a game of craps in +the kitchen.</p> + +<p>No one likes to be hungry, to be weary, to be sick, +to be worried over the future, to be lonely, to have his +feelings hurt, to lose those near and dear to him, to +have too little independence, to get licked in a scrap +of any kind, to have no one at all who loves him, to +have nothing at all to do. The people of the so-called +working class are more apt to be hungry, +weary, and sick than the “educated and cultured” +and well-to-do. Otherwise there is no one to say—because +there is no way it can be found out—that +their lives by and large are not so rich, subjectively +speaking, as those with one hundred thousand dollars +a year, or with Ph. D. degrees.</p> + +<p>Most folk in the world are not riotously happy, not +because they are poor, or “workers,” but because +the combination making for riotous happiness—shall +we say health, love, enough to do of what one longs +to do—is not often found in one individual. The +condition of the bedding, of the clothing; the pictures +on the wall; the smells in the kitchen—and beyond; +the food on the table—have so much, and no more, to +do with it. Whether one sorts soiled clothes in a +laundry, or reclines on a chaise-longue with thirty-eight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> +small hand-embroidered and belaced pillows +and a pink satin covering, or sits in a library and +fusses over Adam Smith, no one of the three is in a +position to pass judgment on the satisfaction or lack +of satisfaction of the other two.</p> + +<p>All of which is something of an impatient retort to +those who look at the world through their own eyes +and by no means a justification of the <i>status quo</i>. +And to introduce the statement—which a month ago +would have seemed to me incredible—that I have +seen and heard as much contentment in a laundry +as I have in the drawing-room of a Fifth Avenue +mansion or a college sorority house—as much and +no more. Which is not arguing that no improvements +need ever be made in laundries.</p> + + +<p class="thought">There was one place I was not going to work, and +that was a laundry! I had been through laundries, +I had read about laundries, and it was too much to +ask anyone—if it was not absolutely necessary—to +work in a laundry. And yet when the time came, I +hated to leave the laundry. I entered the laundry as +a martyr. I left with the nickname, honestly come +by without a Christian effort, of “Sunbeam.” But, +oh! I have a large disgust upon me that it takes +such untold effort every working day, all over the +“civilized,” world to keep people “civilized.” The +labor, and labor, and labor of first getting cloth +woven and buttons and thread manufactured and +patterns cut and garments made up, and fitted, or +not, and then to keep those garments <i>clean</i>! We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> +talk with such superiority of the fact that we wear +clothes and heathen savages get along with beads +and rushes. For just that some six hundred and fifty +thousand people work six days a week doing laundry +work alone—not to mention mother at the home +washboard—or electric machine. We must be clean, +of course, or we would not be civilized, but I do not +see why we need be so fearfully sot up about it.</p> + +<p>A new Monday morning came along, and I waited +from 7.40 to 9.15 in a six-by-nine entry room, with +some twenty-five men and women, to answer the +advertisement:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="center">GIRLS, OVER 18</p> + +<p style="text-indent: 0em">with public school education, to learn machine ironing, marking, +and assorting linens; no experience necessary; splendid +opportunity for right parties; steady positions; hours 8 to +5.30; half day Saturday.</p></div> + +<p>What the idea was of advertising for superior education +never became clear. No one was asked how +far she had progressed intellectually. I venture to +say the majority of girls there had had no more than +the rudiments of the three r's. It looked well in +print. One of the girls from the brassworks stood +first in line. She had tried two jobs since I saw her +last. She did not try the laundry at all.</p> + +<p>I was third in line. The manager himself interviewed +us inside, since the “Welfare Worker” was +ill. What experience had I? I was experienced in +both foot and power presses. He phoned to the +“family” floor—two vacancies. I was signed up as +press ironer, family. I wouldn't find it so hard as the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> +brassworks—in fact, it really wasn't hard at all. He +would start me in at fourteen dollars a week, since I +was experienced, instead of the usual twelve. At the +end of two weeks, if I wasn't earning more than +fourteen dollars—it was a piecework system, with +fourteen dollars as a minimum—I'd have to go, and +make room for some one who could earn more than +fourteen dollars.</p> + +<p>I wonder if the Welfare Worker would have made +the same speech. That manager was a fraud. On +our floor, at least, no one had ever been known to +earn more than her weekly minimum. He was a +smart fraud. Only I asked too many questions upstairs, +he would have had me working like a slave to +hold my job.</p> + +<p>By the time clock, where I was told to wait, stood +the woman just ahead of me in the line. She was the +first really bitter soul I had run across in factory +work. Her husband had been let out of his job, +along with all workers in his plant, without notice. +After January 1st they might reopen, but at 1914 +wages. There was one child in the family. The +father had hunted everywhere for work. For one +week the mother had searched. She had tried a +shoe polish factory; they put her on gluing labels. +The smell of the glue made her terribly sick to her +stomach—for three days she was forced to stay in +bed. Three times she had tried this laundry. Each +day, after keeping her waiting in line an hour or so, +they had told her to come back the next day. At +last she had gotten as far as the time clock. I saw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> +her several times in the evening line after that; she +was doing “pretty well”—“shaking” on the third +floor. Her arms nearly dropped off by evening, but +she sure was glad of the thirteen dollars a week. Her +husband had found nothing.</p> + +<p>The third to join our time-clock ranks was a +Porto-Rican. She could speak no English at all. +They put her at scrubbing floors for twelve dollars a +week. About 4 that afternoon she appeared on our +floor, all agitated. She needed a Spanish girl there to +tell the boss she was leaving. She was one exercised +piece of temper when it finally penetrated just what +her job was.</p> + +<p>“Family” occupied two-thirds of the sixth and +top floor—the other third was the “lunch room.” +Five flights to walk up every morning. But at least +there was the lunch room without a step up at noon. +And it was worth climbing five flights to have Miss +Cross for a forelady. Sooner or later I must run into +a disagreeable forelady, for the experience. To hear +folks talk, plenty of that kind exist. Miss Cross was +glad I was to be on her floor. She told the manager +and me she'd noticed me that morning in line and +just thought I'd made a good press ironer. Was I +Eyetalian?</p> + +<p>She gave me the second press from the door, right +in front of a window, and a window open at the top. +That was joy for me, but let no one think the average +factory girl consciously pines for fresh air. Miss +Cross ironed the lowers of a pair of pajamas to show +me how it was done, then the coat part. While she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> +was instructing me in such intricacies, she was deftly +finding out all she could about my past, present, and +future—married or single, age, religion, and so on. +And I watched, fascinated, crumpled pajama legs, +with one mighty press of the foot, appear as perfect +and flawless as on the Christmas morning they were +first removed from the holly-decorated box.</p> + +<p>“Now you do it.”</p> + +<p>I took the coat part of a pair of pink pajamas, +smoothed one arm a bit by hand as I laid it out on +the stationary side of the ironing press, shaped somewhat +like a large metal sleeve board. With both +hands I gripped the wooden bar on the upper part, +all metal but the bar. With one foot I put most of +my weight on the large pedal. That locked the hot +metal part on the padded, heated, lower half with a +bang. A press on the release pedal, the top flew up—too +jarringly, if you did not keep hold of the bar +with one hand. That ironed one side of one sleeve. +Turn the other side, press, release. Do the other +sleeve on two sides. Do the shoulders all around—about +four presses and releases to that. Another +to one side of the front—two if it is for a big fat man. +One under the arm, two or three to the back, one +under the other arm, one or two to the other half +of the front, one, two, or three to the collar, depending +on the style. About sixteen clanks pressing down, +sixteen releases flying up, to one gentleman's pajama +coat. I had the hang of it, and was left alone. Then +I combined ironing and seeing what was what. If a +garment was very damp—and most of them were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>—the +press had to be locked several seconds before +being released, to dry it out. During those seconds +one's eyes were free to wander.</p> + +<p>On my left, next the door, worked a colored girl +with shell-rimmed spectacles, very friendly, whose +name was Irma. Of Irma later. On my right was +the most woebegone-looking soul, an Italian widow, +Lucia, in deep mourning—husband dead five weeks, +with two daughters to support. She could not speak +a word of English, and in this country sixteen years. +All this I had from the forelady in between her finding +out everything there was to know about me. Bless +my soul, if Lucia did not perk up the second the forelady +left, edge over, and direct a volume of Italian at +me. What won't green earrings do! Old Mrs. Reilly +called out, “Ach, the poor soul's found a body to +talk to at last!” But, alas! Lucia's hope was short +lived. “What!” called Mrs. Reilly, “you ain't +Eyetalian? Well, you ought to be, now, because you +look it, and because there ought to be somebody +here for Lucy to talk to!” Lucia was diseased-looking +and unkempt-looking and she ironed very +badly. Everyone tried to help her out. They instructed +her with a flow of English. When Lucia +would but shake her head they used the same flow, +only much louder, several at once. Then Lucia +would mumble to herself for several minutes over her +ironing. At times, late in the afternoon, Miss Cross +would grow discouraged.</p> + +<p>“Don't you understand that when you iron a shirt +you put the sleeves over the puffer <i>first</i>?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>Lucia would shake her head and shrug her shoulders +helplessly. Miss Cross would repeat with +vehemence. Then one girl would poke Lucia and +point to the puffer—“Puffer! puffer!” Another +would hold up a shirt and holler “Shirt! shirt!” and +Lucia would nod vaguely. The next shirt she did +as all the others—puffer last, which mussed the +ironed part—until some one stopped her work and +did a whole shirt for Lucia correct, from beginning +to end.</p> + +<p>Next to Lucia stood Fanny, colored. She was a +good-hearted, helpful, young married thing, not over-cleanly +and not overstrong. That first morning she +kept her eye on me and came to my rescue on a new +article of apparel every so often. Next to Fanny +stood the three puffers for anyone to use—oval-shaped, +hot metal forms, for all gathers, whether in +sleeves, waists, skirts, or what not. Each girl had a +large egg-shaped puffer on her own table as well. +Next to the puffers stood the two sewing machines, +where Spanish Sarah and colored Hattie darned and +mended.</p> + +<p>At the side, behind the machines, stood Ida at her +press. All the presses were exactly alike. Ida was a +joy to my eyes. At first glance she appeared just a +colored girl, but Ida was from Trinidad; her skin +was like velvet, her accent Spanish. As the room +grew hot from the presses and the steam, along about +4, and our feet began to burn and grow weary, I +would look at Ida. It was so easy to picture the +exact likes of her, not more than a generation or two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> +ago, squatting under a palm tree with a necklace of +teeth, a ring through her nose, tropic breezes playing +on that velvet skin. (Please, I know naught of +Trinidad or its customs and am only guessing.) And +here stood Ida, thumping, thumping on the ironing +press, nine hours, lacking ten minutes, a day, on the +sixth floor of a laundry in Harlem, that we in Manhattan +might be more civilized.</p> + +<p>Once she told me she had lost fifteen pounds in +this country. “How?”</p> + +<p>“Ah, child,” she said, “it's tha mother sickness. +Don't you ever know it? Back home in Trinidad are +my mother, my father, my two little boys. Oh, tha +sickness to see them! But what is one to do when +you marry a poor man? He must come to this +country to find work, and then, after a while, I must +come, too.”</p> + +<p>Behind Ida stood two other colored girls, and at +the end press a white girl who started the day after +I did. She stayed only five days, and left in disgust—told +me she'd never seen such hard work. Beyond +the last press were the curtain frames and the large, +round padded table for ironing fancy table linen by +hand. Then began the lunch tables.</p> + +<p>Behind the row of presses by the windows stood +the hand ironers who did the fancy work. First came +Ella, neat, old, gray-haired, fearfully thin, wrinkled, +with a dab of red rouge on each cheek. After all, +one really cannot be old if one dabs on rouge before +coming to work all day in a laundry. Ella had hand +ironed all her life. She had been ten years in her last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> +job, but the place changed hands. She liked ironing, +she said. Ella never talked to anybody, even at +lunch time.</p> + +<p>Behind Ella ironed Anna Golden, black, who wore +striped silk stockings. She always had a bad cold. +Most of the girls had colds most of the time—from +the steam, they said. Anna had spent two dollars +on medicine that week, which left her fourteen dollars. +Anna was the one person to use an electric +iron. It had newly been installed. The others +heated their irons over gas flames. Every so often +Miss Cross would call out, “I smell gas!” So did +everybody else. After Anna, Lucile, blackest of all +and a widow. And then—Mrs. Reilly.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Reilly and Hattie were the characters of the +sixth floor. Mrs. Reilly was old and fat and Irish. +She had stood up hand ironing so long the part of +her from the waist up seemed to have settled down +into her hips. Eleven years had Mrs. Reilly ironed +in our laundry. She was the one pieceworker in the +building. In summer she could make from twenty +to twenty-five dollars a week, but she claimed she +lost a great part of it in winter. She said she was +anxious to get on timework. One afternoon I saw +Mrs. Reilly iron just two things—the rest of the +while, nothing to do, she sat on an old stool with her +eyes closed.</p> + +<p>The first afternoon, Mrs. Reilly edged over to me +on pretext of ironing out a bit of something on my +press.</p> + +<p>“An' how are you makin' out?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“All right, only my feet are awful tired. Don't +your feet never get tired?</p> + +<p>”Shure, child, an' what good would it do for my +feet to get tired when they're all I got to stand on? +An' did you ever try settin' nine hours a day? Shure +an' that would be the death of anybody.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Reilly's indoor sport was marrying the sixth +floor off. Poor Lucia's widow's weeds of five weeks +were no obstacle to Mrs. Reilly. She frequently +made the whole floor giggle, carrying on an animated +Irish conversation with Lucia over the prospects of +a second marriage—or rather, a monologue it was, +since Lucia never knew she was being talked to. If +ever there was a body with a ”sex complex it was +old Mrs. Reilly! When I asked her once why she +didn't get busy marrying off herself, she called back: +“The Lord be praised! And didn't I get more than +enough of the one man I had?”</p> + +<p>At least twice a week Mrs. Reilly saw a ghost, and +she would tell us about it in the morning. She +laughed then, and we all laughed, but you could +easily picture the poor old fearful soul meeting that +inevitable 2 <small>A.M.</small> guest, quaking over it in her lonely +bed. Once the ghost was extra terrifying. “It may +have been the banama sauce,” admitted Mrs. +Reilly. And Mrs. Reilly's feet did hurt often. She +used sometimes to take off her worn shoes and try +tying her feet up in cardboards.</p> + +<p>The other workers on our floor were Mabel and +Mary, two colored girls who finished off slight rough +edges in the press ironing and folded everything;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> +Edna, a Cuban girl who did handkerchiefs on the +mangle; Annie, the English girl, lately married to an +American. She had an inclosure of shelves to work +in and there she did the final sorting and wrapping of +family wash. Annie was the most superior person +on our floor.</p> + +<p>And Miss Cross. In face, form, neatness, and +manners Miss Cross could have held her own socially +anywhere. But according to orthodox standards +Miss Cross's grammar was faulty. She had worked +always in our laundry, beginning as a hand ironer. +She knew the days when hours were longer than nine +and pay lower than fourteen dollars a week. She remembered +when the family floor had to iron Saturdays +until 10 and 11 at night, instead of getting off +at 12.45, as we did now. They stood it in those days; +but how? As it was now, not a girl on our floor but +whose feet ached more or less by 4 or 4.30. Ordinarily +we stopped at 5.30. Everyone knew how everyone +else felt that last half hour. During a week with +any holiday the girls had to work till 6.15 every +night, and Saturday afternoon. They all said—we +discussed it early one morning—that in such weeks +they could iron scarcely anything that last hour, their +feet burned so.</p> + +<p>The candy factory was hard—one stood nine hours, +but the work was very light.</p> + +<p>The brassworks was hard—one sat, but the foot +exercise was wearying and the seat fearfully uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>Ironing was hardest—one stood all day and used<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> +the feet for hard pressure besides. Yet I was sorry +to leave the laundry!</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was just as well for me that Lucia +could not talk English. She might have used it on +me, and already the left ear was talked off by Irma. +Miss Cross stood for just so much conversation, +according to her mood. Even if she were feeling very +spry, our sixth-floor talk could become only so general +and lively before Miss Cross would call: “Girls! +girls! not so much noise!” If it were late in the +afternoon that would quiet us for the day—no one +had enough energy to start up again.</p> + +<p>The first half hour Irma confided in me that she +had cravings. “Cravings? Cravings for what?” I +asked her.</p> + +<p>“Cravings for papers.”</p> + +<p>It sounded a trifle goatlike.</p> + +<p>“Papers?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, papers. I want to read papers on the lecture +platform.”</p> + +<p>Whereat I heard all Irma's spiritual longings—cravings. +She began in school to do papers. That was +two years ago. Since then she has often been asked +to read the papers she wrote in school before church +audiences. Just last Sunday she read one at her +church in New York, and four people asked her +afterward for copies.</p> + +<p>What was it about?</p> + +<p>It was about the True Woman. When she wrote +it, she began, “Dear Teacher, Pupils, and Friends.” +But when she read it in churches she skipped the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> +Teacher and Pupils and began: “Dear Friends, ... +now we are met together on this memorable occasion +to consider the subject of the True Woman. First +we must ask” (here Irma bangs down on a helpless +nightshirt and dries it out well beyond its time into +a nice bunch of wrinkles) “What is woman? Woman +was created by God because Dear Friends God saw +how lonely man was and how lonesome and so out +of man's ribs God created woman to be man's company +and helpmate....”</p> + +<p>“Irma!” Miss Cross's voice had an oft-repeated +tone to it. She called out from the table where she +checked over each girl's work without so much as +turning her head. “You ironed only one leg of these +pajamas!”</p> + +<p>Irma shuffled over on her crooked high heels and +returned with the half-done pajamas. “That fo'-lady!” +sighed Irma, “she sure gets on ma nerves. +She's always hollerin' at me 'bout somethin'. She +never hollers at the other girls that way—she just +picks on me.”</p> + +<p>And Irma continued with the True Woman: +“There's another thing the True Woman should +have and that's a good character....”</p> + +<p>“Irma!” (slight impatience in Miss Cross's tone) +“you ironed this nightgown on the wrong side!”</p> + +<p>Irma looked appealingly at me. “There she goes +again. She makes me downright nervous, that fo'-lady +does.”</p> + +<p>Poor, persecuted Irma!</p> + +<p>During that first morning Irma had to iron over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> +at least six things. Then they looked like distraction. +I thought of the manager's introductory speech to +me—how after two weeks I might have to make way +for a more efficient person.</p> + +<p>“How long you been here?” I asked Irma.</p> + +<p>“Four months.”</p> + +<p>“What you makin'?”</p> + +<p>“Thirteen a week.”</p> + +<p>“Ever get extra?”</p> + +<p>“Na.”</p> + +<p>Suspicions concerning the manager.</p> + +<p>Irma had three other papers. One was on Testing +Time. What was Testing Time? It might concern +chemical tubes. It might be a bit of romance. And +she really meant Trysting Time. No, to everybody +a time comes when he or she must make a great +decision. It was about that.</p> + +<p>“Irma! you've got your foot in the middle of that +white apron!”</p> + +<p>Another paper was on Etee-quette (q pronounced).</p> + +<p>“Irma! you creased one of these pajama legs down +the middle! Do it over.”</p> + +<p>I pondered much during my laundry days as to +why they kept Irma. She told me she first worked +down on the shirt-and-collar floor and used to do +“one hundred and ten shirts an hour,” but the boss +got down on her. It took her sometimes three-quarters +of an hour to do one boy's shirt on our floor, +and then one half the time she had it to do over. +Her ironing was beyond all words fearful to behold +(there must be an Irma in every laundry). She was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> +all-mannered slow. She forgot to tag her work. She +hung it over her horse so that cuffs and apron strings +were always on the floor. Often she was late. Sometimes +Miss Cross would grow desperate—but there +Irma remained. Below, in that little entryway, +were girls waiting for jobs. Did they figure that on +the whole Irma wrecked fewer garments than the +average new girl, or what? And the manager had +tried to scare me!</p> + +<p>The noon bell rings—we dash for the lunch-room +line. You can purchase pies and soup and fruit, +hash and stew, coffee and tea, cafeteria style. There +are only two women to serve—the girls from the +lower floors have to stand long in line. I do not know +where to sit, and by mistake evidently get at a wrong +table. No one talks to me. I surely feel I am not +where I belong. The next day I get at another wrong +table. It is so very evident I am not wanted where I +am. Rather disconcerting. I sit and ponder. I +had thought factory girls so much more friendly to +one another on short acquaintance than “cultured” +people. But it is merely that they are more natural. +When they feel friendly they show it with no reserves. +When they do not feel friendly they show that without +reserve. Which is where the unnaturalness of +“cultured” folk sometimes helps.</p> + +<p>It seems etee-quette at the laundry requires each +girl sit at the table where her floor sits. That second +day I was at the shirt-and-collar table, and they, I +was afterward told, are particularly exclusive. Indeed +they are.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p> + +<p>At 12.45 the second bell rings. Miss Cross calls +out, “All right, girls!” Clank, the presses begin +again, and all afternoon I iron gentlemen's underpinnings. +During the course of my days in the laundry +I iron three sets round for every man in New +York and thereby acquire a domestic attitude toward +the entire male sex in the radius sending wash to our +laundry. Nobody loves a fat man. But their underclothes +do fit more easily over the press.</p> + +<p>I iron and I iron and I iron, and along about 4.30 +the first afternoon it occurs to my cynical soul to +wonder what the women are doing with themselves +with the spare time which is theirs, because I am +thumping that press down eight hours and fifty +minutes a day. Not that it is any of my business.</p> + +<p>Also along about five o'clock it irritates me to have +to bother with what seems to me futile work. I am +perfectly willing to take great pains with a white +waistcoat—in one day I learn to make a work of art +of that. But why need one fuss over the back of a +nightshirt? Will a man sleep any better for a wrinkle +more or less? Besides, so soon it is all wrinkles.</p> + +<p>The second day I iron soft work all morning—forever +men's underclothes, pajamas, and nightshirts. +Later, when I am promoted to starched work, I tend +to grow antifeminist. Why can men live and move +and have their beings satisfactorily incased in soft +garments, easy to iron, comfortable to wear, and +why must women have everything starched and +trying on the soul to do up? One minute you iron a +soft nightshirt; the next a nightgown starched like a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> +board, and the worst thing to get through with +before it dries too much that ever appears in a +laundry.</p> + +<p>After lunch I am promoted to hospital work. All +afternoon I iron doctors' and interns' white coats and +trousers. It is more interesting doing that. But a +bit hard on the soul. For it makes you think of sickness +and suffering. Yet sickness and suffering white-coated +men relieve. It makes you think, too, of +having babies—that being all you know of hospitals +personally. But on such an occasion you never +noticed if the doctor had on a white coat or not, and +surely spent no time pondering over who ironed it. +Yet if a doctor wore a coat Irma ironed I think the +woman would note it even in the last anguished moments +of labor.</p> + +<p>Irma did an officer's summer uniform once. I do +wish I could have heard him when he undid the +package. While Irma was pounding down on it +she was discoursing to me how, besides papers, she +had cravings for poetry.</p> + +<p>“You remember that last snowstorm? I sat at my +window and I wrote:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Oh, beautiful snow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When will you go?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not until spring,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the birds sing.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>There were several other stanzas. And about then +Miss Cross dumped a bundle of damp clothes into +Irma's box and said, “Iron these next and do them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> +decent!” I peered suspiciously into the box. It was +my own family laundry!</p> + +<p>“Hey, Irma,” I said, cannily, “leave me do this +batch, eh?”</p> + +<p>I might as well be paying myself for doing up my +own wash, and it would look considerably better +than if Irma ironed it.</p> + +<p>The third day my feet are not so weary, and while +I iron I mull over ideas on women in industry. After +all, have not some of us with the good of labor at +heart been a bit too theoretical? Take the welfare +idea so scoffed at by many. After all, there is more +to be said for than against. Of course, provided—It +is all very well to say labor should be allowed to +look after itself, and none of this paternalism. Of +course, the paternalism can be overdone and unwisely +done. But, at least where women workers are concerned, +if we are going to wait till they are able to do +things for themselves we are going to wait, perhaps, +too long for the social good while we are airing our +theories. It is something like saying that children +would be better off and have more strength of character +if they learned to look after themselves. But you +can start that theory too young and have the child +die on your hands, or turn into a gutter waif. The +child needs entire looking after up to a point where +he can begin little by little to look after himself. +And after he has learned to dress himself it does not +necessarily mean he can select his own food, his hour +of retiring, his habits of cleanliness and hygiene.</p> + +<p>I look about at the laundry workers and think:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> +Suppose we decide nothing shall be done for these +girls until they demand it themselves and then have +charge of it themselves. In other words, suppose +we let welfare work and social legislation wait on +organization. The people who talk that way are +often college professors or the upper crust of labor. +They have either had no touch or lost touch with the +rank and file of women workers. It is going to be +years and years and years, if ever, before women in +this country organize by and large to a point where +they can become permanently effective. What organization +demands more than any other factor is, +first, a sense of oppression; second, surplus energy. +Women have been used to getting more or less the +tag end of things for some thousands of years. Why +expect them suddenly, in a second of time, as it were, +to rear up and say, “We'll not stand for this and +that”? If we are going to wait for working women +to feel oppressed enough to weld themselves together +into a militant class organization, capable of demanding +certain conditions and getting them, we shall wait +many a long day. In the meantime, we are putting +off the very situation we hope for—when women, as +well as men, shall have reached the point where they +can play a dignified part in the industrial scheme of +things—by sending them from work at night too +weary and run down to exert themselves for any +social purpose. I say that anything and everything +which can be done to make women more capable of +responsibility should be done. But the quickest and +sanest way to bring that about is not to sit back and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> +wait for factory women to work out their own salvation. +Too few of them have the intelligence or +gumption to have the least idea how to go about it, +did it ever occur to them that things might be +radically improved. (And the pity of it is that so +often telling improvements could be made with so +little effort.)</p> + +<p>Nor is it anything but feminist sentimentality, as +far as I can see, to argue against special legislation +for women. What women can do intellectually as +compared with men I am in no position to state. +To argue that women can take a place on a physical +equality with man is simply not being honest. +Without sentimentalizing over motherhood, it seems +allowable to point out the fact that women are potential +mothers, and this fact, with every detail of +its complexities, feminists or no to the contrary, is a +distinct handicap to women's playing a part in the +industrial field on a par with man. And society +pays more dearly for a weary woman than for a +tired man.</p> + +<p>Therefore, why not lunch rooms, and attractive +lunch rooms, and good food, well cooked? Yes, it is +good business, and besides it puts a woman on a +much more efficient level to herself and society. At +our tables the girls were talking about different +lunch-room conditions they had come across in their +work. One girl told of a glass company she had +worked for that recently was forced to shut down. +She dwelt feelingly on the white lunch room and the +good food, and especially the paper napkins—the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> +only place she had worked where they gave napkins. +She claimed there was not a girl who did not want +to cry when she had to quit that factory. “Everybody +loved it,” she said. I tried to find out if she +felt the management had been paying for the polished +brass rails, the good food, and the napkins out of the +workers' wages. “Not on your life!” she answered. +She had been a file clerk.</p> + +<p>Take dental clinics in the factories. Four teeth on +our floor were extracted while I was at the laundry. +For a couple of days each girl moaned and groaned +and made everybody near her miserable. Then she +got Miss Cross's permission to go to some quack +dentist, and out came the tooth. Irma had two out +at one dollar each. It was going to cost her forty +dollars to get them back in. A person with his or +her teeth in good condition is a far better citizen than +one suffering from the toothache.</p> + +<p>If I had my way I should like to see a rest room in +every factory where women are employed, and some +time, however short, allowed in the middle of the +afternoon to make use of it.</p> + +<p>Eight hours is long enough for any woman to do +sustained physical work, with no possibility for +overtime.</p> + +<p>Nor have we so much as touched on what it means +to live on thirteen dollars or fourteen dollars a week.</p> + +<p>“But then you have taken away all the arguments +for organization!”</p> + +<p>Should organization be considered as an end in +and of itself, or as one possible means to an end?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p> + +<p>Word was passed this morning that “company” +was coming! The bustling and the hustling and the +dusting! Every girl had to clean her press from top +to bottom, and we swept the floor with lightning +speed. Miss Cross dashed to her little mirror and +put powder on her nose. Hattie tied a curtain around +her head to look like a Red Cross nurse. Every time +the door opened we all got expectant palpitations. +We were not allowed to speak, yet ever and anon +Hattie or Mrs. Reilly would let out some timely +remarks. Whereat we all got the giggles. Miss +Cross would almost hiss, “<small>GIRLS</small>!” whereat we subsided. +It was nerve wracking. And the company +never came! They got as far as the third floor and +gave out. But it was not until afternoon that we +knew definitely that our agony was for naught.</p> + +<p>Lucia's machine got out of order—steam escaped +at a fearful rate. While the mechanic was fixing it +he discoursed to me on the laundry. He had been +there nine months—big, capable-looking six-footer. +Out of the corner of his mouth he informed me, +“Once anybody comes to work here they never +leave!” It surely does seem as if they had no end of +people who had worked there years and years. Miss +Cross says they used to have more fun than nowadays, +before so many colored girls were employed. +They gave parties and dances and everyone was +chummy with everyone else.</p> + +<p>To-day, in the midst of hilarity and all unannounced, +“company” did appear. We subsided like +a schoolroom when the teacher suddenly re-enters.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> +A batch of women, escorted by one of the management. +He gesticulated and explained. I could not +catch his words, for the noise of the presses, though +goodness knows I craned my ears. They investigated +everything. Undoubtedly their guide dwelt eloquently +on the victrola in the lunch room; it plays +every noon. On their way out two of the young +women stopped by my press. “Didn't this girl iron +that nightgown nicely?” one said to the other. I +felt it obligatory to give them the “once over.”</p> + +<p>The second the door was closed I dashed for +Miss Cross. “Who were them females?” I asked +her.</p> + +<p>Miss Cross grunted. “Them were Teachers College +girls.” She wrinkled her nose. “They send 'em +over here often. And let me tell <i>you</i>, I never seen +<i>one</i> of 'em with any class <i>yet</i>.... They talk about +college girls—pooh! I never seen a college girl yet +looked any classier than us laundry girls. Most of +'em don't look <i>as</i> classy. Only difference is, if you +mixed us all up, they're gettin' educated.”</p> + +<p>One of my erstwhile jobs at the University of +California had been piloting college girls around +through factories in just that fashion. I had to laugh +in my sleeve as I suspected the same remarks may +have been passed on us after our departure!</p> + + +<p class="thought">We have much fun at our lunch table. A switchboard +operator and file clerk from the office eats with +us. She and I “guy” each other a good deal during +the meal. Miss Cross wipes her eyes and sighs:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> +“Gee! Ain't it fun to laugh!” and Eleanor and I +look pleased with ourselves.</p> + +<p>In the paper this morning appeared a picture of +one of New York's leading society women “experiencing +the life of the working girl first hand.” She +was shown in a French bonnet, a bunch of orchids at +her waist, standing behind a perfumery counter. +What our table did to Mrs. X!</p> + +<p>“These women,” fusses Miss Cross, “who think +they'll learn what it's like to be a working girl, and +stand behind a perfumery counter! Somebody's +always trying to find out what it's like to be a worker—and +then they get a lot of noteriety writin' articles +about it. All rot, I say. Pity, if they really want to +know what workin's like, they wouldn't try a +laundry.”</p> + +<p>“She couldn't eat her breakfast in bed if she did +that!” was my cutting remark.</p> + +<p>“Or quit at three,” from Annie.</p> + +<p>“Hisst!” I whisper, “I'm a lady in disguise!” +And I quirk my little finger as I drink my coffee and +order Eleanor to peer without to see if my limousine +waits.</p> + +<p>We discuss rich folk and society ladies, and no one +envies or is bitter. Miss Cross guesses some of them +think they get as weary flying around to their parties +and trying on clothes as we do in the laundry. I +guess she is partly right.</p> + +<p>Then we discuss what a bore it would be not to +work. At our table sit Miss Cross, Edna (Miss Cross +calls her Edner), the Cuban girl, who refused to eat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> +with the colored girls; Annie, the English girl, who +had worked in a retail shoe shop in London; Mrs. +Reilly, who is always morose at lunch and never +speaks, except one day when she and Miss Cross +nearly came to blows over religion. Each got purple +in the face. Then it came out that there was a feud +between them—two years or more it had lasted—and +neither ever speaks to the other. (Yet Mrs. Reilly +gave one dollar, twice as much as the rest of us, +toward Miss Cross's Christmas present.) Then +there are three girls from the office downstairs. +Everyone there had had some experience in being +out of work or not working. To each of them at such +a time life has been a wearisome thing. Each declared +she would 'most rather work at any old thing +than stay home and do nothing.</p> + +<p>Between the first and second bells after lunch the +sixth-floor girls foregather and sit on the ironing +tables, swing our heels, and pass the time of day. +To-day I start casually singing, “Jesus Wants Me +for a Sunbeam.” Everyone on our floor knows the +song and there the whole lot of us sit, swinging our +heels, singing at the top of our lungs, “A <i>sunbeam</i>, a +<i>sunbeam</i>, Jesus wants me for a <i>sunbeam</i>,” which is +how I got the name of “Sunbeam” on our floor. +Except that Miss Cross, for some reason of her own, +usually called me “Constance.”</p> + +<p>I teach them “My Heart's a Little Bird Cage,” +and we add that to our repertoire. Then we go on +to “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” “Lead, Kindly +Light,” “Rock of Ages.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>It appears we are a very religious lot on our floor. +All the colored girls are Baptists. Miss Cross is an +ardent Presbyterian, Annie is an Episcopalian, Edna +and Mrs. Reilly are Catholics, but Edna knows all +the hymns we daily sing.</p> + +<p>And, lo! before many days I am startled by hearing +Lucia sing—woebegone Lucia. She sings to no tune +whatever and smiles at me, “Sunbeam, Sunbeam, +Sunbeam, Sunbeam.” So she has learned one English +word in sixteen years. That is better in quality +than German Tessie did. She told me, at the candy +factory, that the first thing she learned in English +was “son of a gun.”</p> + +<p>But as a matter of fact Lucia does know two other +words. Once I ironed a very starched nightgown. +It was a very, very large and gathered nightgown. +I held it up and made Lucia look at it.</p> + +<p>Lucia snickered. “Da big-a, da fat-a!” said +Lucia.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Reilly let out a squeal. “She's learnt English!” +Mrs. Reilly called down the line.</p> + +<p>“And,” I announce, “I'll teach her 'da small-a, +da thin-a.'”</p> + +<p>Thereafter I held up garments to which those +adjectives might apply, and tried to “learn” Lucia +additional English. Lucia giggled and giggled and +waited every evening to walk down the six flights of +stairs with me, and three blocks until our ways +parted. Each time I patted her on the back when +we started off and chortled: “Hey, Lucia, da big-a, +da fat-a!” Lucia would giggle again, and that is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> +all we would have to say. Except one night Lucia +pointed to the moon and said, “Luna.” So I make +the most of knowing that much Italian.</p> + +<p>Oh yes, Lucia and I had one other thing in common. +One day at the laundry I found myself humming a +Neapolitan love song, from a victrola record we have. +Lucia's face brightened. The rest of the afternoon I +hummed the tune and Lucia sang the words of that +song, much to Mrs. Reilly's delight, who informed +the floor that now, for sure, Lucia was in love again.</p> + +<p>There was much singing on our floor. Irma used +often to croon negro religious songs, the kind parlor +entertainers imitate. I loved to listen to her. It +was not my clothes she was ironing. Hattie, down the +line, mostly dwelt on “Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam.” +Hattie had straight, short hair that stood +out all over her head, and a face like a negro kewpie. +She was up to mischief seven hours of the nine, nor +could Miss Cross often subdue her. Hattie had been +on our floor four years. One lively day Irma was +singing with gusto “Abide With Me.” For some +reason I had broken into the rather unfactory-like +ballad of “Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young +Charms,” and Lucia was caroling some Italian song +lustily—all of us at one and the same time. Finally +Miss Cross called over, “For land's sakes, two of you +girls stop singing!” Since Irma and I were the only +two of the three to understand her, we made Christian +martyrs of ourselves and let Lucia have the floor.</p> + +<p>Miss Cross was concerned once as to how I happened +to know so many hymns. Green earrings do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> +not look particularly hymny. The fact was, I had +not thought of most of the hymns our sixth floor +sang since I was knee high. In those long ago days +a religious grandmother took me once to a Methodist +summer camp meeting, at which time I resolved +before my Maker to join the Salvation Army and beat +a tambourine. So when Miss Cross asked me how I +knew so many hymns, and the negro-revivalist +variety, I answered that I once near joined the Salvation +Army. “You don't say!” said the amazed +Miss Cross.</p> + +<p>One day Miss Cross and Jacobs, a Jew who bossed +some department which brought him often to our +floor, to see, for instance, should they wash more +curtains or do furniture covers, had a great set-to on +the subject of religion. Jacobs was an iconoclast. +Edna left her handkerchiefs to join in. I eavesdropped +visibly. Jacobs 'lowed there was no hell. +Whereat Miss Cross and Edna wanted to know the +sense of being good. Jacobs 'lowed there was no +such thing as a soul. Miss Cross and Edna fairly +clutched each other.</p> + +<p>“Then what is there that makes you happy or +unhappy, if it ain't your soul?” asked Miss Cross, +clenchingly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, hell!” grunted Jacobs, impatiently, after +having just argued there was no such place.</p> + +<p>Jacobs uttered much heresy. Miss Cross and Edna +perspired in anguish. Then I openly joined the group.</p> + +<p>Miss Cross turned to me. “I tell you how I feel +about Christianity. If a lot of these educated college<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> +professors and lawyers and people like that, when +they read all the books they do and are smart as +they are—if Christianity is good enough for them, +it's good enough for me!”</p> + +<p>Jacobs was so disgusted that he left.</p> + +<p>Whereat Edna freed her soul of all the things she +wanted to say about hell and punishment for sins. +She went too far for Miss Cross. Edna spoke of +thieves and murderers and evildoers in general, and +what they ought to get in both this world and the +next. Quite a group had collected by this time.</p> + +<p>Then Miss Cross turned to us all and said: “We're +in no position to pass judgment on people that do +wrong. Look at us. Here we are, girls what have +everything. We got nice homes, enough to eat and +wear, we have 'most everything in the world we want. +We don't know what it's like to be tempted, 'cause +we're so fortunate. An' I say we shouldn't talk +about people who go wrong.”</p> + +<p>That—in a laundry.</p> + +<p>And only Edna seemed not to agree.</p> + + +<p class="thought">To-day at lunch the subject got around to matrimony. +Eleanor said: “Any girl can get married, if +she wants to so bad she'll take any old thing, but +who wants to take any old thing?”</p> + +<p>“Sure,” I added, cockily. “Who wants to pick up +with anyone they can vamp in the Subway?”</p> + +<p>Whereupon I get sat upon and the line of argument +was interesting. Thus it ran:</p> + +<p>After all, why wasn't a man a girl vamped in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> +Subway the safest kind? Where did working girls +get a chance to meet men, anyhow? About the only +place was the dance hall, and goodness knows what +kind of men you did meet at a dance hall. They were +apt to be the kind to make questionable husbands; +like as not they were “sports.” But the Subway! +Now there you were more likely to pick up with the +dependable kind. Every girl at the table knew one +or several married couples whose romances had begun +on the Subway, and “every one of 'em turned out +happy.” One girl told of a man she could have +vamped the Sunday before in the Subway, but he +was too sportily dressed and she got scared and quit +in the middle. The other girls all approved her conduct. +Each expressed deep suspicion of the “sporty” +man. Each supported the Subway romance.</p> + +<p>I withdrew my slur on the same.</p> + + +<p class="thought">A guilty feeling came over me as the day for leaving +the laundry approached. Miss Cross and I had become +very friendly. We planned to do all sorts of +things together. Our floor was such a companionable, +sociable place. It didn't seem square to walk +off and leave those girls, black and white, who were +my friends. In the other factories I just disappeared +as suddenly as I came. After a few days I could not +stand it and penned a jiggly note to Miss Cross. +Unexpectedly, I was going to have to move to +Pennsylvania (that was true, for Christmas vacation). +I hated to leave her and the girls, etc., etc. I was her +loving friend, “Constance,” alias “Sunbeam.”</p> + + + +<h3><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></h3> + +<h4><i>In a Dress Factory</i></h4> + + +<p class="newchapter"><span class="firstword"><span class="dropcap">F</span>ingers</span> poke through cold holes in the wool +mittens; the old coat with two buttons gone +flaps and blows about the knees; dirt, old papers, +spiral upward on the chill gusts of a raw winter day. +Close your eyes, duck your head, and hurry on. +Under one arm is clutched the paper bag with lunch +and the blue-checked apron. Under the other the +old brown-leather bag. In the old brown-leather +bag is an old black purse. In the old black purse +are fifty-five cents, a key, and a safety pin. In the +old brown bag are also two sticks of Black Jack +chewing gum, a frayed handkerchief, and the crumpled +list of possibilities. If you should lose the list!</p> + +<p>That list was copied from the Sunday <i>World</i>—from +the “Female Help Wanted, Miscellaneous.” +The future looked bright Sunday. Now after four +attempts to land jobs had ended in being turned +down cold, the future did not look bright at all. +Because, you understand, we are going on the assumption +that the old black purse in the old brown +bag with fifty-five cents and a key and a safety pin +were all that stood between us and—well, a number +of dismal things. Which was fifty-five cents and a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> +key and a safety pin more than some folk had that +Monday morning in New York.</p> + +<p>You must know in days of unemployment that it +is something of a catastrophe if you do not land the +first job you apply for Monday morning. For by the +time you reach the second place on the list, no matter +how fast you go, it is apt to be filled up from the group +who were waiting there from 7.30 on, as you had +waited at your first hope. The third chance is +slimmer still by far, and if you keep on until 10 or 11 +it is mostly just plain useless.</p> + +<p>And if you do not land a job Monday, that whole +week is as good as lost. Of course, there is always a +chance—the smallest sort of hopeless chance—that +something can be found later on in the week. The +general happening is that you stake your all on the +7.30 to 8.30 wait Monday morning. Often it is 9 +before the firm sees fit to announce it wants no more +help, and there you are with fifty-five cents and a key +and a safety pin—or less—to do till Monday next.</p> + +<p>Strange the cruel comfort to be felt from the sight +of the countless others hurrying about hopelessly, +hopefully, that raw Monday morning. On every +block where a firm had advertised were girls scanning +their already worn-looking lists, making sure of +the address, hastening on. Nor were they deterred +by the procession marching away—even if some one +called, “No use goin' up there—they don't want no +more.” Perhaps, after all, thought each girl to herself, +the boss would want <i>her</i>. The boss did not.</p> + +<p>First, early in the morning and full of anticipation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> +I made for the bindery on West Eighteenth Street. +That sounded the likeliest of the possibilities. No +need to get out the paper to make sure again of the +number. It must be where that crowd was on the +sidewalk ahead, some thirty girls and as many men +and boys. Everyone was pretty cheerful—it was +twenty minutes to eight and most of us were young. +Rather too many wanted the same job, but there +were no worries to speak of. Others might be unlucky—not +we. So our little group talked. Bright +girls they were, full of giggles and “gee's.” Finally +the prettiest and the brightest of the lot peered in +through the street doors. “Say, w'at d'ye know? +I see a bunch inside! Come on!”</p> + +<p>In we shoved our way, and there in the dismal +basement-like first floor waited as many girls and +men as on the sidewalk. “Good night! A fat show +those dead ones outside stand!” And we passed the +time of day a bit longer. The pretty and smart one +was not for such tactics long. “W'at d'ye say we +go up to where the firm is and beat the rest of 'em +to it!” “You said it!” And we tore up the iron +stairs. On the second flight we passed a janitor. +“Where's the bindery?”</p> + +<p>“Eighth floor.”</p> + +<p>“My Gawd!” And up seven flights we puffed in +single file, conversation impossible for lack of wind.</p> + +<p>The bright one opened the door and our group of +nine surged in. There stood as many girls and men +as were down on the first floor and out on the sidewalk.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p> + +<p>“My Gawd!” There was nothing else to say.</p> + +<p>We edged our way through till we stood by the +time clock. The bright one was right,—that was the +strategic point. For at 8.30 a forelady appeared at +that very spot, just suddenly was—and in a pleasant +tone of voice announced, “We don't need any more +help, male or female, this morning!” Two scared-looking +girls just in front of me screwed up their +courage and said, pleadingly, “But you told us +Saturday we should come back this morning and you +promised us work!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, all right! Then you two go to the coat +room.”</p> + +<p>Everyone looked a bit dazed. At least one hundred +girls and over that many men had hopes of +landing a job at that bindery—and they took on two +girls from Saturday.</p> + +<p>We said a few things we thought, and dashed for +the iron stairs. We rushed down pell-mell, calling +all the way. By this time a steady procession was +filing up. “No use. Save your breath.” Some kept +on, regardless.</p> + +<p>From the bindery I rushed to a factory making +muslin underwear. By the time I got there—only +six blocks uptown—the boss looked incredulous that +I should even be applying at such an advanced +hour, although it was not yet 9. No, he needed no +more. From there to the address of an “ad” for +“light factory work,” whatever it might turn out to +be. A steady stream of girls coming and going. +Upstairs a young woman, without turning her head,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> +her finger tracing down a column of figures, called +out, “No more help wanted!”</p> + +<p>A rush to a wholesale millinery just off Fifth +Avenue—the only millinery advertising for learners. +The elevator was packed going up, the hallway was +packed where we got out. The girls already there +told us newcomers we must write our names on +certain cards. Also we must state our last position, +what sort of millinery jobs we expected to get, and +what salary. The girl ahead of me wrote twenty-eight +dollars. I wrote fourteen dollars. She must +have been experienced in some branch of the trade. +All the rest of us at our crowded end of the entry +hall were learners. The “ad” here had read “apply +after 9.30.” It was not yet 9.30. A few moments +after I got there, my card just filled out, the boss +called from a little window: “No more learners. +All I want is one experienced copyist.” There was +apparently but one experienced copyist in the whole +lot. Everyone was indignant. Several girls spoke +up: “What made you advertise learners if you +don't want none?” “I did want some, but I got all +I want.” We stuffed the elevator and went on down.</p> + +<p>As a last try, my lunch and apron and I tore for +the Subway and Park Place, down by the Woolworth +Building. By the time I reached that bindery there +were only two girls ahead of me. A man interviewed +the younger. She had had a good bit of bindery experience. +The man was noncommittal. The very +refined middle-aged woman had had years of experience. +She no sooner spoke of it than the man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> +squinted his eyes at her and said: “You belong to +the union then, don't you?” “Yes,” the woman +admitted, with no hesitation, “I do, but that makes +no difference. I'm perfectly willing to work with +nonunion girls. I'm a good worker and I don't see +what difference it should make.” The man turned +abruptly to me. “What bindery experience have +you had?” I had to admit I had had no bindery experience, +but I made it clear I was a very experienced +person in many other fields—oh, many other—and so +willing I was, and quick to learn.</p> + +<p>“Nothing doing for you.”</p> + +<p>But he had advertised for learners.</p> + +<p>“Yes, but why should I use learners when I turned +away over seventy experienced girls this morning, +ready to do any work for any old price?”</p> + +<p>I was hoping to hear what else he might say to the +union member, but the man left me no excuse for +standing around.</p> + +<p>I ate my lunch at home.</p> + +<p>When the next Sunday morning came, again the +future looked bright. I red-penciled eleven “ads”—jobs +in three different dress factories, sewing buttons +on shoes. You see, I have to pick only such “ads” +as allow for no previous experience—it is only unskilled +workers I am eligible to be among as yet; +girls to pack tea and coffee, to work for an envelope +company, in tobacco, on sample cards; girls to pack +hair nets, learners on fancy feathers, and learners to +operate book-sewing machines.</p> + +<p>The rest of the newspaper told much of trouble in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> +the garment trades. I decided to try the likeliest +dress factory first. I was hopeful, but not enough so +to take my lunch and apron.</p> + +<p>At the first dress factory address before eight o'clock +there were about nine girls ahead of me. We waited +downstairs by the elevator, as the boss had not yet +arrived. The “ad” I was answering read: “<span class="smcap">Wanted</span>—Bright +girls to make themselves useful around dress +factory.”</p> + +<p>Some of us looked brighter than others of us.</p> + +<p>Upstairs in the hall we assembled to wait upon the +pleasure of the boss. The woodwork was white, the +floor pale blue—it was all very impressive.</p> + +<p>Finally, second try, the boss glued his eye on me.</p> + +<p>“Come in here.” A white door closed behind us, +and we stood in a little room which looked as if a +small boy of twelve had knocked it together out of +old scraps and odds and ends, unpainted.</p> + +<p>“What experience you have had?”</p> + +<p>He was a nice-looking, fairly young Jew, who +spoke with a considerable German accent.</p> + +<p>“None in a dress factory, but ...” and I regaled +him with the vast amount of experience in other +lines that was mine, adding that I had done a good +deal of “private dressmaking” off and on, and also +assuring him, almost tremblingly, I did so want to +land a job—that I was the most willing of workers.</p> + +<p>“What you expect to get?”</p> + +<p>“What will you pay me?”</p> + +<p>“No, I'm asking you. What do you expect to +get?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“Fourteen dollars.”</p> + +<p>“All right, go on in.”</p> + +<p>If the room where the boss had received me +could have been the work of a twelve-year-old, the +rest of the factory must have been designed and +executed by a boy of eight, or a lame, halt, and blind +carpenter just tottering to his grave. There was not +a straight shelf. There was not a straight partition. +Boards of various woods and sizes had been used and +nothing had ever been painted. Such doors as existed +had odd ways of opening and closing. The whole +place looked as if it had cost about seven dollars and +twenty-nine cents to throw together. But, ah! the +white and pale blue of the show rooms!</p> + + +<p class="thought">The dress factory job was like another world compared +with candy, brass, and the laundry. In each +of those places I had worked on one floor of a big +plant, doing one subdivided piece of labor among +equally low-paid workers busy at the same sort of +job as myself. Of what went on in the processes +before and after the work we did, I knew and saw +nothing. We packed finished chocolates; we punched +slots in already-made lamp cones; we ironed already +washed, starched, and dampened clothes. Such +work as we did took no particular skill, though a +certain improvement in speed and quality of work +came with practice. One's eyes could wander now +and then, one's thoughts could wander often, and +conversation with one's neighbors was always +possible.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p> + +<p>Behold the dress factory, a little complete world +of its own on one small floor where every process of +manufacture, and all of it skilled work, could be +viewed from any spot. Not quite every process—the +designer had a room of her own up front nearer +where the woodwork was white.</p> + +<p>“Ready-made clothing!” It sounds so simple—just +like that. Mrs. Fine Lady saunters into a shop, +puts up her lorgnette, and lisps, “I'd like to see +something in a satin afternoon dress.” A plump +blonde in tight-fitting black with a marcel wave +trips over to mirrored doors, slides one back, takes a +dress off its hanger—and there you are! “So much +simpler than bothering with a dressmaker.”</p> + +<p>But whatever happened to get that dress to the +place where the blonde could sell it? “Ready-made,” +indeed! There has to be a start some place +before there is any “made” to it. It was at that +point in our dress factory when the French designer +first got a notion into her head—she who waved her +arms and gesticulated and flew into French-English +rages just the way they do on the stage. “<i>Mon +Dieu! Mon Dieu!</i>”—gray-haired Madame would +gasp at our staid and portly Mr. Rogers. Ada could +say “My Gawd!” through her Russian nose to him +and it had nothing like the same wilting effect.</p> + +<p>Ready-made—yes, ready-made. But first Madame +got her notion, and then she and her helpers +concocted the dress itself. A finished article, it hung +inside the wire inclosure where the nice young cutter +kept himself and his long high table. The cutter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> +took a look at the finished garment hanging on the +side of his cage, measured a bit with his yardstick, +and then proceeded to cut the pattern out of paper. +Whereupon he laid flat yards and yards of silks and +satins on his table and with an electric cutter sliced +out his parts. One mistake—one slice off the line—<i>Mon +Dieu!</i> it's too terrible to think of! All these +pieces had to be sorted according to sizes and colors, +and tied and labeled. (Wanted—bright and useful +girl right here.)</p> + +<p>Next came the sewing machine operators (electric +power)—a long narrow table, nine machines at a +side, but not more than fourteen operators were employed—thirteen +girls and one lone young man. +They said that on former piece rates this man used +to make from ninety dollars to one hundred dollars +a week. The operators were all well paid, especially +by candy, brass, and laundry standards, but they +were a skilled lot. A very fine-looking lot too—some +of the nicest-looking girls I've seen in New York. +Everyone had a certain style and assurance. It was +good for the eyes to look on them after the laundry +thirteen-dollar-a-week type.</p> + +<p>When the first operators had done their part the +dresses were handed over to the drapers. There +were two drapers; they were getting around fifty +dollars a week before the hard times. One of the +drapers was as attractive a girl as I ever saw any +place—bobbed hair, deep-set eyes, a Russian Jewess +with features which made her look more like an +Italian. She spoke English with hardly any accent.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> +She dressed very quietly and in excellent taste. +All day long the two draped dresses on forms—ever +pinning and pinning. The drapers turned the +dresses over to certain operators, who finished all +machine sewing. The next work fell to the finishers.</p> + +<p>In that same end of the factory sat the four +finishers, getting “about twenty dollars a week,” +but again no one seemed sure. Two were Italians +who could talk little English. One was Gertie, four +weeks married—“to a Socialist.” Gertie was another +of the well-dressed ones. If you could know these +dress factory girls you would realize how, unless +gifted with the approach of a newspaper reporter—and +I lack that approach—it was next to impossible +to ask a girl herself what she was earning. No more +than you could ask a lawyer what his fees amounted +to. The girls themselves who had been working +long together in the same shop did not seem to know +what one another's wages were. It was a new state +of affairs in my factory experience.</p> + +<p>The finishers, after sewing on all hooks and eyes +and fasteners and doing all the remaining handwork +on the dresses, turned them over to the two pressers, +sedate, assured Italians, who ironed all day long and +looked prosperous and were very polite.</p> + +<p>They brought the dresses back to Jean and her +helper—two girls who put the last finishing touches +on a garment before it went into the showroom—snipping +here and there, rough edges all smoothed off. It +was to Jean the boss called my second morning, very +loud so all could hear: “If you find anything wrong mit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> +a dress, don't <i>look</i> at it, don't <i>bodder wid</i> it—jus' +t'row it in dere faces and made dem do it over again! +It's not like de old days no more!” (Whatever he +meant by that.) So—there was your dress, “ready-made.”</p> + +<p>Such used to be the entire factory, adding the two +office girls; the model, who was wont to run around +our part of the world now and then in a superior +fashion, clad in a scanty pale-pink-satin petticoat +which came just below her knees and an old gray-and-green +sweater; plus various male personages, +full of business and dressed in their best. Goodness +knows what all they did do to keep the wheels of +industry running—perhaps they were salesmen. They +had the general appearance of earning at least ten to +twenty thousand dollars a year. It may possibly +have risen as high as two thousand.</p> + +<p>And Peters—who was small though grown, and +black, and who cleaned up with a fearful dust and +snitched lead pencils if you left them around.</p> + +<p>At present, in addition, there were the sixteen +crochet beaders, because crochet beading is stylish +in certain quarters—this “department” newly added +just prior to my arrival. But before the beaders +could begin work the goods had to be stamped, and +before they could be stamped Mr. Rogers (he was +middle-aged and a dear and an Italian and his name +wasn't “Rogers,” but some unpronounceable thing +the Germans couldn't get, so it just naturally evolved +into something that began with the same letter +which they could pronounce) had to concoct a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> +design. He worked in the cage at a raised end of the +cutting table. He pricked the pattern through +paper with a machine, at a small table outside by the +beaders, that was always piled high with a mess of +everything from spools to dresses, which Mr. Rogers +patiently removed each time to some spot where +some one else found them on top of something she +wanted, and less patiently removed them to some +other spot, where still less patiently they were found +in the way and dumped some place else. Such was +life in one factory. And Ada would call out still +later: “Mr. Rogers, did you see a pile of dresses on +this table when you went to work?”</p> + +<p>Whereat in abject politeness and dismay Mr. +Rogers would dash from “inside” to “outside” and +explain in very broken English that there had been +some things on the table, but “vaire carefully” he +had placed them—here. And to Mr. Rogers's +startled gaze the pile had disappeared.</p> + +<p>If a dress had to be beaded, Mr. Rogers took the +goods after the cutter finished his job, and he and +his helpers stamped the patterns on sleeves, front +and back, skirt, by rubbing chalk over the paper. +Upon the scene at this psychological moment enters +the bright girl to make herself useful. The bright +girl “framed-up” the goods for the beaders to work +on. (In fact, you noted she entered even earlier, by +helping the cutter tie the bundles according to size +and color.)</p> + +<p>“Frame-up” means taking boards the proper length +with broad tape tacked along one edge. First you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> +pin the goods lengthwise, pins close together. Then +you find side boards the desired length and pin the +goods along the sides. Then with four iron clamps +you fasten the corners together, making the goods as +tight as a drum. There is a real knack to it, let me +tell you—especially when it comes to queerly shaped +pieces—odd backs or fronts or sleeves. Or where +you have a skirt some six or eight feet long and three +broad. But I can frame! Ada said so.</p> + +<p>When I got a piece framed (Now I write those six +words and grin) ... “<i>when</i>” ... Two little skinny +horses I had to rest the frames upon. The space I +had in which to make myself useful was literally +about three by four feet just in front of the shelves +where the thread and beads were kept. That is, I +had it if no one wanted to get anything in the line +of thread or beads, which they always did want to +get. Whereupon I moved out—which meant my +work might be knocked on the floor, or if it was bigger +I had to move the work out with me. Or I crawled +under it and got the thread or beads myself. If it +were a skirt I was framing up I earned the curses, +though friendly, of the assemblage. No one could +pass in any direction. The beaders were shut in +their quarters till I got through, or they crawled +under. Or I poked people in the back with the +frames while I was clamping them. I fought and +bled and died over every large frame I managed to +get together, for the frame was larger than the space +I had to work in. Until in compassion they finally +moved me around the corner into the dressmaking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> +quarters, which tried Joe's soul. Joe was the Italian +foreman of that end of things. He was nice. But he +saw no reason why I should be moved up into his +already crowded space. Indeed, I was only a little +better off. The fact of the matter was that the more +useful I became the more in everybody's way I got. +Indeed, it can be taken as a tribute to human nature +that everyone in that factory was not a crabbed +nervous wreck from having to work on top of everyone +else. It was almost like attempting dressmaking +in the Subway. The boss at times would gaze upon +my own frantic efforts, and he claimed: “Every time +I look at you the tears come in my eis.” And I +would tell him, “Every time I think about myself +the tears come in mine.” About every other day he +appeared with a hammer and some nails and would +pound something some place, with the assurance that +his every effort spelled industrial progress and +especial help to me.</p> + +<p>“All I think on is your comfort, yes?”</p> + +<p>“Don't get gray over it!”</p> + +<p>Nor will I forget that exhibition of the boss's ideas +of scientific management. Nothing in the factory +was ever where anyone could find it. It almost drove +me crazy. What was my joy then when one day the +boss told me to put the spools in order. There was a +mess of every-colored spool, mixed with every other +color, tangled ends, dust, buttons, loose snappers, +more dust, beads, more spools, more dust. A certain +color was wanted by a stitcher. There was nothing +to do but paw. The spool, like as not, would be so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> +dusty it would take blowings and wipings on your +skirt before it could be discovered whether the color +was blue or black. I tied my head in tissue paper +and sat down to the dusty job of sorting those spools. +Laboriously I got all the blacks together and in one +box. Laboriously all the whites. That exhausted +all the boxes I could lay hands on. I hunted up the +boss. “I can't do that spool job decent if I ain't got +no boxes to put the different colors in.”</p> + +<p>“Boxes, boxes! What for you want boxes?”</p> + +<p>“For the spools.”</p> + +<p>“'Ain't you got no boxes?”</p> + +<p>“'Ain't got another one.”</p> + +<p>He hustled around to the spool shelves where I +was working.</p> + +<p>“<i>Ach</i>, boxes! Here are two boxes. What more +you want?”</p> + +<p>Majestically, energetically, he dumped my black +spools out of one box, my white spools out of the +other—dumped them back with a flourish into the +mess of unassorted dust and colors.</p> + +<p>“Here are two boxes! What more you want?”</p> + +<p>What redress had I for such a grievance except to +wail at him: “My Gawd! my Gawd! I jus' put those +spools in them boxes!”</p> + +<p>“<i>Ach</i>, so!” says the boss. “Vell, put um back in +again.”</p> + +<p>With the sweat of my life's blood I unearthed a +ragged empty box here, another there, no two sizes +the same. After three days of using every minute to +be spared from other jobs on those shelves, I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> +every single spool where it belonged and each box +labeled as to color. How wondrous grand it looked! +How clean and dusted! I made the boss himself +gaze upon the glory of it.</p> + +<p>“<i>Ach</i>, fine!” he beamed.</p> + +<p>Two days later it was as if I had never touched a +spool. The boxes were broken, the spools spilled +all over—pawing was again in season. Not yet quite +so much dust, but soon even the dust would be as +of yore.</p> + +<p>“One cause of labor unrest is undoubtedly the fact +that the workers are aware that present management +of industry is not always 100 per cent efficient.”</p> + + +<p class="thought">So then, I framed up. Nor was it merely that I +worked under difficulties as to space. Another of the +boss's ideas of scientific management seemed to be +to employ as few bright and useful girls as possible. +He started with three. He ended with just one. +From dawn to dewy eve I tore. It was “Connie, +come here!” (Ada, the beadwork forelady.) “Connie, +come here!” (The cutter.) “Connie, thread, +thread, yes? There's a good girl!” (The beaders.) +“Connie, changeable beads, yes? That's the girl!” +“Connie, unframe these two skirts quick as you +can!” “Connie, never mind finishing those skirts; +I got to get this 'special' framed up right away!” +“Connie, didn't you finish unframing those skirts?” +“Connie, tissue paper, yes? Thanks awfully.” +“Connie, did you see that tag I laid here? Look for +it, will you?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>But the choice and rare moment of my bright and +useful career was when the boss himself called, “Oh, +Miss Connie, come <i>mal</i> here, yes?” And when I got +<i>mal</i> there he said, “I want you should take my shoes +to the cobblers <i>so fort</i> yes?... And be sure you get +a check ... and go quick, yes.” Whereupon he removed +his shoes and shuffled about in a pair of +galoshes.</p> + +<p>I put on the green tam. I put on the old brown +coat with now three buttons gone and the old fur collar, +over my blue-checked apron, and with the boss's +shoes under my arm out I fared, wishing to goodness +I would run into some one I knew, to chuckle with +me. Half an hour later the boss called me again.</p> + +<p>“I think it is time you should bring my shoes back, +yes?” I went. The cobbler said it would be another +five minutes. Five minutes to do what I +would within New York! It was a wondrous sensation. +Next to the cobbler's a new building was +going up. I have always envied the folks who had +time to hang over a railing and watch a new building +going up. At last—my own self, my green tam, my +brown coat over the blue-checked apron, chewing a +stick of Black Jack, hung over the railing and for five +whole minutes and watched the men on the steel +skeleton. All the time my salary was going on just +the same.</p> + +<p>I was hoping the boss would tip me—say, a dime—for +running his errands. Otherwise I might never +get a tip from anyone. He did not. He thanked me, +and after that he called me “dearie.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>Ada's face wore an anxious look when I got back. +She was afraid I might not have liked running errands. +Running errands, it seemed, was not exactly +popular. I assured her it was “so swell watchin' the +riveters on the new buildin'” I didn't care about the +shoes.</p> + +<p>The first day in any new job seems strange, and +you wonder if you ever will get acquainted. In the +dress factory I felt that way for several days. Hitherto +I had always worked with girls all round me, and +it was no time before we were chatting back and forth. +In the dress factory I worked by myself at chores no +one else did. Also, the other girls had the sort of +jobs which took concentration and attention—there +was comparatively little talk. Also, the sewing +machines inside and the riveting on that steel building +outside made too much noise for easy conversation.</p> + +<p>At lunch time most of the girls went out to eat at +various restaurants round about. They looked so +grand when they got their coats and hats on that I +could never see them letting me tag along in my old +green tam and two-out-of-five buttoned coat. My +wardrobe had all fitted in appropriately to candy and +brass and the laundry, but not to dressmaking. So +I ate my lunch out of a paper bag in the factory +with such girls as stayed behind. They were mostly +the beaders. And they were mostly “dead ones”—the +sort who would not talk had they been given a +bonus and share in the profits for it. They read the +<i>Daily News</i>, a group of some five to one paper, and ate.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p> + +<p>By Thursday of the first week I was desperate. +How was I ever to “get next” to the dress factory +girls? During the lunch hour Friday I gulped down +my food and tore for Gimbel's, where I bought five +new buttons. Saturday I sewed them on my coat, +and Monday and all the next week I ate lunch with +Ada and Eva and Jean and Kate at a Yiddish restaurant +where the food had strange names and +stranger tastes. But at least there was conversation.</p> + +<p>Ada I loved—our forelady in the bead work—young, +good-looking, intelligent. She rather took me +under her wing, in gratitude for which I showed +almost immediate improvement along those lines +whereon she labored over me. My grammar, for +instance. When I said “it ain't,” Ada would say, +“Connie, Connie, <i>ain't</i>!” Whereat I gulped and said +“isn't,” and Ada smiled approval. Within one week +I had picked up wonderfully. At the end of that week +Ada and I were quite chummy. She asked me one +day if I were married. No. Was she? “You don't +think I'd be working like this if I was, do you?” +When I asked her what she would be doing if she +didn't have to work, she answered, “Oh, lots of +things.” Nor could I pin her to details. She told +me she'd get married to-morrow only her “sweetheart” +was a poor man. But she was crazy about +him. Oh, she was! The very next day she flew over +to where I was framing up. “I've had a fight with +my sweetheart!”</p> + +<p>It was always difficult carrying on a conversation +with Ada. She was being hollered for from every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> +corner of the factory continually, and in the few +seconds we might have had for talk I was hollered +for. Especially is such jumpiness detrimental to +sharing affairs of the heart. I know only fragments +of Ada's romance. The fight lasted all of four days. +Then he appeared one evening, and next morning, +she beamingly informed me that “her sweetheart +had made up. Oh, but he's <i>some</i> lover, <i>I</i> tell +you!”</p> + +<p>Ada was born in Russia, but came very young +to this country. She spoke English without an accent. +Never had she earned less than twenty dollars +a week, starting out as a bookkeeper. When crochet +beading first became the rage, about five years ago, +she went over to that and sometimes made fifty +dollars and sixty dollars a week. Here as forelady, +she made forty dollars. Twenty dollars of that she +gave each week to her mother for board and lodging. +Often she had gone on summer vacations. For three +years she had paid for a colored girl to do the housework +at home. I despaired at first of having Ada so +much as take notice of the fact that I was alive. +What was my joy then, at the end of the first week, +to have her come up and say to me: “Do you know +what I want? I want you to come over to Brooklyn +and live with me and my folks.”</p> + +<p>Oh, it's wretched to just walk off and leave folks +like that!</p> + +<p>That same Saturday morning the boss said he +wanted to see me after closing time. There seemed +numerous others he wanted to see. Then I discovered,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> +while waiting my turn with these others, +that practically no one there knew her “price.” +There was a good deal of resentment about it, too. +He had hired these girls and no word about pay. +The other girls waiting that morning were beaders. +I learned one trick of the trade which it appears is +more or less universal. They had left their former +jobs to come to this factory in answer to an “ad” +for crochet beaders. If after one week it was found +they were getting less than they had at the old place, +they would go back and say they had been sick for +a week. Otherwise they planned to stay on at this +factory. Each girl was called in alone, and alone +bargained with the boss. Monday, Sadie, just for +instance, ahead of me in the Saturday line, reported +the conversation she had had with the boss:</p> + +<p>“Well, miss, what you expect to get here?”</p> + +<p>“What I'm worth.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes—you're worth one hundred dollars, but +I'm talking just plain English. What you expect to +get?”</p> + +<p>“I tell you what I'm worth.”</p> + +<p>“All right, you're worth one hundred dollars; you +think you'll get thirty dollars. I'll pay you twenty +dollars.”</p> + +<p>(Sadie had previously told me under no consideration +would she remain under twenty-five dollars, +but she remained for twenty dollars.)</p> + +<p>My turn. I thought there was no question about +my “price.” It was fourteen dollars. But perhaps +seeing how I had run my legs almost off, and pinned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> +my fingers almost off all week, the boss was going +voluntarily to raise me.</p> + +<p>“What wages you expect to get here?”</p> + +<p>Oh, well, since he thus opened the question we +would begin all new. I had worked so much harder +than I had anticipated.</p> + +<p>“Sixteen dollars a week.”</p> + +<p>“Ho—sixteen dollars!—and last Monday it was +fourteen dollars. You're going up, yes?”</p> + +<p>“But the work's much harder 'n I thought it 'ud +be.”</p> + +<p>“So you go from fourteen dollars to sixteen dollars +and I got you here to tell you you'd get twelve +dollars.”</p> + +<p>Oh, but I was mad—just plain mad! “You let +me work all week thinkin' I was gettin' fourteen +dollars. It ain't fair!”</p> + +<p>“Fair? I pay you what I can afford. Times are +hard now, you know.”</p> + +<p>I could not speak for my upset feelings. To pay +me twelve dollars for the endless labor of that week +when he had allowed me to think I was getting fourteen +dollars! To add insult to injury, he said, +“Next week I want you should work later than the +other girls evenings, and make no date for next +Saturday” (I had told him I was in a hurry to get +off for lunch this Saturday) “because I shall want you +should work Saturday afternoon.”</p> + +<p>Such a state of affairs is indeed worth following +up....</p> + +<p>Monday morning he came around breezily—he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> +really was a cordial, kindly soul—and said; “Well, +dearie, how are you this morning?”</p> + +<p>I went on pinning.</p> + +<p>“Good as anybody can be on twelve dollars a +week.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Ach</i>, forget it, forget it! Always money, money! +Whether a person gets ten cents or three hundred +dollars—it's not the money that counts”—his hands +went up in the air—“it's the <i>service</i>!”</p> + +<p>Yet employers tell labor managers they must not +sentimentalize.</p> + +<p>A bit later he came back. “I tell you what I'll +do. You stay late every night this week and work +Saturday afternoon like I told you you should, and +I'll pay you for it!”</p> + +<p>To such extremes a sense of justice can carry one! +(Actually, he had expected that extra work of me +gratis!)</p> + +<p>During the week I figured out that in his own +heart that boss had figured out a moral equivalent +for a living wage. There was nothing he would +not do for me. Did he but come in my general +direction, I was given a helping hand. He joked +with me continually. The hammer and nails were +always busy. I was not only “dearie,” I was +“sweetheart.” But fourteen dollars a week—that +was another story.</p> + +<p>Ada was full of compassion and suggested various +arguments I should use next week on the boss. It +was awful what he paid me, Ada declared. She too +would talk to him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p> + +<p>The second week I got closer to the girls. Or, more +truthfully put, they got closer to me. At the other +factories I had asked most of the questions and +answered fewer. Here I could hardly get a question +in edgewise for the flood which was let loose on me. +I explained in each factory that I lived with a widow +who brought me from California to look after her +children. I did some work for her evenings and +Saturday afternoon and Sunday, to pay for my room +and board. Not only was I asked every conceivable +question about myself, but at the dress factory I had +to answer uncountable questions about the lady I +lived with—her “gentlemen friends,” her clothes, +her expenses. It was like pulling teeth for me to +get any information out of the girls.</p> + +<p>In such a matter as reading, for example. Every +girl I asked was fond of reading. What kind of +books? Good books. Yes, but the names. I got +<i>We Two</i> out of Sarah, and Jean was reading Ibsen's +<i>Doll's House</i>. It was a swell book, a play. After +hours one night she told me the story. Together +with Ada's concern over my grammar it can be seen +that I left the dress factory in intellectual advance +over the condition in which I entered.</p> + +<p>The girls I had the opportunity of asking were not +such “movie” enthusiasts, on the whole. Only +now and then they went to “a show.” Less frequently +they spoke of going to the Jewish Theater. +No one was particularly excited over dancing—in +fact, Sarah, who looked the blond type of the dance-every-night +variety, thought dancing “disgusting.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>” +Shows weren't her style. She liked reading. Whenever +I got the chance I asked a girl what she did +evenings. The answer usually was, “Oh, nothing +much.” One Friday I asked a group of girls at lunch +if they weren't glad the next day was Saturday and +the afternoon off. Four of them weren't glad at all, +because they had to go home and clean house Saturday +afternoons, and do other household chores. +“Gee! don't you hate workin' round the house?”</p> + +<p>I wonder how much of the women-in-industry +movement is traceable to just that.</p> + +<p>The first day I was at the dress factory a very +dirty but pleasant-faced little Jewish girl said to me, +“Ever try workin' at home? Ain't it just awful?” +She had made thirty-two dollars a week beading at +her last place—didn't know what she'd get here.</p> + +<p>I had hoped to hear murmurings and discussions +about the conditions of the garment trades and the +unions—not a word the whole time. Papers were +full of a strike to be called the next week throughout +the city, affecting thousands of waist and dress +makers. It might as well have been in London. +Not an echo of interest in it reached our factory. +I asked Sarah if she had ever worked in a union shop. +“Sure.” “Any different from this?” “Different? +You bet it's different. Boss wouldn't dare treat you +the way you get treated here.” But as usual I was +yelled for and got no chance ever to pin Sarah to +details.</p> + +<p>A group of girls in the dressing room exploded one +night, “Gee! they sure treat you like dogs here! No<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> +soap, no towels—nothing.” The hours were good—8.30 +to 12.15; 1 to 5.15. One Saturday Ada and the +boss asked the beaders to work in the afternoon. Not +one stayed. Too many had heard the tales of girls +working overtime and not being paid anything extra.</p> + + +<p class="thought">Wednesday I went back after my last week's pay. +When the cashier caught sight of me she was full of +interest. “I was writing you a letter this very day. +The boss wants you back awful badly. He's out +just now for lunch. Can't you wait?”</p> + +<p>Just then the boss stepped from the elevator. +“<i>Ach</i>, here you are! Now, dearie, if it's just a matter +of a few dollars or so—”</p> + +<p>I was leaving town. Much discussion. No, I +couldn't stay on. Well, if I insisted—yes, he'd get +my pay envelope. My, oh, my, they missed me! +Why so foolish as to leave New York? Now, as for +my wages, they could easily be fixed to suit.... +All right, all right, he'd get my last pay envelope.</p> + +<p>And there was my pay envelope with just twelve +dollars again. “What about my overtime?”</p> + +<p>Overtime? Who said anything about overtime? +He did himself. He'd promised me if I worked every +night that week late I'd get paid for it. Every single +night I had stayed, and where was my pay for it?</p> + +<p>He shook his finger at my time card.</p> + +<p>Show him one hour of overtime on that card!</p> + +<p>I showed him where every night the time clock +registered overtime.</p> + +<p>Yes, but not once was it a full hour. And didn't I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> +know overtime never counted unless it was at least +a full hour?</p> + +<p>No, he had never explained anything about that. +I'd worked each night until everything was done +and I'd been told I could go.</p> + +<p>Well, of course he didn't want to rob me. I really +had nothing coming to me. Each night I'd stayed on +till about 6. But they would figure it out and see +what they could pay me. They figured. I waited. +At length majestically he handed out fifty-six cents.</p> + + +<p class="thought">The fat, older brother in the firm rode down in the +elevator with me—he who used to move silently +around the factory about four times a day, squinting +out of his beady eyes, such light as shown there +bespeaking 100 per-cent possession. He held his fat +thumbs in the palms of his fat hands and benignly +he was wont to survey his realm. Mine! Mine! +Mine! his every inch of being said. Nor could his +proportion of joy have been greater if he had six +floors of his own to survey, instead of one little claptrap +back room. It did make him so happy. He +wore a kindly and never-changing expression, and he +never spoke.</p> + +<p>Going down in the elevator, he edged over to my +corner. He pinched my arm, he pinched my cheeks. +<i>Ach</i>, but he'd miss me bad. Nice girl, I was.</p> + +<p>Evidently he, too, had evolved a moral equivalent +for a living wage. Little kindly personal attentions +were his share for anything not adequately covered +by twelve dollars and fifty-six cents.</p> + + + +<h3><a name="V" id="V"></a>V<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></h3> + +<h4><i>No. 536 Tickets Pillow Cases</i></h4> + + +<p class="newchapter"><span class="firstword"><span class="dropcap">A</span>h</span>, one should write of the bleachery <i>via</i> the +medium of poetry! If the thought of the brassworks +comes in one breath and the bleachery in the +next, the poetry must needs be set to music—the +Song of the Bleachery. What satisfaction there must +be to an employer who grows rich—or makes his income, +whatever it may be—from a business where so +much light-heartedness is worked into the product! +Let those who prefer to sob over woman labor behind +factory prison bars visit our bleachery. Better still, +let them work there. Here at least is one spot where +they can dry their tears. If the day ever dawns when +the conditions in that bleachery can be referred to +as typical of American industrial life, exist the agitator, +the walking delegate, the closed and open shop +fight.</p> + +<p>I can hear a bleachery operator grunting, “My +Gawd! what's the woman ravin' over? Is it <i>our</i> +bleachery she's goin' on about?” Most of the +workers in the bleachery know no other industrial +experience. In that community, so it seems, a child +is born, attends school up to the minimum required, +or a bit beyond, and then goes to work in the bleachery—though<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> +a few do find their way instead to the +overall factory, and still fewer to the shirtwaist +factory. No other openings exist at the Falls.</p> + +<p>There is more or less talk nowadays about Industrial +Democracy. Some of us believe that the application +of the democratic principle to industry is the +most promising solution to industrial unrest and +inefficiency. The only people who have written +about the idea or discussed it, so far, have been +either theorizers or propagandists from among the +intellectuals, or enthused appliers of the principle, +more or less high up in the business end of the thing. +What does Industrial Democracy mean to the rank +and file working under it? Is it one of those splendid +programs which look epoch-making in spirit, but +never permeates to those very people whom it is +especially designed to affect?</p> + +<p>It was to find out what the workers themselves +thought of Industrial Democracy that I boarded a +boat and journeyed seventy miles up the Hudson +to work in the bleachery, where, to the pride of those +responsible, functions the Partnership Plan.</p> + +<p>What do the workers think of working under a +scheme of Industrial Democracy?</p> + +<p>What do the citizens of the United States think of +living under a scheme of Political Democracy?</p> + +<p>The average citizen does not think one way or the +other about it three hundred and sixty-five days in +the year. Even voting days the rank and file of us +do not ponder overlong on democracy <i>versus</i> autocracy. +Indeed, if it could be done silently, in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> +dead of night, and the newspapers would promise +not to say a word about it, perhaps we might change +to a benevolent autocracy, and if we could silence +all orators, as well as the press, what proportion of +the population would be vitally concerned in the +transition? Sooner or later, of course, alterations in +the way of doing this and that would come about, +the spirit of the nation would change. But through +it all—autocracy, if it were benevolent, or democracy—there +would be little conscious concern on the +part of the great majority. Always provided the +press and orators would keep quiet.</p> + +<p>From my own experience, the same could be said +of Industrial Democracy. Autocracy, democracy, +the rank and file of the workers, especially the women +workers, understand not, ponder not.</p> + +<p>“Say,” chuckled Mamie, “I could 'a' died laughin' +once. A fella came through here askin' everybody +what we thought of the Partnership Plan. My +Gawd! when he got to me I jus' told him I didn't +understand the first thing about it. What ud he do +but get out a little book and write what I said down. +Never again! Anybody asks me now what I think +of the Partnership Plan, and I keep my mouth shut, +you bet.”</p> + +<p>Once an enthused visitor picked on me to ask what +I thought of working under the Partnership Plan. +After he moved on the girls got the giggles. “Say, +these folks that come around here forever asking what +we think about the Partnership Plan! Say, what any +of us knows about that could be put in a nutshell.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>And gray-haired Ella Jane, smartest of all, ten +years folding pillow cases, said: “I don't know anything +about that Partnership Plan. All I know is +that we get our share of the profits and our bonuses, +and I can't imagine a nicer place to work. They do +make you work for what you get, though. But it's +all white and aboveboard and you know nobody's +trying to put something over on you.”</p> + +<p>But the general spirit of the place? Could that be +traced to anything else but the special industrial +scheme of things? One fact at least is certain—the +employing end is spared many a detail of management; +the shift in responsibility is educating many a +worker to the problems of capital. And production +is going up.</p> + + +<p class="thought">Have you ever tried to find a spare bed in a town +where there seems to be not a spare bed to be had? +I left my belongings in an ice cream store and followed +every clue, with a helpful hint from the one +policeman, or the drug store man, or a fat, soiled +grandmother who turned me down because they +were already sleeping on top of one another in her +house. In between I dropped on a grassy hillside +and watched Our Bleachery baseball team play a +Sunday afternoon game with the Colored Giants. +We won.</p> + +<p>And then I took up the hunt again, finally being +guided by the Lord to the abode of the sisters Weston—two +old maids, combined age one hundred and +forty-nine years, who took boarders. Only there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> +were no more to take. The Falls was becoming +civilized. Improvements were being installed in +most of the houses. Boarders, which meant mainly +school-teachers, preferred a house with Improvements. +The abode of the sisters Weston had none. It was +half a company house, with a pump in the kitchen +which drew up brown water of a distressing odor.</p> + +<p>The sisters Weston had worked in the overall factory +in their earlier years, hours 7 to 6, wages five +dollars a week, paid every five to six weeks. Later +they tried dressmaking; later still, boarders. I +belonged to the last stage of all—they no longer +took boarders, they took a boarder. Mr. Welsh +from the electrical department in the bleachery, +whose wife was in Pennsylvania on a visit to her +folks, being sickly and run down, as seemed the wont +of wives at the Falls, took his meals at our boarding +house, when he was awake for them. Every other +week Mr. Welsh worked night shift.</p> + +<p>My belongings were installed in the room assigned +me, and the younger of the sisters Weston, seventy-three, +sat stiffly but kindly in a chair. “Now about +the room rent...?” she faltered. Goodness! yes! +My relief at finding a place to sleep in after eleven +turn-downs was so great that I had completely neglected +such a little matter as what the room might +cost me.</p> + +<p>“What do you charge?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“What do you feel you can pay? We want you +should have some money left each week after your +board's paid. What do you make at the bleachery?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>My conscience fidgeted within me a bit at that. +“I'd rather you charged me just what you think the +room and board are worth to you, not what you think +I can pay.”</p> + +<p>“Well, we used to get eight dollars a week for +room and board. It's worth that.”</p> + +<p>It is cheaper to live than die in the Falls at that +rate. Three hot meals a day I got: breakfast, coffee, +toast, two eggs, mush, later fruit; dinner, often soup, +always meat, potatoes, vegetables, coffee, and a +dessert; supper, what wasn't finished at dinner, and +tea. Always there was plenty of everything. Sometimes +too much, if it were home-canned goods which +had stood too many years on the shelves, due to lack +of boarders to eat the same. But the sisters Weston +meant the best.</p> + +<p>“How d'ya like the punkin pie?” the older, Miss +Belle, would ask.</p> + +<p>The pumpkin pie had seemed to taste a trifle +strange, but we laid it to the fact that it was some +time since we had eaten pumpkin pie. “It tastes +all right.”</p> + +<p>“Now, there! Glad to hear you say it. Canned +that punkin ourselves. Put it up several years ago. +Thought it smelled and looked a bit spoiled, but I +says, guess I'll cook it up; mebbe the heat 'n' all'll +turn it all right again. There's more in the kitchen!”</p> + +<p>But it suddenly seemed as if I must get to work +earlier that noon than I had expected. “Can't ya +even finish your pie? I declare I'm scared that pie +won't keep long.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>Mr. Welsh got sick after the first couple of meals, +but bore on bravely, nor did the matter of turned +string beans consciously worry Mr. Welsh. The +sisters themselves were always dying; their faithful +morning reports of the details of what they had been +through the night before left nothing to the imagination. +“Guess I oughtn't ta 'a' et four hot cakes for +supper when I was so sick yesterday afternoon. I +sure was thinking I'd die in the night.... 'Liza, pass +them baked beans; we gotta git them et up.”</p> + + +<p class="thought">At six o'clock in the morning the bleachery whistle +blows three times loud enough to shake the shingles +on the roofs of the one-hundred-year-old houses and +the leaves on the more than one-hundred-year-old +trees about the Falls. Those women who have their +breakfasts to get and houses to straighten up before +they leave for work—and there are a number—must +needs be about before then. Seven o'clock sees +folks on all roads leading to the bleachery gate. At +7.10 the last whistle blows; at 7.15 the power is +turned on, wheels revolve, work begins.</p> + +<p>It must be realized that factory work, or any other +kind of work, in a small town is a different matter +from work in a large city, if for no other reason than +the transportation problem. Say work in New +York City begins at 7.45. That means for many, if +not most, of the workers, an ordeal of half an hour's +journey in the Subways or “L,” shoving, pushing, +jamming, running to catch the shuttle; shoving, +pushing, jamming, running for the East Side Subway;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> +shoving, pushing, jamming, scurrying along +hard pavements to the factory door; and at the end +of a day of eight or nine hours' work, all that to be +done over again to get home.</p> + +<p>Instead, at the Falls, it meant a five minutes' +leisurely—unless one overslept—walk under old +shade trees, through the glen along a path lined with +jack-in-the-pulpits, wild violets, moss—the same +five minutes' walk home at noon to a hot lunch, +plenty of time in which to eat it, a bit of visiting on +the way back to the factory, and a leisurely five +minutes' walk home in the late afternoon. No one +has measured yet what crowded transportation +takes out of a body in the cities.</p> + +<p>New York factories are used to new girls—they +appear almost daily in such jobs as I have worked in. +At the Falls a strange person in town is excitement +enough, a strange girl at the bleachery practically an +unheard-of thing. New girls appear now and then +to take the places of those who get married or the +old women who must some time or other die. But +not strange girls. Everyone in the bleachery grew +up with everyone else; as Ella Jane said, you know +their mothers and their grandmothers, too.</p> + +<p>It so happened that a cataclysmic event had visited +the Falls the week before my appearance. A family +had moved away, thereby detaching a worker from +the bleachery—the girl who ticketed pillow cases. +The Sunday I appeared in town, incidentally, seven +babies were born. That event—or those events—plus +me, minus the family who moved away and an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> +old man who had died the week before, made the +population of the Falls 4,202. Roughly, half that +number either worked at the bleachery or depended +on those who worked there. Who or what the other +half were, outside the little group of Main Street +tradespeople, remained a mystery. Of course, there +were the ministers of the gospel and their families—in +the same generous overdose—apportioned to most +small towns. The actual number working in the +bleachery was about six hundred and twenty men and +women.</p> + +<p>Odd, the different lights in which you can see a +small town. The chances are that, instead of being +a worker, I might have spent the week end visiting +some of the “<i>élite</i>” of the Falls. In that case we +should have motored sooner or later by the bleachery +gate and past numerous company houses. My host, +with a wave of the hand, would have dispatched the +matter by remarking, “The town's main industry. +The poor devils live in these houses you see.”</p> + +<p>Instead, one day I found myself wandering along +the street of the well-to-do homes. What in the +world...? Who all ever lived way up here? Whatever +business had they in our Falls? Did they have +anyone to talk to, anything to do? I laid the matter +before Mamie O'Brien.</p> + +<p>“Any rich folk living around here?”</p> + +<p>“Guess so. Some swell estates round about—never +see the people much.”</p> + +<p>“Are they stuck up?”</p> + +<p>“Dunno—na. Saw one of 'em at the military<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> +funeral last week. She wasn't dressed up a bit swell—just +wore a plaid skirt. Didn't look like anybody +at all.”</p> + +<p>In other words, we were the town. It was the +bleachery folk you saw on the streets, in the shops, +at the post office, at the movies. The bleachery +folk, or their kind, I saw at the three church services +I attended. If anyone had dared sympathize with +us—called us “poor devils”!</p> + + +<p class="thought">The first morning at the bleachery the foreman +led me to the narrow space in the middle of three +large heavy tables placed “U” shape, said, “Here's +a girl to ticket,” and left me. The foreman knew +who I was. Employment conditions at the bleachery +were such that it was necessary to make sure of a job +by arranging matters ahead of time with the manager. +Also, on a previous occasion I had visited the bleachery, +made more or less of an investigation, and sat +in on a Board of Operatives' meeting. Therefore, I +left off my earrings, bought no Black Jack, did not +feel constrained to say, “It ain't,” though saw no +reason why I too should not indulge in “My Gawd!” +if I felt like it. I find it one of the most contagious +expressions in the language. The girls did not seem +to know who I was or what I was. Not until the +second day did the girl who stood next to me ask my +name—a formality gone through within the first five +minutes in any New York job. I answered Cornelia +Parker. She got it Miss Parks, and formally introduced +me around the table—“Margaret, meet Miss<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> +Parks—Miss White, Miss Parks.” Also all very +different from New York. About the only questions +asked by any girl were, “You're from New York?” +and, “Where did you work before you came here?” +Some wondered if I wasn't lonesome without my +folks. I didn't have any folks. There was none of +the expressed curiosity of the New York worker as +to my past, present, and future. Not until the last +few days did I feel forced to volunteer now and then +enough information so that they would get my name +and me more or less clear in their minds and never +feel, after their heart-warming cordiality, that I had +tried “to put anything over on them.” Whether I +was Miss Parks or Mrs. Parker, it made no difference +to them. It did to me, for I felt here at last I could +keep up the contacts I had made; and instead of +walking off suddenly, leaving good friends behind +without a word, I could honestly say I was off to the +next job, promise everyone I'd write often and come +again to the Falls, and have everyone promise to +write me and never come to New York without letting +me know. I can lie awake nights and imagine +what fun it is going to be getting back to the Falls +some day and waiting by the bridge down at the +bleachery for the girls to come out at noon, seeing +them all again. Maybe Mrs. Halley will call out +her, “Hi! look 'ose 'ere!”</p> + + +<p class="thought">At our bleachery, be it known, no goods were manufactured. +We took piece goods in the rough, mostly +white, bleached, starched, and finished it, and rolled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> +or folded the finished stuff for market. In Department +10, where most of the girls worked, the west +end of the big third floor, three grades of white goods +were made into sheets and pillow cases, ticketed, +bundled, and boxed for shipping. Along the entire +end of the room next the windows stood the operating +machines, with rows of girls facing one another, all +hemming sheets or making pillow cases. There +were some ten girls who stood at five heavy tables, +rapidly shaking out the hemmed sheets, inspecting +them for blemishes of any kind, folding them for the +mangle, hundreds and hundreds a day. At other +tables workers took the ironed sheets, ticketed them, +tied them in bundles, wrapped and labeled and +stacked the bundles, whereupon they sooner or later +were wheeled off to one side and boxed. Four girls +worked at the big mangle. Besides the mangle, one +girl spent her day hand-ironing such wrinkles as appeared +now and then after the mangle had done its +work.</p> + +<p>So much for sheets. There were three girls (the +term “girl” is used loosely, since numerous females +in our department will never see fifty again) who +slipped pillow cases over standing frames which +poked out the corners. After they were mangled +they were inspected and folded, ticketed, bundled, +and wrapped at our three U-shaped tables. Also +there, one or two girls spent part time slipping pieces +of dark-blue paper under the hemstitched part of the +pillow cases and sheets, so that the ultimate consumer +might get the full glory of her purchase.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p> + +<p>The first week Nancy, a young Italian girl (there +were only two nationalities in the Falls—Italians +and Americans), and I ticketed pillow cases. At the +end of that time I had become efficient enough so +that I alone kept the bundler busy and Nancy was +put on other work. Ticketing means putting just +the right amount of smelly paste on the back of a +label, slapping it swiftly just above the center of the +hem. There are hundreds of different labels, according +to the size and quality of the pillow cases and the +store which retails them. My best record was ticketing +about six thousand seven hundred in one day. +The cases come folded three times lengthwise, three +times across, sixty in a bundle. As fast as I ticketed +a bundle I shoved them across to the “bundler,” +who placed six cases one way, six the other, tied the +bundle of twelve at each end with white tape, stacked +them in layers of three until the pile was as high as +possible for safety, when it was shoved across to the +wrapper. How Margaret's fingers flew! She had +each dozen in its paper, tied and labeled, in the wink +of an eye, almost.</p> + +<p>In our department there were three boys who +raced up and down with trucks; one other who +wrapped the sheets when he did not have his arm +gayly around some girl; and the little man to pack +the goods in their shipping boxes and nail them up. +There were two forewomen—pretty, freckled-faced +Tess and the masculine Winnie. Over all of us was +“Hap,” the new boss elected by Department 10 as +its representative on the Board of Operatives. It is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> +safe to say he will be re-elected as long as death or +promotion spare him. Hap is a distinct success. +He never seems to notice anybody or anything—in +fact, most of the time you wonder where in the +world he is. But on Hap's shoulders rests the output +for our entire department. The previous “boss” +was the kind who felt he must have his nose in +everything and his eye on everybody. The month +after Hap and his methods of letting folks alone +came into power, production jumped ahead.</p> + +<p>But Hap spoke up when he felt the occasion warranted +it. The mangle girls started quitting at 11.30. +They “got by” with it until the matter came to Hap's +notice. He lined the four of them up and, while the +whole room looked on with amused interest, he told +them what was what. After that they stayed till 12.</p> + +<p>Another time a piece-rate girl allowed herself to +be overpaid two dollars and said nothing about it. +Hap called her into the office.</p> + +<p>“Didn't you get too much in your envelope this +week?”</p> + +<p>“I dunno. I 'ain't figured up yet.”</p> + +<p>“Don't you keep track of your own work?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but I 'ain't figured up yet.”</p> + +<p>“Bring me your card.”</p> + +<p>The girl reddened and produced a card with everything +up to date and two dollars below the amount +in her pay envelope.</p> + +<p>“You better take a week off,” said Hap. But he +repented later in the afternoon and took it back, only +he told her to be more careful.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was the bundler who took me under her wing +that first day—pretty Mamie O'Brien—three generations +in the Falls. There was no talk of vamping, +no discussions of beaus. Everyone told everything +she had done since Saturday noon.</p> + +<p>“Hey, Margaret, didjagototha movies Saturday +night?”</p> + +<p>“Sure. Swell, wasn't it?”</p> + +<p>“You said it. I 'ain't ever saw sweller....”</p> + +<p>“I seen Edna's baby Sunday. Awful cute. Had +on them pink shoes Amy made it....”</p> + +<p>“Say, ain't that awful about Mr. Tinney's grandchild +over to Welkville! Only lived three hours....”</p> + +<p>“They're puttin' in the bathtub at Owenses'....”</p> + +<p>“What dya know! After they got the bathroom +all papered at Chases' they found they'd made a +mistake and it's all got to be ripped down. Bathtub +won't fit in.” (“Improvements” were one of the +leading topics of conversation day in and day out at +the Falls.)</p> + +<p>“Ain't that new hat of Jess Tufts a fright? I +'ain't never saw her look worse.”</p> + +<p>Back and forth it went—all the small gossip of the +small town where everyone knows everything about +everyone else from start to finish. It was all a bit +too mild for Mamie, as I later learned—indeed, I +began to learn it that day. It was no time before +Mamie was asking my opinion on every detail of the +Stillman case: Did I think Mrs. Stokes would get +her divorce? Did I consider somebody or other +guilty of some crime or other? Somebody gets the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> +electric chair to-morrow? Wasn't it the strangest +thing that somebody's body hadn't been recovered +yet? Whatdyaknow about a father what'll strangle +his own child? A man got drowned after he'd been +married only two days. And did I think Dempsey +or Carpentier would win the fight? “Gee! Wouldn't +you give your hat to see that fight?”</p> + +<p>Meanwhile I was nearly drowning myself and the +labels in paste, at the same time trying to appear +intelligent about a lot of things I evidently was most +uninformed about; working up an enthusiasm for +the Dempsey-Carpentier fight which would have led +anyone to believe my sole object in working was to +accumulate enough cash to pay the price of admission. +And all this time I was feasting my eyes on +fresh-faced girls in summer wash dresses, mostly +Americans, some Italians; no rouge whatever; not +a sign of a lipstick, except on one girl; little or no +powder; a large, airy, clean, white room, red-and-white +striped awnings at the windows; and wherever +the eye looked hillsides solid with green trees almost +close enough to touch (the bleachery was built down +in a hollow beside a little river). Oh, it was too good +to be true, after New York!</p> + +<p>Pretty gray-haired, pink-cheeked (real genuine +pink-cheeked) Mrs. Hall and I were talking about +the bleachery on our way to work one morning. +Mrs. Hall had been a forelady in a New York private +dressmaking establishment. She had what is called +“style and personality.” Her wages in New York +had been thirty-five dollars a week, and she had much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> +variety and responsibility, which she loved. Circumstances +brought her to the Falls. She had never +worked in a factory; the very idea had appalled her, +yet she must work. One day she went up to Department +10 to see what it was all like. “Why,” she +said, “it took my breath away! I felt as if I was in +one of those lovely rooms where they did Red Cross +work during the war. Of course I get only a small +amount a week and it's the same thing over and +over again, and after what I was used to in New York +that's hard. But it never seems like I was in a factory, +somehow.”</p> + +<p>Just so. There was never the least “factory atmosphere” +about the place. It used to make me +think of a reception, the voice of the machines for +the music, with always, always the sound of much +talk and laughter above the whir. Sometimes—especially +Mondays, with everyone telling everyone +else what she had done over the week end, and for +some reason or other Fridays, the talk was “enough +to get you crazy,” Margaret used to say. “Sure it +makes my head swim.” Nor was the laughter the +giggling kind, indulged in when the forelady was not +looking. It was the riotous variety, where at least +one of a group would “laugh till she most cried”; +nor did it make the least difference, whether the forelady +was one foot or one hundred away. Like as not +the forelady was laughing with the rest. Only once +did I ever see authority exerted to curb merriment. +On that occasion things reached a climax. All those +not directly concerned with the joke became so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> +curious as to what it was all about that one by one +the girls left their machines and gathered up one end +of the room to laugh with the rest, until production, +it was apparent, was at a standstill. Winnie went +out and told Hap. Hap merely stepped inside the +room, and every girl did “sure get busy.” It was +the only time even Hap so much as paid the least +attention to what went on. All day there was talk, +all day laughter, all day visiting a bit here and there, +back and forth. Yet in the month of April production +had reached the highest point ever, and the +month I was there was expected to surpass April. +It is significant that with all the fun, the standard +of efficiency and production in our bleachery was +such that out of eighteen like industries in the country, +we were one of the only two running full time. +Thirteen were shut down altogether.</p> + +<p>That first day I asked Mamie what time work +began in the morning. Mamie giggled. “I dunno. +Say, Margaret, what time does work begin in the +morning?” “Seven-fifteen, I think.” Under the +Partnership Plan I knew that each operative was +allowed a week's vacation on full pay. But every +time late, after fifteen times, deducted so many +minutes from the vacation, just as any time off without +sufficient cause meant that much less vacation.</p> + +<p>“Ever been late?” I asked Mamie.</p> + +<p>More giggles. “Say, Margaret, she wants to know +if I was ever late!” To me: “Ninety-seven times +last year—no vacation at all for mine. Ask Margaret +how many time she's been late.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>Still more giggles. Margaret giggled, I giggled. +Margaret had been late one hundred eighteen times. +Some of the girls were late practically every day; +they were like small boys who would not for the world +have anyone think they would try to do in school +what was expected of them. Yet there were several +girls who were to come into their full week off—the +names and dates were posted on the bulletin board; +others were given five days, three days, down to a +few whose allotment out of a possible week was one-half +day. But several of the most boastful over +their past irregular record, and who were receiving +no vacation at all, claimed they were going to be on +time every day this coming year—“Sure.” This +was the first year the vacation with pay had been +granted. I thought of Tessie at the candy factory—Tessie +who had been sent speedily home by the pop-eyed +man at the door because she was ten minutes +late, due to taking her husband to the hospital. +Verily, there is no “factory atmosphere” about the +bleachery, compared with New York standards. The +men, they say, take the whole matter of punctuality +and attendance more seriously than the women.</p> + +<p>The second day I began my diary with, “A bleachery +job is no job at all.” That again was by contrast. +Also, those first two days were the only two, until the +last week, that we did not work overtime at our table. +When orders pour in and the mangle works every +hour and extra folders are put on and the bundles +of pillow cases pile up, then, no matter with what +speed you manage to slap on those labels, you never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> +seem to catch up. Night after night Nancy, Mamie, +Margaret, and I worked overtime. From 7.15 in +the morning till 6 at night is a long day. Then +for sure and certain we did get tired, and indeed +by the end of a week of it we were well-nigh +“tuckered out.” But the more orders that came +in the more profits to be divided fifty-fifty between +Capital and Labor.</p> + +<p>(The Handbook on the Partnership Plan reads: +“Our profit sharing is a 50-50 proposition. The +market wage of our industry is paid to Labor and a +minimum of 6% is paid to Capital. After these have +been paid, together with regular operating expenses, +depreciation reserve, taxes, etc., and after the Sinking +Funds have been provided for by setting aside 15% +of the next profits for Labor and 15% for Capital, +the remaining net profits are divided 50% for Capital +and 50% for the operatives, and the latter sum +divided in proportion to the amount of each one's +pay for the period.... A true partnership must +jointly provide for losses as well as for the sharing +of profits.... These Sinking Funds are intended to +guarantee Capital its minimum return of 6% during +periods when this shall not have been carried, and +to provide unemployment insurance for the operatives, +paying half wages when the company is unable +to furnish employment.”)</p> + +<p>In the candy factory back in New York, Ida, the +forelady, would holler from the end of the room, “My +Gawd! girls, work faster!” At the bleachery, when +extra effort was needed, the forelady passed a letter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> +around our table from a New York firm, saying their +order must be filled by the end of that week or they +would feel justified in canceling the same. Every +girl read the letter and dug her toes in. No one ever +said, “You gotta work overtime to-night!” We just +mutually decided there was nothing else to do about +it, so it was, “Let's work overtime to-night again.” +It was time-and-a-half pay for overtime, to be sure, +but it would be safe to assert it was not alone for the +time and a half we worked. We felt we had to catch +up on orders. A few times only, some one by about +four o'clock would call: “Oh, gee! I'm dead; I've been +workin' like a horse all day. I jus' can't work +overtime to-night.” The chances were if one girl +had been working like a horse we all had. Such was +the interrelation of jobs at our table.</p> + +<p>Except, indeed, Italian Nancy. Whether it was +because Nancy was young, or not overstrong, or not +on piece rates, or a mixture of the three, Nancy never +anguished herself working, either during the day or +overtime. One evening she spent practically the +entire overtime hour, at time and a half, washing +and ironing a collar and cuffs for one of the girls. +Nor did any of our table think it at all amiss.</p> + +<p>During the day Nancy was the main little visitor +from our table. She ambled around and brought +back the news. If interesting enough from any +quarter, another of us would betake herself off for +more details. One day Nancy's young eyes were as +big as saucers.</p> + +<p>“Say, whatdyaknow! That Italian girl Minna,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> +she's only fifteen and she's got a gold ring on with a +white stone in it and she says she's engaged!” We +sent Nancy back for more details. For verification +she brought back the engagement ring itself. “Whatdyaknow! +Only fifteen!” (Nancy herself was a +year beyond that mature age.) “The man she's +goin' to marry is awful old, twenty-five! Whatdyaknow!” +At a previous time Nancy had regaled our +table with an account of how, out of a sense of duty +to a fellow-countryman, she had announced to this +same Minna that she simply must take a bath. +“Na,” said Minna, “too early yet.” That was the +end of May.</p> + +<p>We were all, even I after the third day, on piecework +at our table, except Nancy. Most of the girls +in Department 10 were on piecework. There was +one union in the bleachery; that was in another +department where mostly men were employed—the +folders. They worked time rates. With us, as soon +as a girl's record warranted it, she was put on piece +rates. Nancy and most of those young girls were +still, after one or two years, on time rates—around +eleven dollars a week they made. There was one +case of a girl who did little, day in and day out, but her +hair. She was the one girl who used a lipstick. +They had taken her off time rates and put her on +piecework. She was a machine operator. The last +week I was there her earnings were a little over two +dollars for the week. She was incorrigible. Some of +the machine operators made around thirty dollars a +week. The mangle girls earned around twenty-five<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> +dollars. Old Mrs. Owens, standing up and inspecting +sheets at the table behind me, made from twenty +dollars to twenty-five dollars. (Mrs. Owens had inspected +sheets for thirteen years. I asked her if she +ever felt she wanted to change and try something +else. “No, sir,” said Mrs. Owens; “a rolling stone +gathers no moss.”) Mamie, bundler, made around +sixteen dollars; Margaret, at our table, went as +high once as twenty-five dollars, but she averaged +around twenty dollars. My own earnings were +twelve dollars and fifty-three cents the first week, +fifteen dollars and twenty-three cents the second, +eight dollars and twenty-seven cents the third. All +the earnings at our table were low that last week—Margaret's +were around twelve dollars. For one +thing, there was a holiday. No wonder employers +groan over holidays! The workers begin to slacken +up about two days ahead and it takes two days after +the day off to recover. Then, too, we indulged in too +much nonsense that last week. We laughed more +than we worked, and paid for it. The next week +Mamie and Margaret claimed they were going to +bring their dinners the whole week to work that +noon hour and make up for our evil days. But as +gray-haired Ella Jane said, she laughed so much that +week she claimed she had a stomach ache. “We'll +be a long time dead, once we die. Why not laugh +when you get a chance?”</p> + +<p>Why not?—especially in a small town where it is +well to take each chance for fun and recreation as it +comes—since goodness knows when the next will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> +show itself. Outside of the gayety during working +hours, there was little going on about the Falls. +Movies—of course, movies. Four times a week the +same people, usually each entire family, conscientiously +change into their best garments and go to +the movie palace. The children and young people +fill the first rows, the grown folk bring up the rear. +Four times a week young and old get fed on society +dramas, problem plays, bathing girl comedies. Next +day it is always:</p> + +<p>“Sadie, did ya saw the show last night? Wasn't +it swell where she recognized her lover just before +he got hung?”</p> + +<p>Just once since movies were has the town been +taken by storm, and that was while I was there. It +was “The Kid” that did it. Many that day at the +bleachery said they weren't going—didn't like Charlie +Chaplin—common and pie-slinging; cheap; always +all of that. Sweet-faced Mamie, who longs to go +through Sing Sing some day—“That's where they +got the biggest criminals ever. Wonder if they let +you see the worst ones”—Mamie, who had thrilled +to a trip through the insane asylum; Mamie, who +could discuss for hours the details of how a father +beat his child to death; Mamie, to whom a divorce +was meat and a suicide drink—Mamie wasn't going +to see Charlie Chaplin. All that pie-slinging stuff +made her sick.</p> + +<p>Usually a film shows but once at the Falls. “The +Kid” ran Monday matinée. Monday night the first +time in history the movie palace was filled and over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> +two hundred turned away. Tuesday night it was +shown to a third full house. Everyone was converted.</p> + +<p>As for dancing, once a week, Friday nights, there +was a dance at the “Academy.” Time was when +Friday night's dance was an event, and the male +contingent from the largest near-by city was wont to +attend. But it cost twenty-four cents to journey by +trolley from the largest near-by city to the Falls, +fifty cents to attend the dance. Unemployment at +the largest near-by city meant that any dancing indulged +in by its citizens was at home, minus car fare. +Also, the music for dancing at the Falls was not favorably +commented upon. So sometimes there were six +couples at the dance, once in a great while twenty. +The youths present were home talent, short on thrills +for the fair ones present.</p> + +<p>Indeed, the problem of the Falls was the problem +of every small town—where in the world could an +up-and-doing girl turn for a beau? The only young +men in the place were those married still younger +and anchored there, or the possessors of too little +gumption to get out. Those left hung over the rail +at the end of the Main Street bridge and eyed every +female passer-by. It was insult heaped on boredom, +from the girls' point of view, that a Falls youth never +so much as tipped his hat when spoken to. “Paralysis +of the arms is here widespread,” Bess put it. +“You oughta see 'em in winter,” Margaret giggled +one Sunday while four of us were walking the streets +for diversion. “If you want to know where the gallants +of the Falls are in winter, look for a sunny<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> +spot. They collect in patches of sun, like some kind +of bugs or animals.”</p> + +<p>As for reading, “Do you like to read?”</p> + +<p>“Crazy 'bout readin'.”</p> + +<p>“What, for instance?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, books, movie magazines. Don't ever remember +the names of anything. Swell stories. Gee! +I cried and cried over the last one....”</p> + +<p>Or, “Do much reading?”</p> + +<p>“Na, never git time to read.”</p> + +<p>My old maids never so much as took the newspaper. +They figured that if news was important +enough they'd hear about it sooner or later, and +meanwhile there was much to keep up with at the +Falls.</p> + +<p>“Can't hardly sleep nights, got so much on my +mind,” the seventy-sixer would say.</p> + +<p>One night she just got nervous fidgets something +awful, worrying lest her brother might not get to +the Baptist chicken dinner after all, when he'd gone +and paid seventy-five cents for his ticket.</p> + +<p>Sunday there was church to attend, the Catholics +flourishing, the Episcopalians next, four other denominations +tottering this way and that. I heard +the Baptist minister preach that every word in the +Bible was inspired by God, ending with a plea for +the family altar.</p> + +<p>“Christian brethren, I'm a man who has seen both +sides of life. I could have gone one way. It is by +the grace of God and the family altar that I stand +before you the man I am.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>There were thirty-one people in the congregation +who heard his young though quavering words, eight +of them children, two the organist and her husband, +nine of the remainder women over sixty.</p> + +<p>The Methodist, that morning, preached on the +need of a revival at the Falls, and Mr. Welsh, the +electrician, whose wife was resting up in Pennsylvania, +thought he was right. Sunday baseball—that +day our bleachery team played the Keen +Kutters—pained Mr. Welsh. The Methodist minister +before this one had been a thorn in the flesh of +his congregation. He frankly believed in amusements, +disgraced them by saying out loud at a union +service that he favored Sunday baseball. Another +minister got up and “sure made a fool of him,” +thank goodness. Where was the renegade now? +Called to a church in a large Middle West city where +they have no more sense than to pay him twice what +he was getting at the Falls.</p> + +<p>That night I heard a visiting brother at the +Methodist church plead for support for foreign +missions, that we might bring the light of the ideal +Christian civilization under which we live to the +thirsty savages in dark places. He poured his message +to an audience of twenty-one, ten of them gray-haired +women, one a child.</p> + +<p>All the ministers prayed long for Harding and +were thankful he was a child of God.</p> + +<p>Three of us girls rowed up the lake one night and +cooked our supper and talked about intimate things. +It was a lake worth traveling miles to see. It was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> +one block from the post office. Mamie had been to +the lake twice in all her life. It was good for canoeing, +rowing, fishing, swimming, and, best of all, just +for the eyesight. Yet to the great majority it did not +exist.</p> + +<p>The bleachery, through its Partnership Plan, ran +a village club house on Main Street. The younger +boys, allowing only for school hours, worked the +piano player from morn till night. There was a +gymnasium. Suppers were given now and then. +It was supposed to be for the use of the girls certain +days, but they took little or no advantage of it.</p> + +<p>Otherwise, and mostly, when the weather permitted, +up and down the street folk sat on their +front porches and rocked or went inside and played +the victrola.</p> + +<p>“Gawd! If I could shake the Falls!” many a girl +sighed. Yet they had no concrete idea what they +would shake it for. Just before I came the bleachery +girls were called into meeting and it was explained +to them that Bryn Mawr College was planning a +two months' summer school for working girls. Its +attractions and possibilities were laid forth in detail. +It was explained that Vassar College and a woman's +club were making it possible for two bleachery girls +to go, with all expenses paid. Out of 184 eligible +girls four signed up as being interested. One of those +later withdrew her name. The two chosen were +Bess and Margaret, as fine girls as ever went to any +college. There was much excitement the Saturday +morning their telegrams came, announcing Bryn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> +Mawr had passed favorably upon their candidacy. +Bess especially was beside herself. “Oh, it's what +I've longed to have a chance to do all my life!” She +had clutched a <i>New Republic</i> under her arms for +days containing an article about the summer school. +Both Margaret and Bess had spent a couple of years +at West Point during the war as servants, for a +change. They had worked for the colonel's wife +and loved it. “Gee! the fun we had!”</p> + +<p>Yet it was no time before Main Street characteristics +came to the front.</p> + +<p>Only four girls had so much as expressed an interest +in the Bryn Mawr scheme. Within a week +after the two girls received the telegrams, tongues +got busy. Margaret looked ready to cry one afternoon.</p> + +<p>“Hey! what's the matter?”</p> + +<p>“My Gawd! This place makes you sick. Can't +no one let a person get started enjoyin' themselves +but what they do their best to spoil it for you!” +Her hands were wrapping pillow case bundles like +lightning, her head bent over her work. “Don't I +know I ain't nothin' but a factory girl? Don't I +know I probably won't ever be nothin' but one? +Can't a person take a chance to get off for two months +and go to that college without everybody sayin' +you're tryin' to be stuck up and get to be somethin' +grand and think you won't be a factory girl no more? +I don't see anything I'm gettin' out of this that's +goin' to make me anything but just a factory girl +still. I'm not comin' back and put on any airs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> +My Gawd! My Gawd! Why can't they leave you +alone?”</p> + +<p>I asked two of the Falls men I knew if their sex +would have acted the same as the girls, had it been +two men going off for a two months' treat. “You +bet,” they answered. “It's your darn small-town +jealousy, and not just female at all.”</p> + +<p>Suppose, then, on top of all the drawbacks of small-town +life, the girls had to work under big-city factory +conditions? At least there was always the laughter, +always the talk, always the visiting back and forth, +at the bleachery.</p> + +<p>My last day on the job witnessed a real event. +Katie Martin was to be married in ten days. Therefore, +she must have her tin shower at the bleachery. +Certain traditions of that sort were unavoidable. +At Christmas time the entire Department 10 was +decorated from end to end until it was resplendent. +Such merrymaking as went on, such presents as +were exchanged! And when any girl, American or +Italian, was to be married, the whole department +gave her a tin shower.</p> + +<p>Katie Martin inspected and folded sheets. She +was to marry the brother of young Mrs. Annie +Turner, who ticketed sheets. Annie saw to it that +Katie did not get to work promptly that noon. +When she did appear, all out of breath and combing +back her hair (no one ever wore a hat to work), there +on two lines above her table hung the “shower.” +The rest of us had been there fifteen minutes, undoing +packages, giggling, commenting. Except old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> +Mrs. Brown's present. It was her first experience +at a tin shower and she came up to me in great distress. +“Can't you stop them girls undoin' all her +packages? 'Tain't right. She oughta undo her own. +I jus' won't let 'em touch what I brought!” Ever +and again a girl would spy Mrs. Brown's contribution. +“Hey! Here's a package ain't undone.” “No, +no, don't you touch it! Ain't to be undone by anybody +but her.” Poor Mrs. Brown was upset enough +for tears.</p> + +<p>There were a few other packages not to be undone +by anybody but her, because their contents were +meant to, and did, cause peals of laughter to the +audience and much embarrassment to Katie. On +the lines hung first an array of baby clothes, all +diminutive size, marked, “For little Charlie.” Such +are the traditions. Also hung seven kitchen pans, a +pail, an egg-beater and gem pans; a percolator, a +double boiler and goodness knows what not. On the +table stood six cake tins, more pots and pans, salt +and pepper shakers, enough of kitchenware to start +off two brides. Everybody was pleased and satisfied. +Charlie, the groom-to-be, got a friend with a Ford to +take the shower home.</p> + +<p>The last night of all at the Falls I spent at my +second Board of Operatives' meeting, held the first +Friday night of each month. The Board of Operatives +is intended to represent the interests of the +workers in the bleachery. The Board is elected annually +by secret ballot by and from the operatives in the +eleven different departments of the mill. Margaret<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> +and Bess went, too, on request from above, that they +might appear more intelligent should anyone ask at +Bryn Mawr about the Partnership Plan. (“My +land, what <i>would</i> we tell them?” they wailed.) +The Board meetings are officially set down as open +to all the operatives, only no one ever heard of anyone +else ever attending. The two girls were “fussed” +at the very idea of being present, and dressed in their +best.</p> + +<p>The president, elected representative from the +starch room, called the meeting to order from his +position at the head of the table in the Village Club +House. Every member of the Board shaves and puts +on his Sunday clothes, which includes a white collar, +for the Board meeting. It is no free show, either. +They are handed out two dollars apiece for attending, +at the end of the meeting, the same idea as if it were +Wall Street. The secretary reads the minutes of the +Board of Management. (“The Board of Management +was set up by the Board of Directors in July, +1919, as a result of a request from the Board of Operatives +for more than merely 'advisory' power which +the Board of Operatives then enjoyed in reference to +matters of mill management, wages, working conditions, +etc. The Board of Management consists of +six members, three of whom are the treasurer, the +New York agent, and the local manager, and three of +whom are elected by the Board of Operatives from +their number.... The Board of Management is +authorized to settle and adjust such matters of mill +management as may arise....”) The Company<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> +statement, up to March 31, 1921, was read. There +followed a report from the Housing Committee—first +a financial statement. Then it seemed somebody +wanted to put somebody else out of a house, and +there were many complications indeed arising therefrom, +which took much discussion from everyone and +bitter words. It looked as if it would have to be +taken to court. The conclusion seemed to be that +the Board felt that its executive secretary, chosen +by the management, though paid out of the common +funds, had exceeded his authority in making statements +to tenants. We girls rather shivered at the +acrimony of the discussion. Had they been lady +board members having such a row, half of them would +have been in tears. Next, old Mrs. Owens, who shook +sheets behind me, wanted to buy a certain house on +a certain avenue—company house, of course. Third, +one Mr. Jones on Academy Street wants us to paper +his kitchen—he will supply the paper. And there +followed other items regarding paint for this tenant, +new floor for that, should an old company boarding +house be remodeled for a new club house or an +apartment house; it was decided to postpone roofing +a long row of old company houses, etc.</p> + +<p>The operative from the folding and packing room +was chairman of the Housing Committee, a strong +union enthusiast. The representative from the +mechanical department reported for the Recreation +and Education Committee; all the night school +classes had closed, with appropriate final exercises, +for the season: the children's playground would be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> +ready for use July 1st. The man from the “gray” +room and singe house reported for the Working Conditions +Committee. Something about watchmen +and a drinking fountain, and wheels and boxes in +the starch room; washing facilities for shovelers; +benches and back stairs.</p> + +<p>The Finance Committee reported a deficit on the +mechanical and electrical smoker. Much discussion +as to why a deficit and who ought to pay it, and what +precedent were they setting, and all and all, but it +was ordered paid—this time. Webster's bills were +too high for papering and painting company houses. +He was a good worker, his plaster and his paper +stuck where they belonged, which hadn't been the +rule before. But it was decided he was too costly +even so, and they were going back to the company +paperers—perhaps their work would stick better +next time. A report from the Board of Directors was +discussed and voted upon.... The minutes of the +Board of Operatives were posted all through the mill. +Did anyone read them? If so, or if not so, should the +Board of Management minutes also be posted? It +was voted to postpone posting such minutes, though +they were open to any operative, as in the past.</p> + +<p>Under Old Business was a long discussion on health +benefits and old-age pensions. For some months +now the bleachery has been concerned on the subject +of old-age pensions. Health benefits have been in +operation for some time. The question was, should +they pay the second week for accident cases, until +the state started its payments the third week?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span></p> + +<p>Under New Business the resignation of the editors +of <i>Bleachery Life</i> was read and accepted. Acrimonious +discussion as to the running of the <i>Bleachery +Life</i>. Again we girls shivered. It was announced a +certain rich man who recently died had left the +Village Club House five hundred dollars—better +write no letter of thanks until they got the money. +Should the new handbook be printed by union labor +at considerably greater expense, or by an open +shop? Unanimously voted by union labor. More +health-benefit discussions under New Business. It +was voted to increase the Board of Management +by two additional members—one operative, one +from the employing side. Election then and there +by a secret ballot. The operative from the “gray” +room and singe house was elected over the man +from the office force by two votes. Some further +housing discussions, and at 11.15 <small>P.M.</small> the meeting +adjourned.</p> + +<p>“Say, I'm for coming every time.” Perhaps we +three girls will have started the style of outside +attendance at the meetings.</p> + +<p>Whether a wider participation of operatives, a +deeper understanding of Industrial Democracy and +the Partnership Plan, develops or not, certainly +they are a long step on the way to some sort of permeation +of interest. For the next morning early, my +last morning, as I started work, I heard toothless old +Mrs. Holley call over to aged Mrs. Owens, whose +husband even these days is never sober: “Hi, Mrs. +Owens, what do ye know habout hit! Hain't it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> +grand we got out over five million five hundred +thousand yards last month?”</p> + +<p>“I say it's grand,” grinned Mrs. Owens. “More 'n +a million over what we done month before.”</p> + +<p>“Hi say—over fifteen million the last three months. +Hi say we're some bleachery, that's what <i>hi</i> say!”</p> + + + +<h3><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span></h3> + +<h4><i>No. 1470, “Pantry Girl”</i></h4> + + +<p class="newchapter"><span class="firstword"><span class="dropcap">P</span>erhaps</span>, more strictly speaking, instead of +working with the working woman, it was working +with the working man. Hotel work is decidedly co-educational! +Except, indeed, for chambermaids and +laundry workers, where the traditionally female +fields of bed-making and washing have not been +usurped by the male. Even they, those female +chambermaids and launderers, see more or less of +working menfolk during the day. So it might be +thought then that hotel work offers an ideal field +for the growth of such normal intercourse between +the sexes as leads to happy matrimony. No need to +depend on dance halls or the Subway to pick up a +“fella.” No need for external administrations from +wholesome social workers whose aim is to enable the +working man or woman to see something of the +opposite sex.</p> + +<p>Yet forever are there flies in ointments. Flossie +was one of the salad girls in the main kitchen. Flossie +was Irish, young, most of her teeth gone. Her sister +had worked at our hotel two years earlier, then had +sent for Flossie to come from Ireland. The sister was +now married.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span></p> + +<p>Innocently, interestedly, I asked, “To a man she +knew here at the hotel?”</p> + +<p>Flossie cast a withering eye upon me. “The good +Lord save us! I should say not! And what decent +girl would ever be marryin' the likes of a man who +worked around a hotel? She couldn't do much worse! +Just steer clear of hotel men, I'm tellin' ya. They're +altogether too wise to be safe for any girl.”</p> + +<p>We were eating supper. The table of eight all +nodded assent.</p> + +<p>Too wise or not too wise—at least there is a—cordiality—a +predisposition toward affection on the +part of male hotel workers which tends to make +one's outside male associates seem fearfully formal, +if not stiffly antagonistic. If one grows accustomed +to being called “Sweetheart,” “Darling” on +first sight, ending in the evening by the time-clock +man's greeting of, “Here comes my little bunch of +love!”—is it not plain that outside in the cruel +world such words as a mere “How-do-you-do” or +“Good morning” seem cold indeed?</p> + +<p>What happens when a girl works three years in +this affectionate atmosphere and then marries a +plumber who hollers merely “say” at her?</p> + + +<p class="thought">Behind the scenes in a hotel—what is it all about? +To find that out I poked around till the employment-office +entrance of one of New York's biggest and newest +hotels was discovered. There had been no “ad.” +in the Sunday paper which would give a hint that any +hotel needed additional help. We took our chances.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> +Some twenty men waited in a little hallway, two +women inside the little office. One of the women +weighed at least two hundred and fifty, the other +not a pound over ninety. Both could have been +grandmothers, both wanted chamber work. The +employment man spied me.</p> + +<p>“What do you want?”</p> + +<p>“A job.”</p> + +<p>“What kind of a job?”</p> + +<p>“Anything but bein' chambermaid.”</p> + +<p>“What experience have you had in hotel work?”</p> + +<p>“None, but lots in private homes. I'd like a job +around the kitchen some place.”</p> + +<p>“Ever try pantry work?”</p> + +<p>“Not in a hotel, but lots in private families. I +can do that swell!” (What pantry work meant I +hadn't the least idea—thought perhaps washing +glasses and silverware.)</p> + +<p>He put on his coat and hat and dashed upstairs. +He always put on his coat <i>and</i> hat to go upstairs. In +a few moments he dashed hurriedly back, followed by +another man whose teeth were all worn down in the +front. I learned later that he was an important +steward.</p> + +<p>He asked me all over again all the questions the +first man had asked, and many more. He was in +despair and impatient when he found I had not a +single letter of recommendation from a single private +family I had worked for. I could have written myself +an excellent one in a few moments. Could I +bring a letter back later in the day?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Can you fix salads?”</p> + +<p>“Sure!”</p> + +<p>“You think you could do the job?”</p> + +<p>“<i>Sure!</i>”</p> + +<p>“Well, you look as if you could. Never mind the +letter, but get one to have by you—comes in handy +any job you want. Now about pay—I can't pay you +what you been used to getting, at least not first +month.” (I'd mentioned nothing as to wages.) +“Second month maybe more. First month all I can +pay you is fifty and your meals. That all right?”</p> + +<p>As usual, my joy at landing a job was such that +any old pay was acceptable.</p> + +<p>“Be back in two hours.”</p> + +<p>Just then the employment man called out to the +hall filled with waiting men, “No jobs for any men +this morning.” I don't know what became of the +old women.</p> + +<p>I was back before my two hours were up, so +anxious to begin. The employment man put on his +hat and coat and dashed upstairs after my steward. +Just incidentally, speaking of hats and coats, it can +be mentioned that all this was in the middle of one +of the hottest summers New York ever knew.</p> + +<p>The steward led the way up one flight of iron +stairs and into the main kitchen. Wasn't I all eyes +to see what was what! If anyone is looking for a +bit of muck-raking about the hinterland of restaurants, +let him not bother to read farther. Nothing +could have been cleaner than the kitchen conditions +in our hotel. And orders up and down the line were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> +to serve <i>nothing</i> which was not absolutely as it +should be.</p> + +<p>In a corner of the main kitchen the steward turned +me over to Bridget, who was to take me here, there, +and the other place. By 11.30 <small>A.M.</small>, I was back where +I started from, only, thanks to aged Bridget and her +none-too-sure leadings, I was clad in a white cap and +white all-over apron-dress, and had had my lunch. +Thereupon the steward escorted me to my own +special corner of the world, where, indeed, I was to +be lord of all I surveyed—provided my gaze fell +not too far afield.</p> + +<p>That particular corner was down one short flight +of stairs from the main kitchen into a hustling, +bustling, small and compact, often crowded, place +where were prepared the breakfasts, lunches, and +dinners of such folk who cared more for haste and +less for style than the patrons of the main dining +rooms. Our café fed more persons in a day than the +other dining rooms combined. Outside we could +seat five hundred at a time, sixty-five of those at +marble counters, the rest at small tables. But our +kitchen quarters could have been put in one corner of +the spacious, airy upstairs main kitchen.</p> + +<p>Through the bustle of scurrying and ordering +waiters I was led to a small shelved-off compartment. +Here I was to earn my fifty dollars a month +from 1.30 <small>P.M.</small> to 9 <small>P.M.</small> daily except Sunday, with +one-half hour off for supper. I was entitled to eat +my breakfast and lunch at the hotel as well.</p> + +<p>This first day, I was instructed to watch for two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> +hours the girl I was to relieve at 1.30. Her hours were +from 6 in the morning to 1.30, which meant she got the +brunt of the hard work—all of the breakfast and most +of the lunch rush. To me fell the tail end of the +lunch rush—up to about 2.15, and supper or dinner, +which only occasionally could be spoken of as “rush” +at all. I discovered later that we both got the same +pay, although she had to work very much harder, +and also she had been at our hotel almost two years, +though only nine months at this special pantry job. +Before that she had made toast, and toast only, upstairs +in the main kitchen.</p> + +<p>The first question Mary asked me that Monday +morning was, “You Spanish?” No, I wasn't. Mary +was a Spanish grass widow. Ten years she had been +married, but only five of that time had she lived +with her husband. Where was he? Back in Spain. +“No good.” She had come on to this country because +it was too hard for a woman to make her way +in Spain. She spoke little English, but with that +little she showed that she was kindly disposed and anxious +to help all she could. She herself had a stolid, untidy +efficiency about her, and all the while, poor thing, +suffered with pains in her stomach.</p> + +<p>By the time 1.30 came around I knew what I had +to do and could be left to my own devices. To the +pantry girl of our café fell various and sundry +small jobs. But the end and aim of her life had to +be speed.</p> + +<p>To the left of my little doorway was a small, deep +sink. Next to the sink was a very large ice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> +chest. On the side of the ice chest next the sink hung +the four soft-boiled-egg machines—those fascinating +contrivances in which one deposited the eggs, set the +notch at two, three, four minutes, according to the +desires of the hurried guest without, sank the cup-shaped +container in the boiling water, and never +gave the matter another thought. At the allotted +moment the eggs were hoisted as if by magic +from out their boilings. Verily are the wonders of +civilization manifold! The sink and the protruding +ice chest filled the entire left side of my small inclosure. +Along the entire right and front was a wide +work-shelf. On this shelf at the right stood the +electric toasting machine which during busy hours +had to be kept going full blast.</p> + +<p>“Toast for club!” a waiter sang out as he sped +by, and zip! the already partially toasted bread +went into the electric oven to be done so crisply and +quickly that you could call out to that waiter, “Toast +for club” before he could come back and repeat his +ominous, “Toast for club!” at you. People who order +club sandwiches seem always to be in a special hurry.</p> + +<p>In the front corner just next the toaster stood the +tray of bread sliced ready to toast, crusts off for dry +or buttered toast, crusts on for “club,” very thin +slices for “toast Melba.” Directly in front, and next +the bread tray, came the tray filled with little piles of +graham and milk crackers, seven in a pile. What +an amazing number of folk order graham or milk +crackers in a café! It seems unbelievable to one +who has always looked upon a place furnishing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> +eatables outside a home as a chance to order somewhat +indigestible food prepared entirely differently +from what any home could accomplish. Yet I know +it to be a fact that people seat themselves at a table +or a counter in a more or less stylish café and order +things like prunes or rhubarb and graham or milk +crackers, and perhaps top off, if they forget themselves +so far, with a shredded-wheat biscuit.</p> + +<p>It is bad enough if a man feels called upon to act +that way before 2 <small>P.M.</small> When he puts in an order +for such after 6 in the evening—then indeed it is +a case for tears. I would get the blues wondering +whatever could ail adult humanity that it ordered +shredded-wheat biscuits after dark.</p> + +<p>Just above the counter holding the bread and +crackers was the counter on which were placed +the filled orders for the waiters to whisk away. It +was but a step from there to my ice box. The orders +it was my business to fill were for blackberries, blueberries, +prunes, sliced oranges, rhubarb, grapefruit, +whole oranges, apples, sliced peaches and bananas, +muskmelons, and four kinds of cheese. These pretty +well filled the upper half of the ice chest, together +with the finished salads I kept ahead, say three of +each, lettuce and tomato, hearts of lettuce, plain +lettuce, and sliced tomatoes.</p> + +<p>In the lower half stood the pitchers of orange and +grape juice, jams and jellies for omelettes to be +made down the line, olives, celery, lettuce, cucumbers, +a small tub of oranges and a large bowl of sliced +lemons. The lemons, lemons, lemons I had daily to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> +slice to complete the ice-tea orders! The next pantry-girl +job I fill will be in winter when there is no +demand for ice tea. I had also to keep on hand a +bowl of American cheese cut the proper size to accompany +pie, and together with toast and soft-boiled +eggs and crackers and a crock of French dressing +set in ice. Such was my kingdom, and I ruled it +alone.</p> + +<p>During slack hours it was easy, too easy. In rush +hours you had to keep your head. Six waiters might +breeze by in a line not one second apart, each calling +an order, “Half a cantaloupe!” “Two orders of +buttered toast!” “Combination salad!” (that meant +romaine and lettuce leaves, shredded celery, sliced +cucumbers, quartered tomatoes, green pepper, watercress, +which always had to be made up fresh); “Sliced +peaches!” (they could never be sliced in advance); +“One order orange juice!” “Toast for club!” then +how one's fingers sped!</p> + +<p>The wonder of it was no one ever seemed to lose +his patience or his temper. That is, nobody out our +way. Maybe in the café there was some millionaire +hastily en route to a game of golf who cursed the +universe in general and the clumsy fingers of some immigrant +pantry girl in particular. (Not so fearfully +clumsy either.)</p> + +<p>Between 2 and 2.30 the rush subsided, and that +first day I caught my breath and took time to note +the lay of the land.</p> + +<p>My compartment came first, directly next the +dishes. Next me was a beautiful chef with his white<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> +cap set on at just the chef angle. He was an artist, +with a youngster about fifteen as his assistant. +Some day that youngster will be a more beautiful +chef than his master and more of an artist. His +master, I found out in my slack hours that first +afternoon, was French, with little English at his command, +though six years in this country. I know less +French than he does English, but we got to be good +friends over the low partition which separated us. +There was nothing at all fresh or affectionate about +that French chef. I showed my gratitude for that +by coming over in the afternoon and helping him +slice hot potatoes for potato salad while my floor +got washed. Every day I made him a bow and said, +“<i>Bon jour, Monsieur le Bon Chef</i>,” which may be no +French at all. And every day he made me a bow +back and said, “<i>Bon jour</i>” something or other, which +I could tell was nice and respectful, but—I can't write +it down. Monsieur Le Bon Chef made splendid cold +works of art in jellies, and salads which belonged to another +realm than my poor tomatoes and lettuce. Also, +he and his assistant—the assistant was Spanish—made +wonder sandwiches. They served jellied soups from +their counter. Poor humble me would fill “One order +graham crackers, little one!” But to Monsieur +Le Bon Chef it would be “Two Cream of Cantaloupes!” +“One chicken salad!” “One (our hotel) +Plate!” (What a creation of a little of everything +that was!) Monsieur Le Bon Chef taught me some +tricks of the trade, but this is no treatise on domestic +science.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p> + +<p>I will tell you about Monsieur Le Bon Chef, +though by no means did I learn this all my first +afternoon. I only picked up a little here and there, +now and then. He came to this country a French +immigrant from near Toulouse six or so years ago, +his heart full of dreams as to the opportunities in +America. Likely as not we might now have to add +that, after many searchings, he landed a job peeling +potatoes at fifteen dollars a month. Monsieur Le +Bon Chef was no Bon Chef at all when he landed—knew +none of the tricks of “chefness” to speak of. His +first day in America he sought out an employment +office. Not a word of English could he speak. While +the employment agent was just about to shake his +head and say, “Nothing to-day,” a friend, or at +least a countryman, dashed up. “I have a job for +you,” said the countryman, and he led my Bon Chef +to New York's most aristocratic hotel. Monsieur +Le Bon Chef could not know there was a cooks' +strike on. Down to the kitchen they led him, and +for some weeks he drew ten dollars a day wages and +his room and board right there at the hotel. To fall +from Toulouse into a ten-dollar-a-day job! And +when one knew scarce more than how to boil potatoes!</p> + +<p>Of course, when the strike was over, there were no +such wages paid as ten dollars a day. Nothing like +that was he earning these six years later when he could +make the beauteous works of art in jelly. I asked +him if he liked his work. He shrugged his shoulders +and brushed one side of his rather bristly blond +mustache. “Na—no like so much—nothing in it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> +but the moaney—make good moaney.” He shrugged +his shoulders again and brushed up the other side of +his mustache. “No good work just for tha moaney.” +You see he really is an artist. He was my quiet, +nice friend, Monsieur Le Bon Chef. Indeed, one +night he gave me a wondrously made empty cigar +box with a little lock to it. “Ooh La-la!” I cried, and +made a very deep bow, and said in what I'm sure was +correct French—because Monsieur Le Bon Chef said +it was—“Thank you very much!”</p> + +<p>So then, all there was on our side of the kitchen +was my little compartment and the not quite so +little compartment of Monsieur Le Bon Chef, whose +confines reached around the corner a bit. Around +that corner and back a little way were two fat Porto-Rican +women who washed glasses and spoke no English. +Beyond them, at the right of the stairs going +up to the main kitchen, were clean dishes. They +came on dumb-waiters from some place either above +or below.</p> + +<p>At the left of the stairs were some five chefs of as +many nationalities—Italian, Spanish, South American, +French, Austrian, who filled hot orders, frying and +broiling and roasting. Around the corner and opposite +the Bon Chef and me were first the two cashiers, +then my special friends, the Spanish dessert man +and the Greek coffee and tea man. That is, they were +the main occupants of their long compartment, but +at the time of lunch rush at least six men worked +there. Counting the chore persons of various sorts +and not counting waiters, we had some thirty-eight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> +working in or for our café—all men but the two fat +Porto-Rican glass washers and me.</p> + +<p>Bridget, the dear old soul, came down that first +afternoon to see how I was getting along. I had +cleaned up spick and span after the Spanish woman—and +a mess she always managed to leave. The +water was out of the egg-boiling machine and that +all polished; the heat turned off in the toasting +machine and that wiped off; lemons sliced; celery +“Julietted”; and I was peeling a tubful of oranges—in +the way the steward had showed me—to be sliced by +Spanish Mary for breakfast next morning.</p> + +<p>“I'm sure gettin' along swell,” I told Bridget.</p> + +<p>“God bless ye,” said my dear old guide, and picked +her way upstairs again.</p> + +<p>It was plain to see that down our way everybody's +work eased up between 3.30 and 5. Then +everyone visited about, exchanged newspapers, gossiped +over counters. We changed stewards at three. +Kelly, the easy-going, jovial (except at times) Irishman, +took himself off, and a narrow-shouldered, small, +pernickety German Jew came on for the rest of my +time. When we closed up at nine he went to some +other part of the hotel and stewarded.</p> + +<p>My first afternoon Schmitz sauntered about to +see what he could find out. Where did I live, what +did I do evenings, what time did I get up mornings, +what did I do Sundays? One question mark was +Schmitz. One thing only he did not ask me, because +he knew that. He always could tell what nationality +a person was just by looking at him. So? Yes, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> +he knew first thing what nationality I was. So? +Yes, I was a Turk. But the truth of it was that at +the hotel I was part Irish and part French and part +Portuguese, but all I could talk was the Irish because +my parents had both died while I was very young. +Another day, my Greek friend, the coffee man, said +he was sure there was a little Greek in me; and an +Austrian waiter guessed right away I was a bit +Austrian; and every Spaniard in the kitchen—and +the hotel was full of them—started by talking a mile-a-minute +Spanish at me. So a cosmopolitan, nondescript, +melting-pot face is an asset in the labor +world in our fair land—all nationalities feel friendly +because they think you are a countryman. But a +Turk—that stretched boundaries a bit.</p> + +<p>For every question Schmitz asked me I asked him +one back. His wife and daughter, sixteen, were in +France for three months, visiting the wife's parents. +As Schmitz's pernicketyness became during the next +days more and more impossible to ignore, I solaced +my harassed feelings with the thought of how +much it must mean to Mrs. Schmitz to be away +from Mr. Schmitz and his temperament and disposition +for three blessed months. Perhaps the daughter, +sixteen, had spoken of that phase of the trip to Mrs. +Schmitz. Mrs. Schmitz, being a dutiful wife who has +stood Mr. Schmitz at least, we surmise, some seventeen +years, replied to such comments of her sixteen-year-old +daughter, “Hush, Freda!”</p> + +<p>At five minutes to five Schmitz graciously told me +I might go up to my supper, though the law in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> +statute books stood five. Everybody upstairs in the +main kitchen, as I made my way to the service elevator, +spoke kindly and asked in the accents of at +least ten different nationalities how I liked my job. +Hotel folk, male and female, are indeed a friendly +lot.</p> + +<p>The dining room for the help is on the ballroom +floor, which is a short flight of steps above the third. It +is the third floor which is called the service floor, where +our lockers are, and the chambermaids' sleeping +quarters, and the recreation room.</p> + +<p>There are, it seems, class distinctions among hotel +help. The chefs eat in a dining room of their own. +Then, apparently next in line, came our dining room. +I, as pantry girl, ranked a “second officer.” We +had round tables seating from eight to ten at a +table, table cloths and cafeteria style of getting one's +food. The chefs were waited upon. In our dining +room ate the bell boys, parlor maids, laundry +workers, seamstresses, housekeepers, hotel guards +and police, the employment man, pantry girls—a bit +of everything. To reach our dining room we had to +pass through the large room where the chambermaids +ate. They had long bare tables, no cloths, and sat +at benches without backs.</p> + +<p>As to food, our dining room but reflected the state +of mind any and every hotel dining room reflects, +from the most begilded and bemirrored down. Some +thought the food good, some thought it awful, some +thought nothing about it at all, but just sat and ate. +One thing at least was certain—there was enough.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> +For dinner there was always soup, two kinds of meat, +potatoes, vegetables, dessert, ice tea, milk, or coffee. +For supper there was soup again, meat or fish, potatoes, +a salad, and dessert, and the same variety of +drinkables to choose from. Once I was late at lunch +and ate with the help's help. The woman who dished +up the vegetables was in a fearful humor that day. +People had been complaining about the food. “They +make me sick!” she grunted. “They jus' oughta +try the —— Hotel. I worked in their help's dinin' +room for four years and we hardly ever seen a piece +of meat, and as for eggs—I'm tellin' ya a girl was +lucky if she seen a egg them four years.”</p> + +<p>The people in our dining room were like the people +in every dining room: some were sociable and talked +to their neighbors, some were not sociable at all. +There was no regular way of seating. Some +meals you found yourself at a table where all was +laughter and conversation. The next meal, among +the same number of people, not one word would be +spoken. “Pass the salt” would grow to sound warm +and chummy.</p> + +<p>Half an hour was the time allowed everyone for +meals. With a friendly crowd at the table that half +hour flew. Otherwise, there was no way of using up +half an hour just eating. And then what?</p> + +<p>After a couple of days, some one mentioned the +recreation room. Indeed, what's in a name? Chairs +were there, two or three settees, a piano, a victrola, +a Christy picture, a map of South America, the dying +soldier's prayer, and three different sad and colored<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> +pictures of Christ. Under one of these was pinned +a slip of paper, and in homemade printing the worthy +admonition:</p> + +<p>“No cursing no stealing when tempted look on his +kindly face.”</p> + +<p>There were all these things, but no girls. Once in a +while a forlorn bunch of age would sit humped in a +chair, now and then a victrola record sang forth its worn +contents, twice the piano was heard. After some ten +days my large fat friend from the help's pantry informed +me that she and I weren't supposed to be there—the +recreation room was only for chambermaids +and like as not any day we'd find the door locked. +Sure enough, my last day at the hotel I sneaked +around in the middle of the afternoon, as usual, to +see what gossip I could pick up, and the door was +locked. But I made the recreation room pay for +itself as far as I was concerned. Every day I managed +to pick up choice morsels of gossip there that +was grist to my mill.</p> + +<p>After my first supper I could find nothing to do or +no one to talk to, so back I went to work—feeling +a good deal like teacher's pet. About four o'clock it +was my business to tell Schmitz what supplies we were +out of and what and how much we'd need for supper. +When I got back from supper there were always trays +of food to be put in the ice chest, salads to be fixed, +blackberries to dish out, celery to wash, and the like. +By the time that was done supper was on in our café. +That is, for some it was supper; for others, judging +by the looks of the trays which passed hurriedly by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> +my compartment, stopping only long enough for +sliced lemon for the ice tea, it was surely dinner. +Dinner <i>de luxe</i> now and then! Such delectable +dishes! How did anybody ever know their names +enough to order them?</p> + +<p>From 6 to 7.30 was the height of the supper rush. +What a variable thing our patrons made of it! Some +evenings there would be a regular run on celery +salads, then for four nights not a single order. Camembert +cheese would reign supreme three nights in +succession—not another order for the rest of the +week. Sometimes it seemed as if the whole of creation +sat without, panting for sliced tomatoes. The +next night stocked up in advance so as to keep no +one waiting—not a human being looked at a tomato.</p> + +<p>At eight o'clock only stragglers remained to be +fed, and my job was to clear out the ice chest of all +but two of each dish, send it upstairs to the main +kitchen, and then start scrubbing house. Schmitz let +it be known that one of the failings of her whose place I +was now filling, the one who was asked to leave the Friday +night before the Monday morning I appeared, was +that she was not clean enough. At first, a year and +a half ago, she was cleanly and upright—that is, he +spoke of such uprightness as invariably follows +cleanliness. But as time wore on her habits of +cleanliness wore off, and there were undoubtedly +corners in the ice box where her waning-in-enthusiasm +fingers failed to reach. But on a night when +the New York thermometer ranges up toward the +nineties it is a pure and unadulterated joy to labor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> +inside an ice box. I scrubbed and rinsed and wiped +until Schmitz almost looked approving. Only it was +congenital with Schmitz that he never really showed +approval of anything or anybody. Schmitz was the +kind (poor Mrs. Schmitz with her three months only +of freedom) who always had to change everything +just a little. There would echo down the line an +order, “One Swiss cheese, little one” (that referred +to me, not the cheese). Schmitz would stroll over +from where he was trying to keep busy watching +everyone at once, enter the very confines of my compartment, +and stand over me while I sliced that +Swiss cheese. It was always either too big, in which +case he took the knife from my hands and sliced off +one-sixteenth of an inch on one end; or too small, +in which case Schmitz would endeavor to slice a new +piece altogether. The chances were it would end in +being even smaller than the slice I cut. In that case, +Schmitz would say, “Led it go, anyway.” And then, +because he would always be very fair, he stood and +explained at length why the piece was too big, if it +were too big, or too small, if too small. “You know, +it's dis vay—” My Gawd! not once, but every night. +There was always one slice too many or too few on +the sliced-tomato order. Schmitz would say, “There +must be five slices.” The next time I put on five +slices Schmitz stuck that nose of his around the +waiter's shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Hey, vhat's dat? Only five slices? De guests +won't stand for dat, you know. Dey pay good +money here. Put anoder slice on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>I was wont to get fearfully exasperated at times.</p> + +<p>“But,” I remonstrated, “last time I had on six and +you told me to put on five!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes, but I expect you to use your common +sense!”</p> + +<p>That was his invariable comeback. And always +followed by his patient:</p> + +<p>“You see, it's dis vay—If you put on too much +the hotel, vhy, dey lose money, and of course you +see it's dis vay: naturally” (that was a pet word of +Schmitz's), “naturally the hotel don't vant to lose +money—you can see dat for yourself. Now on the +odder hand if you don't put on enough, vhy of +course you see it's dis vay, naturally a guest vants +to get his money's vorth, you can see dat for yourself—you've +just got to use your common sense, you +can see dat for yourself.” Not once, but day after +day, night after night. Poor, poor Mrs. Schmitz! +Verily there are worse things than first-degree murder +and intoxication.</p> + +<p>But for all that Schmitz deigned not to allow it to +be known that my scrubbings found favor in his +sight, my own soul approved of me. The shelves +and the sink I scrubbed. Then every perishable +article in my ice chest or elsewhere got placed upon +trays to go upstairs. By this time it was two minutes +to nine. Schmitz, always with his hands clasped +behind him, except when he was doing over everything +I did, said, “You can go now.”</p> + +<p>Upstairs among the lockers on the third floor the +temperature was like that of a live volcano,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> +only nothing showed any signs of exploding. Fat +women who could speak little or no English were +here and there puffily dismantling, exchanging the +hotel work-uniform for street garments. Everyone +was kindly and affectionate. One old Irishwoman +came up while I was changing my clothes.</p> + +<p>“Well, dearie, and how did it go?”</p> + +<p>“Sure it went swell.”</p> + +<p>“That's good. The Lord bless ye. But there's +one bit of advice I must be giving ye. There's one +thing you must take care of now. I'm tellin' ye, +dearie, you must guard your personality! I'm tellin' ye, +there 're the men y' know, but guard y' personality!”</p> + +<p>I thanked her from the bottom of my heart and +said I'd guard it, surest thing she knew.</p> + +<p>“Oh, the good Lord and the Virgin Mary bless ye, +child!” And she patted me affectionately on the +back.</p> + +<p>Indeed, I had been getting affectionate pats most +of the time, though the majority of them were from +the male help. The composite impression of that first +day as I took my way home on the sticky Subway was +that the world was a very affectionate place, nor was +I quite sure just what to do about it.</p> + +<p>The second morning I was given a glimpse of what +can be done about it. As I was waiting for the elevator +on the service floor to be taken down to work, +a very attractive girl came along and immediately +we became chummy. She had been at the hotel +three weeks; her job was to cut fruit. Had she done +this sort of work long? Not in this country, but in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> +Europe. Just one year had she been in America. +At that moment two youths passed. I saw nothing, +but quick as a flash my new friend flared up, “You +fresh guy—keep your hands to yourself!” So +evidently that's the way it's done. I practiced it +mentally. “Lots o' fresh guys round here,” I sniffed. +“You said it,” muttered the still ruffled fruit cutter.</p> + +<p>Downstairs, Kelly was waiting with a welcoming +nod—Kelly, the unpernickety steward. Everyone +was as friendly as if we had been feeding humanity +side by side these many years. During the rush +the waiters called out as they sped by: “Hi there, +little one!” “There's the girlie!” “Ah there, sweetheart!” +Verily the world is an affectionate place. +If a waiter had an order to give he passed the time +of day as he gave it and as he collected his order.</p> + +<p>“And how's the little girl to-day?”</p> + +<p>“Tiptop—and yourself?”</p> + +<p>“A little low in spirits I was to-day until I seen +you'd come—an' then. You love me as much as you +did yesterday?”</p> + +<p>“Move on there. W'at y' a-doin' talkin' to my girl! +Now, honey, I'm tellin' you this here guy is too fresh +for any lady. I'd like one order of romaine lettuce, +bless your sweet heart, if it won't be tirin' your +fingers too much. That's the dearie—I'm back in a +moment.”</p> + +<p>Across the way, arms resting on the counter, head +ducked under the upper shelf, leaned a burly redheaded +helper to the Greek.</p> + +<p>Every time the pantry girl looked his way he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> +beamed and nodded and nodded and beamed. “How +you lak?” “Fine!” More beams and nods. Soon +a waiter slipped a glass of ice coffee, rich in cream and +sugar, under my counter. Beams and nods fit to +burst from the assistant coffee man across the way. +Beams and nods from the pantry girl. Thus every +day. Our sole conversation was, “How you lak?” +“Fine!” He said the rest with coffee.</p> + +<p>With the lunch rush over, Kelly sneaked around +my entrance and jerked his head sidewise. That +meant, naturally, that I was to approach and harken +unto what he had to say. When Kelly imparted +secrets—and much of what Kelly had to impart was +that sort of information where he felt called upon to +gaze about furtively to make sure no one was over-hearing—when +he had matters of weight then to impart +he talked down in his boots and a bit out of the +corner of his mouth.</p> + +<p>“Say, kid”—Kelly jerked his head—“want to +tell you about this eatin' business. Y'know, ain't +no one supposed to eat nothin' on this floor. If the +boss catches ya, it's good-by dolly. Sign up over the +door sayin' you'll be dismissed <i>at once</i> if you eat +anything—see? But I'm givin' ya a little tip—see? +I don't care how much ya eat—it's nothin' to me. I +say eat all ya got a mind to. Only for Gawd's sake +don't let the Big Boss catch ya.” (The Big Boss was +the little chief steward, who drew down a fabulous +salary and had the whole place scared to death.) +“See—pull a cracker box out so and put what ya got +to eat behind it this way, then ya can sit down and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> +sorta take your time at it. If the boss does come +by—it's behind the cracker box and you should +worry! Have a cup of coffee?”</p> + +<p>I was full up of coffee from my gentleman friend +across the way, so declined Kelly's assistance in +obtaining more. Every day, about 2.30, Kelly got +in a certain more or less secluded corner of my +compartment and ate a bit himself. “Been almost +fired a couple of times for doin' this—this place is +full o' squealers—gotta watch out all the time. Hell +of a life I say when a fella has to sneak around to eat +a bit of food.”</p> + +<p>That second afternoon, Kelly stopped in the +middle of a gulp of coffee.</p> + +<p>“Say, w'at t' hell's a girl like you workin' for, anyhow? +Say, don't you know you could get married +easy as—my Gawd! too easy. Say, you could pick +up with one of these waiters just like that! They're +good steady fellas, make decent pay. You could do +much worse than marry a waiter. I'm tellin' ya +there's no sense to a girl like you workin'.”</p> + +<p>That was an obsession with Kelly. He drilled it +into me daily. Kelly himself was a settled married +man. Of his state we talked often. I asked Kelly +the very first day if he ever went to Coney Island.</p> + +<p>“Ustta—'ain't been for ten years.”</p> + +<p>“Why not for ten years?”</p> + +<p>Kelly looked at me out of the corner of his eyes. +“Got married ten years ago.”</p> + +<p>“Well, and w'at of it? Don't you have no more +fun?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>”</p> + +<p>“You said it! I'm tellin' ya there's no more fun. +Gee! I sure don't know myself these ten years. I +was the kind of a fella”—here Kelly was moved in +sheer admiration to do a bit of heavy cursing—“I +was the kind of fella that did everything—I'm tellin' +ya, <i>everything</i>. Bet there ain't a thing in this world I +'ain't done at least once, and most of 'em a whole +lot more 'n that. An' now—look at me now! Get +up at four every mornin', but Sundays, get down +here at six” (Kelly was a suburbanite), “work till +three, git home, monkey with my tools a bit or play +with the kids, eat dinner, sit around a spell, go to bed.”</p> + +<p>A long pause. “Ain't that a hell of a life, I'm +askin' ya?”</p> + +<p>Another pause in which Kelly mentally reviewed +his glowing past. He shook his head and smiled a +sad smile. “If you could 'a' seen me ten years ago!”</p> + +<p>Kelly told me the story of his life more or less in +detail some days later. I say advisedly “more or +less.” Considering the reputation he had given himself, +I am relieved to be able to note that he must +have left some bits out, though goodness knows he +put enough in. But Kelly's matrimonial romance +must be told.</p> + +<p>Kelly went with a peach of a girl in the years gone +by—swellest little kid—gee! he respected that girl—never +laid hands on her. She wanted to go back to +the old country for a visit, so he paid her way there +and back—one hundred and sixty-five dollars it had +cost him. Coming home from a ball where Kelly +had been manager—this at 4 <small>A.M.</small>—a remark of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> +girl's led Kelly to suspect she was not the stainless +bit of perfection his love had pictured. So after +three years of constant devotion Kelly felt that he +had been sold out. He turned around and said then +and there to his fair one, “You go to hell!” He never +laid eyes on her again.</p> + +<p>A few years later Kelly met an American girl. He +went with her three years, was making seventy-five +dollars a month, had saved eight hundred and +seventy-six dollars, and in addition possessed one +hundred and ten dollars in life insurance. So he +asked the lady to marry him. Y' know w'at she +said to Kelly? Kelly leaned his shaggy mop of +hair my way. She said, “I won't marry nobody on +seventy-five dollars a month!” Again Kelly's manhood +asserted itself. Do you know w'at Kelly said +to her? He says, says he, once more, “You go to +hell!” He quit.</p> + +<p>Whereupon Kelly drew out every cent he possessed +and sailed for Europe. When he landed again in +New York City, d' y'know how much money Kelly +had in his pocket? Thirty-five cents. Then he went +West for seven or eight years, and tore up the +country considerable, Kelly did. He came back to +New York again, again minus cash. A few days +after his return the girl of eight years before met him +by appointment at the Grand Central Station. +What d' y'know? She asked Kelly to marry her—just +like that. Heck! by that time Kelly didn't +give a darn one way or the other. She bought the +ring, she hired the minister, she did the whole business.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> +Kelly married her—that's the wife he's got +right now.</p> + +<p>One of Kelly's steady, dependable waiters approached +about 5 <small>P.M.</small> “Say, girl, I like you!” Of +course, the comeback for that now, as always, was, +“Aw go-an!”</p> + +<p>“Sure, I like you. Say, how about goin' out this +evening with me? We'll sure do the old town!”</p> + +<p>“I say, you sound like as if you got all of twenty-five +cents in your pocket!”</p> + +<p>He leaned way over my counter.</p> + +<p>“I got twenty-five dollars, and it's yours any time +you say the word!”</p> + +<p>It's words like that which sometimes don't get said.</p> + +<p>For supper that night I sat at a table with a housekeeper, +a parlor maid, and a seamstress, and listened +to much talk. Mainly, it was a discussion of where +the most desirable jobs were to be had in their respective +lines. There was complete unanimity of +opinion. Clubs headed the list, and the cream of +cream were men's clubs. The housekeeper and parlor +maid together painted a picture which would lead +one to conclude that the happiest women in all New +York City were the housekeepers in men's clubs. +The work was light, they were well treated—it was +a job for anyone to strive for. The type of men or +women in clubs, they remarked, was ahead of what +you'd draw in any hotel.</p> + +<p>The parlor maid, an attractive, gray-haired woman—indeed, +all three were gray-haired—was very +pleased with her job at our hotel. She slept there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> +and loved it. The rooms were so clean—your towels +were changed daily just as for the guests. Sure +she was very contented. If her mother were only +alive—she died two years ago—she'd be the happiest +woman in the world, she just knew it. But every +single morning she woke up with an empty feeling +in her heart for the longings after her mother.</p> + + +<p class="thought">My diary of Thursday of that first week starts: +“The best day since I've been trying jobs—Glory +be, it was rich!” And pages follow as to the wonders +of that one day—wonders to me, who was after what +the workers themselves think about the universe in +general.</p> + +<p>When I found how hard the Spanish woman I +relieved at 1.30 had to work, how much more +rushed she was from 6 to 1.30 than ever I +was from 1.30 to 9, and when I learned, in addition, +that she received no more pay for all her +extra labors, I told her I would come early every +day and help her during the rush. This is all good +psychology and I give it for what it is worth. The +first few days, this Thursday being one of them, she +was very grateful—spoke often of how much it +helped to have me there early. My last morning +during my two weeks of the hotel job I was so +rushed with final errands to do before leaving New +York that it was impossible for me to arrive at +work before 1.30, my regular and appointed time. +The Spanish woman knew it was my last day. But +she was so put out to think I had not arrived early<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> +that she whisked out of that compartment the second +I arrived, only taking time to give me one fearful +and unmistakable glare. Kelly caught the remnants +of it as she swung by him. He sauntered over to +my counter. “Say, the nerve of some people!”</p> + +<p>That Thursday noon, I ate with the workers in the +help's kitchen. So much talk! First there was a +row on fit to rend the rafters. One of the Irish girls +plumped herself down to eat and raved on about +Lizzie, an Armenian girl, and something or other +Lizzie had done or hadn't done with the silverware. +Everyone was frank as to what each thought about +Lizzie. Armenian stock was very low that day. +Just then Lizzie appeared, a very attractive, neat +girl who had been friendly and kind to me. I had no +idea it was she about whose character such blusterous +words were being spoken. With Lizzie and the Irish +girl face to face—Heaven help us! I expected to see +them at each other's throats. Such talk! Finally +another Irish girl turned to the Armenian. “Why +t'hell do you get so mad over it all, now?” Lizzie +stopped, gave the second Irish girl a quizzical look. +Slowly a smile spread over her face. She gave a +little chuckle. “Ho! Why t'hell?” We all laughed +and laughed, and the fight was off.</p> + +<p>It seems Lizzie was known far and wide for her +temper. She had been fired from waiting on the +chefs because she let it loose in their dining room one +night. Now they were trying her out up at our end of +the service floor. Minnie, the oldest Irish woman at +our table and in a decidedly ruffled mood that day,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> +claimed it was the Armenian in her. “They're all +like that. Shure, I got a Armenian helper—that kid +over there. Wait till he says one word more to me. +I'll bust a plate on his head and kick his prostrate +form into the gutter. It'll be a happy day in my +life!”</p> + +<p>They all asked me about my work and how I +liked it. Evidently mine was a job high in favor. +“Shure you're left alone and no one to be under +your feet or botherin' with y' every minute of the +day. You're yo'r own boss.”</p> + +<p>The talk got around to the strike at the Hotel +McAlpin of a few years ago. It was for more pay. +The strike was lost. I asked why. “Shure, they +deserved to lose it. Nobody hung together.”</p> + +<p>We discussed domestic service. Every day at that +hotel I wondered why any girl took work in a private +home if she could possibly get a hotel job. Here was +what could be considered by comparison with other +jobs, good pay, plus three nourishing meals a day, +decent hours, and before and after those hours freedom. +In many cases, also, it meant a place to sleep. +There was a chance for talk and companionship with +one's kind during the day. Every chance I got I +asked a girl if she liked working in a private home, +or would change her hotel job if she got a chance. +The only person who was not loud in decrying private +service was Minnie during this special Thursday +lunch. But Minnie was so sore on the world +that day. I do believe she would have objected to +the Virgin Mary, had the subject come up. Minnie<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> +had worked years in private families and only six +years in hotels. She wished she'd never seen the +inside of a hotel.</p> + +<p>That same night at the supper table the subject +came up again before an entirely different crowd. Three +at the table had tried domestic service. Never again! +Why? Always the answer was the same. “Aw, it's +the feeling of freedom ya never get there, and ya do +get it in a hotel.” One sweet gray-haired woman +told of how she had worked some years as cook in a +swell family where they kept lots of servants. She +got grand wages, and naïvely she added, you get a +chance to make lots on the side, o' course. I asked +her if she meant tips from guests. Oh no! She +meant what you made off tradespeople. Don't you +see, if you got the butcher bill up so high, you got +so much off the butcher, and the same with the +grocer and the rest. She had a sister not cooking +long who made over one hundred dollars a month, +counting what she got off tradespeople. It is a perfectly +accepted way of doing, mentioned with no +concern.</p> + +<p>But on the whole, that supper table agreed that +domestic service was a good deal like matrimony. +If you got a good family, all right; but how many +good families were there in the world? One woman +spoke of working where they'd made a door mat +of her. Barely did she have food enough to eat. +There were four in the family. When they had +chops the lady of the house ordered just four, which +meant she who cooked the chops got none.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p> + +<p>After lunch this full Thursday I rushed to assist +Mary. I loved going down the stairs into our hot +scurry of excitement. Indeed, it was seeing +behind the scenes. And always the friendly nods +from everyone, even though the waiters especially +looked ready to expire in pools of perspiration. At +Monsieur Le Bon Chef's counter some sticky waiter +had ordered a roast-beef sandwich. The heat had +made him skeptical. “Call that beef?” The +waiter next him glared at him with a chuckle. +“An' must we then always lead in the cow for +you to see?” A large Irishman breezed up to +my Bon Chef. “Two beef à la modes. Make it +snappy, chief. Party's in a hurry. Has to catch +the five-thirty train”—this at one o'clock. Everyone +good-natured, and the perspiration literally +rolling off them.</p> + +<p>Most of the waiters were Irish. One of them was +a regular dude—such immaculateness never was. +He was the funny man of the place, and showed off +for my special benefit, for I made no bones of the +fact that he amused me highly. He was a very chippy-looking +waiter—pug nose, long upper lip. When he +ordered ice coffee he sneaked up on the Greek à la +Bill Hart, ready to pull a gun on him. He had two +names at his disposal and used one or the other with +every order, no matter who the chef was. In a very +deep tone of voice, it was either, “James, custard +pie!” or, “Dinsmore, one veal cutlet.” But to +me it was always: “Ah there, little one! Toast, I +say <i>toast</i>. Dry, little one. Ah yes! There be them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> +who out of force of habit inflicted upon them take +even their toast dry. You get me, little one?”</p> + +<p>He was especially immaculate this Thursday. +I guessed he must be taking at least three ladies out +that evening. He looked at me out of the corner of +his eyes. “<i>Three</i>, little one, this hot night? Winter +time, yes, a man can stand a crowd about him, but +not to-night. No. To-night, little one, I take but +one lady. It allows for more circulation of air. +And you will be that One?”</p> + +<p>The Greek this hot Thursday became especially +friendly. He twirled his heavy black mustache and +carried on an animated broken-English conversation +most of the afternoon. Incidentally, he sent +over one ice coffee with thick cream and two frosted +chocolates.</p> + +<p>The little Spaniard next to him, he who served +pies and ice cream and more amazing desserts—he, +too, became very friendly. There was nothing the +least fresh about the little Spaniard. He mostly +leaned on his counter, in moments of lull in trade, +and when I so much as looked his way, he sighed +heavily. Finally he made bold to converse. I +learned that he had been two years in this country, +eight months at his present job. When I asked him +how he spent his off time, he replied in his very +broken English that he knew nobody and went nowhere. +“It is no pleasure to go alone.” He rooms +with an American family on the East Side. They are +very nice. For some years he had been in the printing +trade in South America; there was something to a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> +job like that. But in New York he did not know +enough English to be a printer, and so, somehow, he +found himself dishing pies and ice cream at our hotel.</p> + +<p>Later on that day he asked me, “Why are you so +happy?”</p> + +<p>Indeed I was very cheerful and made no secret of +it. I had sung every song I knew and then whistled +them all as I worked. But Schmitz, who surely had +never smiled in all his life, could stand it no longer. +“You better not make so much noise,” he said. “You +see, it's dis vay—” Poor Schmitz, he had a miserable +time of it that afternoon. For my expressions +of contentment with the world had spread. Unconsciously +a chef would whistle a bit here as he +mixed his gravy ingredients, another there as he +minced chicken, yet another in still another direction +as he arranged a bowl of vegetables. Schmitz's head +swirled first in one direction, then in another. Aching +he was to reduce the universe to his perpetual state +of gloom. But chefs he stood in awe of. He +dared silence only me, and every so often I forgot.</p> + +<p>So the Spaniard asked me why I was so happy. +I had no reason. Only a great multitude of reasons +why there was no excuse to be anything else, but I +did not go into that. He would know, though.</p> + +<p>“What did you do last night?”</p> + +<p>“Ho!” I laughed at him, “rode home on the top +of a bus!”</p> + +<p>A bit later a piece of folded paper landed almost in +my French dressing. It was a note from the Spaniard: +“Will you go riding with me to-night?” I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> +wrote on the bottom of the paper: “Not to-night. +Perhaps next week, yes?” A few moments later a +folded menu landed on the floor. On the back was +written: “I will be very pleased whenever you can or +wish. Could it be Sunday? I hope you wouldn't +take it amiss my asking you this. Frank.”</p> + +<p>I really wanted to take that bus ride with Frank. +It still worries me that I did not. He was such a +lonesome person.</p> + +<p>Then there was the tall, lean, dark Irish waiter I +called Mr. O'Sullivan. He was a continual joy to +my heart and gave me cause for many a chuckle. +A rebel, was Mr. O'Sullivan. I heard Kelly call him +down twice for growling at what he considered inexcusable +desires in the matter of food or service on +the part of patrons by telling Mr. O'Sullivan it was +none of his —— business. But I loved to listen to +Mr. O'Sullivan's growlings, and once he realized that, +he used to stop at my counter, take extra long to collect +three slices of lemon, and tell me his latest +grievance. To-night, this Thursday, he was sputtering.</p> + +<p>“Shure and de y'know what now? I've two +parties out there want finger bowls. <i>Finger bowls!</i>” +sputtered Mr. O'Sullivan.</p> + +<p>“Shure an' it's a long ways from the sight of +finger bowls them two was born. It had better be +a pail apiece they'd be askin' for. Finger bowls indeed!” +Mr. O'Sullivan had gotten down to a +mumble. “Shure an' they make me <i>sick</i>!”</p> + +<p>Mr. O'Sullivan knew that I gave ear to his sentiments<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> +upon such matters as old parties, male or +female, who must needs order special kinds of extra +digestible bread, and usually that bread must in +addition be toasted. While it was toasting, Mr. +O'Sullivan voiced his views on Old Maids with +Indigestion. Much of it does not bear repeating. +When the toast was done, Mr. O'Sullivan would +hold out his plate with the napkin folded ready for +the toast. “Shure an yo'r the sweetest child my +eyes ever looked upon” (Mr. O'Sullivan would say +just the same thing in the same way to a toothless +old hag of ninety). “Mind you spare yo'rself now +from both bein' an old maid and sufferin' to the +point where y' can't eat plain white bread!”</p> + +<p>This particular Thursday I had even found +some one to talk to in the recreation room when I +sneaked up at three o'clock. There came a time when +Schmitz's patience was strained over my regular +disappearance from about 3 to 3.30. There was +absolutely nothing for me to do just then in my +own line, so I embraced that opportunity daily to +take my way to the recreation room and see +what pickings I could gather up. But one afternoon +Schmitz's face bore an extra-heavy frown. “Say, +what you do every day that keeps you from your work +all this time? Don't you know that ain't no way to +do? Don't you understand hotel work is just like a +factory? Everybody must be in his place all day and +not go wandering off!”</p> + +<p>“Ever work in a factory?” I asked Schmitz.</p> + +<p>He deigned no answer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Well, then, I'm telling <i>you</i> I have, and hotel +work ain't like a factory at <i>all</i>.”</p> + +<p>“Vell, you see it's dis vay—naturally—”</p> + +<p>This Thursday up in the recreation room I found +an ancient scrubwoman, patched and darned to +pieces, with stringy thin hair, and the fat, jovial +Irishwoman from the help's pantry. The three of us +had as giddy a half hour as anyone in all New York. +We laughed at one another's jokes till we almost +wept, and forgot all about the thermometer. +The fat Irishwoman had worked at the hotel +two years, the scrubwoman almost that long. Both +“lived out.” They, too, informed me I had one of the +best jobs in the hotel—nobody messin' in with what +you're doin'—they leave y'alone. The fat one had +worked some time in the linen room, but preferred +pantry work. The linen room was too much responsibility—had +to count out aprons and towels and +things in piles of ten and tie them, and things like +that—made a body's head swim.</p> + +<p>Realizing Schmitz's growing discomfort, I finally +had to tear myself away. The fat Irishwoman called +after me, “Good-by, dear, and God bless y'.”</p> + +<p>Upstairs at supper that night I had the luck to +land again at a talkative table. We discussed many +things—Ireland, for one. One girl was she who had +come two years ago from Ireland and did salads in +the main kitchen. Such a brogue! An Irish parlor +maid had been long years in this country. The two +asked many questions of each other about their +life in the Old Country. “Shure,” sighed one, “I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> +love every stick and every stone and tree and blade +of grass in Ireland!” “Shure,” sighed the other, +“an' that's just the way I feel about it, too!”</p> + +<p>Everyone at the table liked working at our hotel. +According to them, the hotel was nice, the girls nice, +hours nice.</p> + +<p>The subject of matrimony, as ever, came up. Not +a soul at the table but what was ag'in' it. Why +should a woman get married when she can support +herself? All she'd get out of it would be a pack of +kids to clean up after, and work that never ended. +Of course, the concession was eventually made, if +you were sure you were gettin' a good man— But +how many good men were there in the world? And +look at the divorces nowadays! Why try it at all? +One girl reported as statistically accurate that there +was one divorce in the United States to every four +marriages. “You don't say!” was the chorus.</p> + +<p>The subject changed to summer hotels. One +woman had worked last summer as a waitress at one +of the beaches. That was the swellest job ever—just +like a vacation! All summer she had two tables +only to wait on, two persons at a table. Each table +had tipped her five dollars a week. Next summer we +all must try it.</p> + +<p>The minutes flew by too fast that supper. Before +I knew it, 5.30 had come around, and by the time +I was downstairs again it was five minutes past +my appointed half hour. Poor, poor Schmitz! And +yet lucky Schmitz. It must have caused his soul +much inner satisfaction to have a real honest-to-goodness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> +grievance to complain about. (You see, +he could not go up for his supper until I came down +from mine.) Schmitz upbraided me, patiently, with +explanations. Every single night from then on, +when at five he would tell me I could go upstairs, +he always added, “And be sure you're back at half +past five!” In natural depravity of spirit, it was +my delight one night to be able to sneak down at +about 5.25 without being seen by Schmitz. Then +I shrank into a corner of my compartment, out +of his line of vision, and worked busily on my evening +chores. At 5.30, Schmitz began his anxious +scanning of our large clock. By 5.40 he was a +wreck and the clock had nearly been glared off its +hinges. Then it was a waiter called out to me the first +evening order. With the crucified steps of a martyr, +a ten-minute-hungry martyr at that, Schmitz made his +way over to fill that order. And there I was, busily +filling it myself! Of course, I hope I have made it +clear that Schmitz was the kind who would say, “I +knew she was there all along.”</p> + +<p>The rush of this particular Thursday night! More +lettuce had to be sent for in the middle of the evening, +more tomatoes, more blackberries, more cantaloupes, +more bread for toast. There was no stopping for +breath. In the midst of the final scrubbings and +cleanings came an order of “One combination salad, +Sweetheart!” That done and removed and there +sounded down the way, “One cantaloupe, Honey!” +Back the waiter came in a moment. “The old +party says it's too ripe.” There were only two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> +left to choose from. “Knock his slats in if he +don't like that, the old fossil.” In another moment +the waiter was back again with the second half. +“He says he don't want no cantaloupe, anyhow. +Says he meant an order of Philadelphia cream +cheese.”</p> + +<p>But nine o'clock came round and somehow the +chores were all done and Schmitz nodded his regal +head ever so little—his sign for, “Madam, you may +take your departure,” and up I flew through the +almost deserted main kitchen, up the three flights to +the service floor, down four flights to the time-clock +floor (elevators weren't always handy), to be greeted +by my friend the time-clock man with his broad +grin and his, “Well, if here ain't my little bunch +o' love!”</p> + +<p>If he and Schmitz could only have gotten mixed a +bit in the original kneading....</p> + +<p>By Saturday of that week I began my diary: +“Goodness! I couldn't stand this pace long—waiters +are too affectionate.” I mention such a matter and +go into some detail over their affection here and there, +because it was in no sense personal. I mean that any +girl working at my job, provided she was not too +ancient and too toothless and too ignorant of the +English language, would have been treated with +equal enthusiasm. True, a good-looking Irishman +did say to me one evening, “I keep thinkin' to myself +durin' the day, what is there about you that's +different. I shure like it a lot what it is, but I just +can't put my finger on it.” I used as bad grammar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> +as the next; I appeared, I hoped, as ignorant as the +next. Yet another Irishman remarked, “I don't +know who you are or where you came from or where +you got your education, but you shure have got us +all on the run!” But any girl with the least wits +about her would have had them on the run. She was +the only girl these men got a chance to talk to the +greater part of the day.</p> + +<p>But what if a girl had a couple of years of that sort +of thing? Or does she get this attention only the first +couple of weeks of the couple of years, anyhow? Does a +waiter grow tired of expressing his affection before or +after the girl grows tired of hearing it? I could not help +but feel that most of it was due to the fact that perhaps +among those waiters and such girls as they +knew a purely friendly relationship was practically +unknown. Sex seemed to enter in the first ten +minutes. Girls are not for friends—they're to flirt +with. It was for the girl to set the limits; the man +had none.</p> + +<p>But eight and one-half hours a day of parrying the +advances of affectionate waiters—a law should be +passed limiting the cause for such exertion to two +hours a day, no overtime. Nor have I taken the +gentle reader into my confidence regarding the +Spanish chef in the main kitchen. He did the roasting. +I had to pass his stove on my way to the elevators. +At which he dropped everything, wiped his hands on +his apron, and beamed from ear to ear until I got by. +One day he dashed along beside me and directed an +outburst of Spanish into my ear. When I shook my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> +head and shrugged my shoulders and got it into his +head that I was not a countrywoman, his dismay +was purely temporary. He spoke rather flowery +English. Would I walk up the stairs with him? No, +I preferred the elevator. He, did too. I made the +most of it by asking him questions too fast for him +to ask me any. He was a tailor by trade, but business +had been dull for months. In despair he had +taken to roasting. Some six months he had been at +our hotel. He much preferred tailoring, and in two +months he would be back at his trade in a little shop +of his own, making about fifty to seventy-five dollars +a week. And then he got in his first question.</p> + +<p>“Are you married?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“Could I then ask you to go out with me some +evening?”—all this with many beams and wipings +of hands on his apron.</p> + +<p>Well, I was very busy.</p> + +<p>But one evening. Oh, just one evening—surely +one evening.</p> + +<p>Well, perhaps—</p> + +<p>To-night, then?</p> + +<p>No, not to-night.</p> + +<p>To-morrow night?</p> + +<p>No, no night this week or next week, but perhaps +week after next.</p> + +<p>Ah, that is so long, so long!</p> + +<p>There was no earthly way to get to the stairs or +elevators except by his stove. I came to dread it. +Always the Spanish ex-tailor dropped everything<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> +with a clatter and chased after me. I managed to +pass his confines at greater and greater speed. Invariably +I heard his panting, “Listen! Listen!” after +me, but I tore on, hoping to get an elevator that +started up before he could make it.</p> + +<p>One day the Spaniard, this tall thin roaster with +the black mustache, was waiting as I came out of +the locker room.</p> + +<p>“Listen! Listen!” he panted, from force of habit. +“Next week is still so very long off.”</p> + +<p>It so happened it was my last day at the hotel. I +told him I was leaving that night.</p> + +<p>“Oh, miss!” He looked really upset. “Then you +will go out to-night with me. Surely to-night.”</p> + +<p>No, I had a date.</p> + +<p>To-morrow night.</p> + +<p>No, I had another date.</p> + +<p>Sunday—oh, Sunday, just one Sunday.</p> + +<p>Sunday I had two dates.</p> + +<p>I should be able to flatter my female soul that at +least he forgot the seasoning that night in his roasts.</p> + +<p>Downstairs that first Saturday the little quiet +Spaniard of the pies and ice cream screwed up his +courage, crossed over to my precinct, leaned his +arms on my front counter, and said, “If I had a wife +like you I would be happy all the rest of my life!”</p> + +<p>Having delivered himself of those sentiments, he +hastily returned to his pies and ice cream.</p> + +<p>The Greek coffee man would take me to a show +that night.</p> + +<p>Saturday, to my surprise, was a slack day in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> +café business. Trade is always light. Sunday our +kitchen closed shop. Another reason why my job +held allurements. I was the only girl to get Sunday +off. Also, because we were the only department in +the hotel to close down altogether, it seems we were +wont to have an annual picnic. Alas that I had to +miss it!</p> + +<p>Plans were just taking shape, too, for this year's +event. Last year they motored over to Long Island. +Much food, many drinks. It was a rosy memory. +This year Kelly wanted a hay ride. Kelly, he of the +highly colored past, even so contended there was +nothing in the world like the smell of hay.</p> + +<p>There was no fun to the supper that Saturday night. +I sat at a table with a deaf girl, two dirty men, and +a fat, flabby female with pop eyes, and not a one of +them acted as if he possessed the ability to speak. +Except the deaf girl, who did tell me she couldn't +hear.</p> + +<p>So I ate hastily and made for the recreation room. +For the first time the piano was in use. A chambermaid, +surrounded by four admiring fellow-workers, +was playing “Oh, they're killin' men and women for +a wearin' of the green.” That is, I made out she +meant it for that tune. With the right hand she +picked out what every now and then approached +that melody. With the left she did a tum-te-dum +which she left entirely to chance, the right hand and +its perplexities needing her entire attention. During +all of this, without intermission, her foot conscientiously +pressed the loud pedal.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span></p> + +<p>Altogether there were seven in the chambermaid's +audience. I sat down next to a little wrinkled auburn-haired +Irish chambermaid whose face looked +positively inspired. She beat time with one foot +and both hands. “Ain't it jus' grand!” she whispered +to me. “If I c'u'd jus' play like that!” Her eyes +sought the ceiling. When the player had finished her +rendition there was much applause. One girl left +the clouds long enough to ask, “Oh, Jennie, is it +really true you never took a lesson?” Jennie admitted +it was true. “Think of that, now!” the little +woman by me gasped.</p> + +<p>The chambermaid next gave an original interpretation +of “Believe me if all those endearing young +charms.” At least it was nearer that than anything +else. I had to tear myself away in the middle of +what five out of seven people finally would have +guessed was “Way down upon the Suwanee River.” +The faces of the audience were still wreathed in +that expression you may catch on a few faces at +Carnegie Hall.</p> + +<p>Monday there was a chambermaids' meeting. +Much excitement. They had been getting seven +dollars a week. The management wished to change +and pay them by the month, instead—thirty dollars +a month. There was something underhanded about +it, the girls were sure of that. In addition there was +a general feeling that everyone was in for more or +less of a cut in wages about September. A general +undertone of suspicion that day was over everything +and everybody. Several chambermaids were waiting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> +around the recreation room the few moments before +the meeting. They were upset over that sign under +the picture of Christ, “No cursing no stealing when +tempted look on his kindly face.” As long as they'd +been in that hotel they'd never heard no cursin' +among the girls, and as for stealin'—well, they guessed +the guests stole more than ever the girls did. There +were too many squealers around that hotel, that was +the trouble. One girl spoke up and said it wasn't +the hotel. New York was all squealers—worst +“race” she ever knew for meanness to one another—nothin' +you'd ever see in the Irish!</p> + +<p>I thought back over the dinner conversation that +noon. An Irish girl asked me what my hurry was, +when my work didn't begin till 1.30. I told her +I helped out the Spanish woman and remarked +that I thought it wrong that she didn't get more +pay than I. “Say,” said the Irish girl, “you jus' +look out for your own self in this world and don't +you go round worryin' over no one else. You got +number one to look out for and that's all.”</p> + +<p>The excitement of the day was that the Big Boss +for the first time took note of the fact I was alive. +He said good evening and thought he'd look in my +ice chest. My heart did flutter, but I knew I was +safe. I had scrubbed and polished that ice chest +till it creaked and groaned the Saturday night +before. The brass parts were blinding. But there +was too much food in it for that hour of the night. +He called Schmitz—Schmitz was abject reverence +and acquiescence. It was, of course, Kelly's fault<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> +for leaving so much stuff there when he went +at 3. And Kelly was gruff as a bear next day. +Evidently the Big Boss spoke to him about sending +stuff upstairs after the lunch rush was over. He +almost broke the plates hurling things out of the ice +box at 2.30. And the names he called Schmitz +I dare not repeat. He swore and he swore and he +<i>swore</i>! And he stripped the ice box all but bare.</p> + +<p>How down on prohibition were Kelly and many of +those waiters! Perhaps all the waiters, but I did not +hear all express opinions. A waiter was talking to +Kelly about it in front of my counter one day. “How +can we keep this up?” the waiter moaned. “There +was a time when if you got desperate you could take +a nip and it carried you over. But I ask you, how +can a man live when he works like this and works +and then goes home and sits around and goes to +bed, and then gets up and goes back and works +and works, and then goes home and sits around? +You put a dollar down on the table and look at +it, and then pick it up and put it in your pocket +again. Hell of a life, I say, and I don't see how +we can keep it up with never a drink to make a +man forget his troubles!”</p> + +<p>Kelly put forth that favorite claim that there was +far more evil-doing of every sort and description +since prohibition than before—and then added that +everyone had his home-brew anyhow. He told of +how the chefs and he got to the hotel early one +morning and started to make up six gallons of home-brew +down in our kitchen. Only, o' course, “some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> +dirty guy had to go an' squeal” on 'em and Kelly +'most lost his job, did Kelly.</p> + +<p>I had a very nice Italian friend—second cook, he +called himself—who used to come over to the compartment +of Monsieur Le Bon Chef and talk over +the partition to me every afternoon from four to +half past. He also was not in the least fresh, but just +talked and talked about many things. His first +name in Italian was “Eusebio,” but he found it more +convenient in our land to go under the name of +“Vwictor.” He came from a village of fifty inhabitants +not far from Turin, almost on the Swiss border, +where they had snow nine months in the year. +Why had he journeyed to America? “Oh, I donno. +Italians in my home town have too little money and +too many children.”</p> + +<p>Victor was an intelligent talker. I asked him +many questions about the labor problem generally. +When he first came to this country seven years ago +he started work in the kitchen of the Waldorf-Astoria. +In those days pay for the sort of general +unskilled work he did was fifteen to eighteen +dollars a month. Every other day hours were from +6 <small>A.M.</small> to 8.30 <small>P.M.</small>; in between days they got off +from 2 to 5 in the afternoon. Now, in the very same +job, a man works eight hours a day and gets +eighteen dollars a week. Victor at present drew +twenty-two dollars a week, plus every chef's allotment +of two dollars and forty cents a week “beer +money.” (It used to be four bottles of beer a day at +ten cents a bottle. Now that beer was a doubtful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> +bestowal, the hotels issued weekly “beer money.” +You could still buy beer at ten cents a bottle, only +practically everyone preferred the cash.)</p> + +<p>But Victor thought he was as well off seven years +ago on eighteen dollars a month as he would be to-day +on eighteen dollars a week. Then, it seems, he +had a nice room with one other man for four dollars +a month, including laundry. Now he rooms alone, +it is true, but he pays five dollars a week for a room +he claims is little, if any, better than the old one, and +a dollar a week extra for laundry. Then he paid two +to three dollars for a pair of shoes, now ten or twelve, +and they wear out as fast as the two-dollar shoes of +seven years before. Now fifty dollars for a suit no +better than the one he used to get for fifteen dollars. +Thus spoke Victor.</p> + +<p>Besides, Victor could save nothing now, for he +had a girl, and you know how it is with women. It's +got to be a present all the time. You can't get 'em +by a store window without you go in and buy a waist +or a hat or goodness knows what all a girl doesn't +manage to want. He went into detail over his +recent gifts. Why was he so generous as all that to +his fair one? Because if he didn't get the things +for her he was afraid some other man would.</p> + +<p>Nor could Victor understand how people lived in +this country without playing more. Every night, +every single night, he must find some countryman +and play around a little bit before going to bed. +“These fellas who work and work all day, and +then eat some dinner, and then go home and sit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> +around and go to bed.” No, Victor preferred death +to such stagnation. If it was only a game of cards +and a glass of wine (prohibition did not seem to exist +for Victor and his countrymen) or just walking +around the streets, talking. <i>Anything</i>, so long as it +was <i>something</i>.</p> + +<p>Victor was a union man. Oh, sure. He was +glowing with pride and admiration in the union +movement in Italy—there indeed they accomplished +things! But in this country, no, the union movement +would never amount to much here. For two +reasons. One was that working people on the whole +were treated too well here to make good unionists. +Pay a man good wages and give him the eight-hour +day—what kind of a union man will he make? The +chances are he won't join at all.</p> + +<p>But the main reason why unions would never +amount to much here was centered in the race question. +Victor told of several cooks' strikes he had +been in. What happens? A man stands up and +says something, then everybody else says, “Don't +listen to him; he's only an Irishman.” Some one else +says something, and everyone says, “Don't pay any +attention to him; he's only an Italian.” The next +man—he's only a Russian, and so on.</p> + +<p>Then pretty soon what happens next? Pretty +soon a Greek decides he'll go back to work, and then +all the Greeks go back; next an Austrian goes back—all +his countrymen follow. And, anyhow, says my +Italian friend Eusebio, you can't understand nothin' +all them foreigners say, anyhow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span></p> + +<p>I asked him if Monsieur Le Bon Chef after his +start as a strike breaker had finally joined a union. +“Oh, I guess he's civilized now,” grinned Victor.</p> + +<p>Numerous times one person or another about our +hotel spoke of the suddenness with which the workers +there would be fired. “Bing, you go!” just like +that. Kelly, who had been working there over two +years, told me that the only way to think of a job +was to expect to be fired every day. He claimed he +spent his hour's ride in to work every morning preparing +himself not to see his time card in the rack, +which would mean no more job for him.</p> + +<p>I asked Victor one day about the girl who had held +my job a year and a half and why she was fired. +There was a story for you! Kelly a few days before +had told me that he was usually able to “get” anybody. +“Take that girl now what had your job. +I got her. She was snippy to me two or three times +and I won't stand that. It's all right if anybody +wants to get good and mad, but I detest snippy +folks. So I said to myself, 'I'll get you, young lady,' +and within three days I had her!”</p> + +<p>Kelly was called away and never finished the story, +but Victor did. The girl, it seems, got several slices +of ham one day from one of the chefs. She wrapped +them carefully in a newspaper and later started up +the stairs with the paper folded under her arm, evidently +bound for the locker room. Kelly was standing +at the foot of the stairs—“Somebody had tipped +him off, see?”</p> + +<p>“What's the news to-day?” asked Kelly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span></p> + +<p>“'Ain't had time to read the paper yet,” the girl +replied.</p> + +<p>“Suppose we read it now together,” said Kelly, +whereupon he slipped the paper out from under her +arm and exposed the ham to view.</p> + +<p>“You're fired!” said Kelly.</p> + +<p>He sent her up to the Big Boss, and he did everything +he could think of to get the girl to tell which +chef had given her the ham. The girl refused absolutely +to divulge that.</p> + +<p>The Big Boss came down to our kitchen. He +asked each chef in turn if he had given the girl the +ham, and each chef in turn said <i>No</i>.</p> + +<p>The Big Boss came back again in a few minutes. +“We can put the detective force of the hotel on this +job and find out within a few days who <i>did</i> give that +ham away and the man will be fired. But I don't +want to do it that way. If the man who did it will +confess right now that he did I promise absolutely +he will not be fired.”</p> + +<p>A chef spoke up, “I did it.”</p> + +<p>Within fifteen minutes he was fired.</p> + + +<p class="thought">As ever, the day for leaving arrived. This time I +gave notice to Kelly three days in advance, so that +a girl could be found to take my place. “The Big +Chief and I both said when we seen you, she won't +stay long at this job.”</p> + +<p>“Why not?” I indignantly asked Kelly.</p> + +<p>“Ah, shucks!” sighed Kelly. Later: “Well, you're +a good kid. You were making good at your job, too.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> +Only I'll tell y' this. You're too conscientious. +Don't pay.”</p> + +<p>And still later, “Aw, forget this working business +and get married.”</p> + +<p>There was much red tape to leaving that hotel—people +to see, cards to sign and get signed. Everyone +was nice. I told Kelly—and the news spread—the +truth, that I was unexpectedly going to Europe, +being taken by the same lady who brought me out +from California, her whose kids I looked after. If +after six months I didn't like it in Europe—and everyone +was rather doubtful that I would, because they +don't treat workin' girls so very well in Europe—the +lady would pay my way back to America second-class. +(The Lord save my soul.)</p> + +<p>I told Schmitz I was going on the afternoon of the +evening I was to leave. Of course he knew it from +Kelly and the others. “Be sure you don't forget to +leave your paring knife,” was Schmitz's one comment.</p> + +<p>Farewells were said—I did surely feel like the belle +of the ball that last half hour. On the way out I +decided to let bygones be bygones and sought out +Schmitz to say good-by.</p> + +<p>“You sure you left that paring knife?” said +Schmitz.</p> + + + +<h2><a name="CONCLUSION" id="CONCLUSION"></a>CONCLUSION<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></h2> + + +<p class="newchapter"><span class="firstword"><span class="dropcap">H</span>ere</span> I sit in all the peace and stillness of the +Cape Cod coast, days filled with only such work +as I love, and play aplenty, healthy youngsters +frolicky about me, the warmest of friends close by. +The larder is stocked with good food, good books are +on the shelves, each day starts and ends with a joyous +feeling about the heart.</p> + +<p>And I, this sunburnt, carefree person, pretend to +have been as a worker among workers. Again some +one says, “The artificiality of it!”</p> + +<p>Back in that hot New York the girls I labored +among are still packing chocolates, cutting wick +holes for brass lamp cones, ironing “family,” beading +in the crowded dress factory. Up at the Falls they +are hemming sheets and ticketing pillow cases. In +the basement of the hotel some pantry girl, sweltering +between the toaster and the egg boiler, is watching +the clock to see if rush time isn't almost by.</p> + +<p>Granted at the start, if you remember, and granted +through each individual job, it was artificial—my +part in it all. But what in the world was there to do +about that? I was determined that not forever +would I take the say-so of others on every phase of +the labor problem. Some things I would experience +for myself. Certain it is I cannot know any less<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> +than before I started. Could I help knowing at least +a bit more? I do know more—I know that I know +more!</p> + +<p>And yet again I feel constrained to call attention +to the fact that six jobs, even if the results of each +experience were the very richest possible, are but an +infinitesimal drop in what must be a full bucket of +industrial education before a person should feel +qualified to speak with authority on the subject +of labor. Certain lessons were learned, certain tentative +conclusions arrived at. They are given here for +what they may be worth and in a very humble spirit. +Indeed, I am much more humble in the matter of +my ideas concerning labor than before I took my first +job.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the most valuable lesson learned was +that a deep distrust of generalizations has been acquired, +to last, I hope, the rest of life. It is so easy, +so comfortable, to make a statement of fact to cover +thousands of cases. Nowhere does the temptation +seem to be greater than in a discussion of labor. +“Labor wants this and that!” “Labor thinks thus +and so!” “Labor does this and the other thing!” +Thus speaks the labor propagandist, feeling the thrill +of solid millions behind him; thus speaks the “capitalist,” +feeling the antagonism of solid millions +against him.</p> + +<p>And all this time, how many hearts really beat as +one in the labor world?</p> + +<p>Indeed, the situation would clear up with more +rapidity if we went to the other extreme and thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> +of labor always as thirty million separate individuals. +We would be nearer the truth than to consider +them as this one great like-minded mass, all yearning +for the same spiritual freedom; all eager for the downfall +of capitalism.</p> + +<p>What can one individual know of the hopes and +desires of thirty millions? Indeed, it is a rare situation +where one person can speak honestly and intelligently +for one hundred others. Most of us know +precious little about ourselves. We understand still +less concerning anyone else. In a very general way, +everyone in the nation wants the same things. That +is a good point to remember, for those who would +exaggerate group distinctions. In a particular way, +no two people function exactly alike, have the same +ambitions, same capacities.</p> + +<p>There is, indeed, no great like-minded mass of +laborers. Instead we have millions of workers split +into countless small groups, whose group interests +in the great majority of cases loom larger on the +horizon than any hold the labor movement, as such, +might have on them. Such interests, for instance, +as family, nationality, religion, politics. Besides, +there is the division which sex interests and rivalries +make—the conflict, too, between youth and age.</p> + +<p>Yet for the sake of a working efficiency we must do +a minimum of classifying. Thirty million is too +large a number to handle separately. There seems +to be a justification for a division of labor, industrially +considered, into three groups, realizing the +division is a very loose one:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span></p> + +<ul> +<li>1. Labor or class-conscious group.</li> +<li>2. Industrially conscious group.</li> +<li>3. Industrially nonconscious group.</li> +</ul> + + +<p>The great problem of the immediate future is to +get groups 1 and 3 into Group 2. The more idealistic +problem of the more distant future is to turn a great +industrially conscious group into a socially conscious +group.</p> + + +<p class="thought">By the first group, the labor or class-conscious +group, is meant the members of the American Federation +of Labor, Industrial Workers of the World, +four railroad Brotherhoods, Amalgamated Clothing +Workers, socialist and communist organizations—workers +whose affiliations with certain bodies tend +to make them ultraconscious of the fact that they are +wage workers and against the capitalist system. +Class antagonism is fostered. There is much use of +the word “exploited.” In their press and on their +platforms such expressions are emphasized as “profits +for the lazy who exploit the workers.” Everything +possible is done to paint labor white, the employer +black, forgetting that no side has the monopoly in +any shade.</p> + +<p>To those who from sympathy or antagonism would +picture at least organized labor as like-minded, it +must be pointed out that for the great part the several +millions represented by Group 1 are perhaps +more often warring in their aims and desires than +acting as one. Never have they acted as one. Organized +labor represents but a fraction of labor as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> +whole. Some more or less spectacular action on the +part of capital against labor always tends to solidify +the organized workers. They are potentially like-minded +in specific instances. Otherwise the interests +of the carpenters' union tends to overshadow the +interests of the A. F. of L. as a whole; the interests +of the A. F. of L. tend most decidedly to overshadow +the interests of organized labor as a whole. Socialists +bark at communists. Charges of capitalist tendencies +are made against the four Brotherhoods. The +women's unions feel legislated against in the affairs +of labor. Indeed, only utter stupidity on the part of +capital ever could weld organized labor into enough +solidarity to get society or anyone else agitated for +long. Much of the “open shop” fight borders on +such stupidity.</p> + +<p>Group 2 is at present but an infinitesimal fraction +of labor. It comprises those workers whose background +has been fortunate enough, as to both heredity +and environment, to allow of their main industrial +interests centering around the doing of their +particular job well for the sake of their industry as +a whole, to which a sentiment of loyalty has been +aroused and held. There is no feeling of class antagonism, +no assurance that the interests of labor are +forever inimical to those of the employer, and +<i>vice versa</i>. Where such an attitude exists on the part +of workers it presupposes an employer of unusual +breadth of understanding or a deep love for his +fellow-man. As co-operation in industry can be +shown to pay socially and financially, so may this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> +type of employer come more and more to supersede +the old-fashioned “boss.”</p> + +<p>Group 3, the industrially nonconscious workers, +includes the great majority of labor in the United +States. Under this heading come all those who for +reasons connected with the type of industry engaged +in, or because of individual or sex characteristics, +remain apart from any so-called labor movement. +Practically all women fall under this head, most of +the foreign labor population, most of unskilled labor. +Many members of labor organizations technically +belonging in Group 1 really fall under Group 3. The +great majority of American labor undoubtedly are +not class or group conscious in the sense that they +feel themselves as workers pitted against a capitalist +class. Temperamentally, intellectually, the doctrines +of Karl Marx are not for them. They never +heard of Karl Marx. They get up and go to work in +the morning. During the day they dub away at +something or other, whatever it may be—the chances +are it changes rather often—putting no more effort +into the day's work than is necessary to hold down +an uninteresting job. They want their pay at the +end of the week. Many have not the minimum intellectual +capacity necessary to do a piece of work +properly. Many more have not the minimum physical +capacity required for even routine tasks. Very +many, indeed, are nervous misfits.</p> + +<p>Yet a goodly number in Group 3 represent a high +type of worker to whom the doctrine of class warfare +is repugnant, and yet whose industrial experience<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> +has never resulted in making them industrially +conscious. They feel no particular call to show more +than average interest in their job.</p> + +<p>Peace, efficiency, production in industry, can come +only as Group 2 increases. To recruit from Group +1 will always be difficult. Once labor feels itself hostile +to the employer and his interests, which is another +way of saying, once the employing group by its tactics +succeeds in making labor conclude that “the +working class and the employing class have nothing +in common,” the building up of a spirit of co-operation +is difficult indeed. Class consciousness is poor +soil in which to plant any seeds of industrial enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>Would you, then, asks a dismayed unionist, build +up your so-called industrially conscious group at the +expense of organized labor? The answer is a purely +pragmatic one, based on the condition of things as +they are, not as idealists would have them. Rightly +or wrongly, the American employing group long ago +decided that the organized-labor movement was +harmful to American industry. The fact that the +labor movement was born of the necessity of the +workers, and in the main always flourished because +of the continued need of the workers, was never +taken into account. Every conceivable argument +was and is used against organized labor. Many of +those arguments are based on half truths; or no +truths at all. The fact remains that probably the +majority of the American public believes the organized-labor +movement to be against our social, civic,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> +and industrial welfare. However right or wrong such +a deduction is, it is safe to say that for the great +part those who hold that belief do so in absolute +good faith.</p> + +<p>The result is that the American labor movement +has developed ever in an atmosphere so hostile that +the effect on the growth of the movement has been +that which hostile environment always exerts on +any growing thing. It has warped the movement. +It has emphasized everything hostile within the +movement itself. No wonder a fighting spirit has +ever been in evidence. No wonder only the fighting +type of labor leader has emerged. The movement +has had little or no opportunity for construction. +Always the struggle for existence itself has been +uppermost. No wonder the conclusion can justly be +drawn that the American labor movement has not +always played a highly productive role in American +industry.</p> + +<p>It has been everybody's fault, if we are searching +for a resting place for the blame of it all. Which +gets us no place.</p> + +<p>The point is, looked at without the tinted glasses of +either capital or labor, that the psychology of the +American employer for the past, assuredly the +present, and at least the near future, has been, and +is, and will be, so inimical to organized labor that the +movement would not be allowed to function as a +constructive industrial force. Too much of its energies +must go to fighting. At the same time, too +much of the energies of the employer go to fighting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> +it. The public pays the price, and it is enormous. +The spiritual cost of bitterness of spirit far outweighs +any monetary loss to industry, tremendous +as that is.</p> + +<p>Why is not the present, then, a wise time in which +to encourage an alternative movement, one that has +not the effect of a red rag to a bull? Labor can shout +its loudest; the fact remains that in this country +labor is very far from controlling the industrial situation. +Therefore, the employer must still be taken +into account in any program of industrial reform. +That being so, it might be saner to try some scheme +the employer will at least listen to than stubbornly +continue to fight the issue out along the old lines of +organized labor alone, at the very mention of which +the average employer grows red in the face.</p> + +<p>It is not, indeed, that we would do away with the +organized-labor movement, if we could. The condition +is far too precarious for that. Labor too often +needs the support of unionism to keep from being +crushed. The individual too often needs the educational +influence organization exerts. Organized labor, +despite the handicaps within and without, has too +much of construction to its credit. The point is, +further growth in the organized-labor movement, +considering the development forced upon the movement +by its own past and the ever antagonistic attitude +of business, will not, for the present and immediate +future, necessarily spell peace, efficiency, production. +Rather, continued, if not increased, bitterness.</p> + +<p>What is the development, at least for the present<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> +and immediate future, which will improve the +situation?</p> + +<p>The first move—and by that we mean the thing +to start doing <i>to-day</i>—is to begin converting the non-industrially +conscious group into the industrially +conscious group. Group 3 is peaceful—they call no +attention to themselves by any unrest or demands +or threats. But they are not efficient or productive, +the reason being that they have not enough interest +in their jobs, or in many cases are not physically or +mentally competent. Theirs are sins of omission, not +commission.</p> + +<p>The process of this conversion means many things. +It means first and foremost an understanding of human +nature; a realization that the great shortcoming +of industry has been that it held, as organized, too +little opportunity for a normal outlet to the normal +and more or less pressing interests and desires of +human beings.</p> + +<p>It worked in a vicious circle. The average job +gave the worker little or no chance to show any +initiative, to feel any sense of ownership or responsibility, +to use such intellect and enthusiasm as he +possessed. The attitude of the average employer +built up no spirit of loyalty or co-operation between +management and men. Hence these very human +tendencies, compelling expression in a normal personality, +became atrophied, as far as the job was concerned, +and sought such functioning as a discouraging +environment left them capable of in fields outside of +industry—in many cases, within the labor movement<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> +itself. The less capacity the job called out, the more +incapable the worker became. Tendencies inherent +in human nature, whose expressions all these years +could have been enriching the individual and industry, +and therefore the nation as a whole, have been +balked entirely, or shunted off to find expression +often in antisocial outlets. In some cases the loss to +industry was small, since the individual capacities +at best were small. In other cases the loss was +great indeed. In every case, encouragement of the +use of capacities increases the possibilities of those +capacities.</p> + +<p>The first step in this process of conversion then is +to reorganize the relationship between management +and men so that as many outlets as possible within +industry can be found for those human expressions +whose functioning will enrich the individual and +industry. Which means that little by little the +workers must share in industrial responsibilities. +The job itself, with every conceivable invention for +calling out the creative impulse, can never, under +the machine process, enlist sufficient enthusiasm for +sustained interest and loyalty on the part of the +worker. He must come to have a word in management, +in determining the conditions under which he +labors five and a half to seven days a week.</p> + +<p>It is a nice point here. The parlor Bolshevik pictures +all labor eager and anxious and capable of +actually controlling industry. The fact of the +matter is that most individuals from any and every +walk of life prefer to sidestep responsibility. Yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> +everyone does better under some. Too much may +have a more disastrous effect than not enough—to +the individual as well as industry. Here again is +where there must be caution in generalizing. Each +employer has a problem of his own. Nor can the +exact amount of responsibility necessary to call out +maximum efficiency and enthusiasm ever be determined +in advance.</p> + +<p>I have talked to numerous employers whose experience +has been the same. At first their employees +showed no desire for any added responsibility whatever. +Had there not been the conviction that they +were on the right track, the whole scheme of sharing +management with the workers would have been +abandoned. Little by little, however, latent abilities +were drawn out; as more responsibilities were intrusted +to the workers, their capacities for carrying +the responsibilities increased. In two cases that I +know of personally, the employees actually control +the management of their respective companies. In +both these companies the employers announced that +their businesses were making more money than under +one-sided management.</p> + +<p>On the whole, this development of the partnership +idea in industry is a matter of the necessary intellectual +conviction that the idea is sound—whether +that conviction be arrived at <i>via</i> ethics or “solid +business judgment”—to be followed by the technical +expert who knows how to put the idea into +practice. That he will know only after careful study +of each individual plant as a situation peculiar unto<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> +itself. He is a physician, diagnosing a case of industrial +anæmia. As in medicine, so industry has its +quacks—experts who prescribe pink pills for pale +industries, the administration of which may be attended +with a brief show of energy and improvement, +only to relapse into the old pallor. As between a +half-baked “expert” and an “ignorant” employer +whose heart is in the right place—take the employer. +If he sincerely feels that long enough has he gone on +the principle, “I'll run my business as I see fit and +take suggestions from no one”; if it has suddenly +come over him that, after all, the employee is in most +ways but another like himself, and that all this time +that employee might be laboring under the notion, +often more unconscious than conscious, that he would +“like to run his job as he saw fit and take suggestions +from no one”; if, then, that employer calls his men +together and says, “let's run the business as we all +together see fit and take suggestions from one another”—then +is that employer and that business on +the road to industrial peace, efficiency, and production, +expert or no expert. The road is uphill, the +going often rough and discouraging, but more often +than not the load of management becomes lighter, +easing overburdened muscles; the load of labor in a +sense heavier, yet along with the added weight, as +they warm to the task there develops a sense that +they are trusted, are necessary to the success of the +march, that they now are men, doing man-sized +work. Perhaps in only a minimum of cases will the +load ever be divided “fifty-fifty.” Too soon would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> +the workers tire of their added burden, too few could +carry the added weight. The fact remains that with +management carrying the whole load, the march is +going very badly indeed on the whole. At times the +procession scarcely seems to move. There can surely +be no harm in the employing end shifting a bit of the +burden. A bit cannot wreck either side. Managerial +shoulders may feel more comfortable under the decreased +weight and try another shift.</p> + +<p>In recruiting Group 2 from Group 3, it is the employer, +on the whole, who must take the initiative. +Labor may show no desire to help shoulder the +burden. Yet they must shoulder some of it to +amount to anything themselves, if for no other reason. +It may take actual pushing and shoving at +first to get them on their way.</p> + +<p>Recruiting from Group 1 is a different matter. +There sometimes are workers who would grab most +of the load at the start—or all of it. Their capacities +are untried, the road and its twistings and turnings +is unknown to them. Each side has been throwing +stones at the other, tripping each other up. There +is a hostile spirit to begin with, a spirit of distrust +between management and men. Here then is a more +difficult problem. It is more than a matter of +shifting the load a bit; it is a matter of changing the +spirit as well. That takes much patience, much +tact. It is not a case of the employer making all the +overtures. Each side is guilty of creating cause for +suspicion and distrust. Each side has to experience +a change of heart. It is one thing to convince a previously<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> +unthinking person; it is another to bring +about a change of heart in one frankly antagonistic. +Making industrially enthusiastic workers out of +class and labor-conscious workers will indeed be a +task requiring determination, tact, patience without +end, and wisdom of many sorts—on both sides. +Some one has to sell the idea of co-operation to labor +as well as to the employer. And then know the job +is only begun. But the biggest start is made when +the atmosphere is cleared so that the partnership +idea itself can take root. Some on both sides never +will be converted.</p> + +<p>What about the great body of workers unfit physically, +mentally, nervously, to carry any additional +load at all? Here is a field for the expert. Yet here +is a field where society as a whole must play a part. +Most of the physical, mental, nervous harm is done +before ever the individual reaches industry. Indeed, +at most, industry is but one influence out of many +playing on the lives of the human beings who labor. +Nor can it ever be studied as a sphere entirely apart. +Much is aggravated by conditions over which industry +itself has no direct control. Health centers, civic +hygienic measures of all sorts, are of great importance. +A widespread education in the need of healthy +and spiritually constructive influences during the +first ten years of life, if we are to have healthy, +wholesome, and capable adults, must gain headway. +Saner preparation for life as a whole must take the +place of the lingering emphasis on the pedagogical +orthodoxy still holding sway.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span></p> + +<p>While industry is not responsible for many conditions +which make subnormal workers, industry +cannot evade the issue or shift the burden if it +desires peace, efficiency, production. These goals +cannot be obtained on any basis other than the +welfare of the workers. No matter how sane is +welfare work within the plant, there must develop +a growing interest and understanding in “off the +plant” work. The job is blamed for much. Yet +often the worker's relation to the job is but the +reflection of the conditions he left to go to work +in the morning, the conditions he returns to after +the day's work is done. There again is a vicious +circle. The more unfortunate the conditions of a +man's home life—we do not refer to the material +side alone—the less efficiently he is apt to work +during the day. The less efficiently he works +during the day, the less competent he will be to +better his home conditions.</p> + +<p>When men expressed themselves in their particular +handicraft they found much of their joy in life in +their work. One of the by-products of large-scale +industry and the accompanying subdivision of labor +has been the worker's inevitable lack of interest in +the monotonous job. Since too long hours spent at +mechanical, repetitious labor result in a lowered +standard of efficiency, and rebellion on the part of +the worker, there has followed a continual tendency +toward a reduction in the length of the working day. +The fewer hours spent on the job, the greater the +opportunity conditions outside industry proper have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> +to exert their influence on character formation. +With the shorter working day there develop more +pressing reasons than ever for the emphasis on off-the-plant +activities, and wholesome home and civic +conditions. All these together, and not industry +alone, make the worker.</p> + +<p>The growth of the spirit and fruit of industrial +democracy will not bring any millennium. It will +merely make a somewhat better world to live in +here and now. The dreamers of us forget that in the +long run the world can move only so far and so fast +as human nature allows for, and few of us evaluate +human nature correctly. The six industrial experiences +in this book have made me feel that the heart +of the world is even warmer than I had thought—folk +high and low are indeed readier to love than to +hate, to help than to hinder. But on the whole our +circles of understanding and interest are bounded by +what our own eyes see and our own ears hear. The +problems of industry are enormously aggravated by +the fact that the numbers of individuals concerned +even in particular plants, mills, mines, factories, +stretch the capacities of human management too +often beyond the possibilities of human understanding +and sympathy. More or less artificial machinery +must be set up to bring management and men in +contact with each other to the point where the +problems confronting each side are within eyesight +and earshot of the other. Up to date it has been as +impossible for labor to understand the difficulties of +management as for management to understand the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> +difficulties of labor. Neither side ever got within +shouting distance of the other—except, indeed, to +shout abuse! Many a strike would have been +averted had the employer been willing to let his +workers know just what the conditions were which +he had to face; or had the workers in other instances +shown any desire to take those conditions into +account.</p> + +<p>For, when all is said and done, the real solution of +our industrial difficulties lies not in expert machinery, +however perfect, for the adjustment or avoidance of +troubles. “Industrial peace must come not as a +result of the balance of power with a supreme court +of appeal in the background. It must arise as the +inevitable by-product of mutual confidence, real +justice, constructive good will.”<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> From Constitution of Industrial Council for the Building Industry, England.</p></div> + +<p>Any improved industrial condition in the future +must take as its foundation the past one hundred +years of American industry. The fact that this +foundation was not built of mutual confidence, real +justice, constructive good will is what makes the task +of necessary reconstruction so extremely difficult. +Countless persons might be capable of devising the +mechanical approach to peace and prosperity—courts +of arbitration, boards of representation, and +the like. But how bring about a change of heart in +the breast of millions?</p> + +<p>It is a task so colossal that one would indeed prefer +to lean heavily on the shoulders of an all-wise Providence +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>and let it go with the consoling assurance that, +as to a solution, “the Lord will provide.” But the +echoes of recriminations shouted by each side against +the other; the cries of foul play; the accusations of +willful injustice; the threats of complete annihilation +of capital by organized labor, of organized labor +by capital—must reach to heaven itself, and Providence +might well pause in dismay. Constructive +good will? Where make a beginning?</p> + +<p>The beginnings, however, are being made right on +earth, and here and now. It is a mistake to look for +spectacular changes, reforms on a large scale. Rather +do the tendencies toward mutual understanding and +this all-necessary good will evince themselves only +here and there, in quiet experiments going on in +individual plants and factories. The seed will bear +fruit but slowly. But the seed is planted.</p> + +<p>Planted? Nay, the seed has been there forever, +nor have the harshest developments in the most +bloodless of industries ever been able to crush it out. +It is part and parcel of human nature that we can +love more easily and comfortably than hate, that +we can help more readily than hinder. Flourishing +broadcast through all human creation is enough good +will to revolutionize the world in a decade. It is +not the lack of good will. Rather the channels for +its expression are blocked—blocked by the haste and +worry of modern life, by the multiplicity of material +possessions which so frequently choke our sympathies; +by the cruelties of competition, too often +run to the extremes of crushing out inborn human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> +kindness. And most of all, blocked by ignorance and +misunderstanding of our fellow-beings.</p> + +<p>It is a sound business deduction that the greatest +stumbling blocks in the difficulties between labor +and capital to-day resolve themselves down to just +that lack of understanding of our fellow-beings. +Yet without that understanding, how build up a +spirit of mutual confidence, real justice, constructive +good will? On what other foundation can a saner +industrialism be built?</p> + +<p>The place to make the beginning is in each individual +shop and business and industry. The spark +to start the blaze in each human heart, be it beating +on the side of capital or on that of labor, is the sudden +revelation that every worker is far more the exact +counterpart of his employer in the desires of his +body and soul than otherwise; that the employer is +no other than the worker in body and soul, except +that his scope and range of problems to be met are +on a different level. True it is that we are all far +more “sisters and brothers under the skin” than +strangers.</p> + +<p>No sane person is looking for a perfect industrialism, +is watching for the day when brotherly love +will be the motive of all human conduct. But it is +within the bounds of sanity to work toward an increase +in understanding between the human factors +in industry; it is justifiable to expect improved industrial +conditions, once increased understanding is +brought about. Industry needs experts in scientific +management, in mental hygiene, in cost accounting—in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> +fields innumerable. But what industry needs +more than anything else—more, indeed, than all the +reformers—are translators—translators of human +beings to one another. “Reforms” will follow of +themselves.</p> + +<p class="center" style="padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">THE END</p> + + + + +<div class="advertisements"> + +<h3><a name="Books_of_Art_and_Artcraft" id="Books_of_Art_and_Artcraft"></a><i>Books of Art and Artcraft</i></h3> + +<hr class="title" /> + +<p>HISTORY OF ART <span class="smcap" style="padding-left: 2em">By Elie Faure</span></p> + +<p>Vol. I—Ancient Art</p> + +<p style="padding-left: 2em; font-size: 90%"><i>Translated from the French by Walter Pach</i></p> + +<p>No History of Art fills the place of this one. First, +it shows art to be the expression of the race, not an individual +expression of the artist. Second, it reverses +the usual process of art history—it tells <i>why</i>, not <i>how</i>, +man constructs works of art. Nearly 200 unusual and +beautiful illustrations selected by the author.</p> + +<p>THE DEVELOPMENT OF EMBROIDERY +IN AMERICA <span class="smcap" style="padding-left: 2em">By Candace Wheeler</span></p> + +<p>A history of embroidery in America, from the quill +and beadwork of the American Indians and the +samplers of Colonial days, to the achievement of the +present. <i>Thirty-two pages of illustrations</i>—some in +full color—correlate perfectly with the text and +furnish examples for the student or general reader. +A book to delight the collector and to be a complete, +authentic guide, historically and as to methods, for the +art student, the designer, and the practical worker.</p> + +<p>HOW FRANCE BUILT HER CATHEDRALS +<span class="smcap" style="padding-left: 2em">By Elizabeth Boyle O'Reilly</span></p> + +<p>The Boston <i>Herald</i> writes: “It is a monumental work, +of living interest alike to the erudite devotee of the arts +and to the person who simply enjoys, in books or his +travels, the wonderful and beautiful things that have +come from the hand of man.... In a particularly happy +fashion, Miss O'Reilly has told the story of the French +cathedrals against a human background—of the great +men and women of the time.” <i>With 31 illustrations in +tint.</i></p> + +<h3><i>Life Stories of Famous Americans</i></h3> + +<hr class="title" /> + +<p>MARK TWAIN: A Biography +<span class="smcap" style="padding-left: 2em">By Albert Bigelow Paine</span></p> + +<p>Mr. Paine gave six years to the writing of this famous +life history, traveling half way round the world to +follow in the footsteps of his subject; during four years +of the time he lived in daily association with Mark +Twain, visited all the places and interviewed every one +who could shed any light upon his subject.</p> + +<p>EDISON: <span class="smcap">His Life and Inventions</span> <span class="smcap" style="padding-left: 2em">By Frank +Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin</span></p> + +<p>The authors are men both close to Edison. One of +them is his counsel, and practically shares his +daily life; the other is one of his leading electrical +experts. It is the personal story of Edison and has +been read and revised by Edison himself.</p> + +<p>MY QUARTER CENTURY OF AMERICAN +POLITICS <span class="smcap" style="padding-left: 2em">By Champ Clark</span></p> + +<p>A fascinating story of one of the most prominent +and best liked men in American political history of +our times, which will appeal to persons of all shades +of political belief. The book is not only interesting, +but highly important as a permanent record of our +generation. <i>Illustrated.</i></p> + +<p>LIFE OF THOMAS NAST +<span class="smcap" style="padding-left: 2em">By Albert Bigelow Paine</span></p> + +<p>The story of America's first and foremost cartoonist; +the man who originated all the symbols; whose pictures +elected presidents and broke up the <i>Tweed ring</i>. More +than four hundred reproductions of Nast's choicest +work.</p> + +<p class="center"> +HARPER & BROTHERS<br /> +<span class="smcap">Franklin Square <span style="padding-left: 6em">New York</span></span><br /> +</p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Working With the Working Woman, by +Cornelia Stratton Parker + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKING WITH THE WORKING WOMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 24959-h.htm or 24959-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/9/5/24959/ + +Produced by Markus Brenner, Irma Spehar and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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