724
THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
Name
Age
Nationality
Occupation
Wages per week
l8 27 24 23 29
23 28 20
American
Virginian
American
American
German
Irish
American
American
Saleslady
Stenographer
Clerk
Clerk
Cashier
Saleswoman
Fur worker
Saleslady
S4.OO
6.00
4.50
3.00
6.50
6.00
5.00
3.00
This, then, was the place from which I started out to work on the appointed Monday morning. The hurried breakfast, the rush out into the street thronged with a lunch-carrying humanity hastening to the down-town district, and the cars packed with pale-faced, sleepy-eyed men and women, made the working world seem very real. Hurrying workers filled the heart of the city; no one else was astir. I reached my destination promptly at eight, the time of opening. Then I had to stand in line at the manager's office awaiting my more definite appointment, which was received in due time. But the manager had changed his mind about wages, and said he would give me two dollars a week plus 5 per cent, commission on sales, instead of the regular sal- ary he had mentioned in our former interview. I was then given a number, and by "424 " I was known during my stay there. I was sent to the toy department, where I found sixty-seven others who were to be my companions in toil. The place was a dazz- ling array of all kinds of toys, from a monkey beating a drum to a doll that said " mamma," and a horse whose motor force was to be a small boy. Our business was first to dust and condense' the stock, and then to stand ready for customers. We all served in the double capacity of floorwalkers and clerks, and our busi- ness was to see that no one escaped without making a purchase. The confusion can be readly imagined. As soon as the elevators emptied themselves on the floor, there was one mad rush of clerks with a quickly spoken, "What would you like, madam ?" or, "Something in toys, sir?" And the responses to these ques- tions were indicative of the characters of the people making
' This meant to pile like things together in as small space as possible.
