THE SWEAT-SHOP IN SUMMER 2g$
Chicago favored foreign employees, and I was unable to deter- mine whether the reason was due to jealousy or fear.
At last I found work in a rear tenement on the second floor, where eight men and two women were engaged in making knee pants. A third woman who worked there was ill that day, and the owner told me I might take her place, my wages to depend on the amount of work I did. I eagerly took up my task, which was sewing the pockets for boys' pants. It was machine-work entirely. I was told to take a seat at a big foot-power machine and go to work on a stack of pockets a yard high. After a few brief instructions I was able to run the machine ; but I fear I was rather slow, for I was barely able to keep a man who sat at a machine next to me, putting on the facings, employed; and he had an enormous pile to start with. Fortunately, he had some basting to do, and that helped me a little. After an hour or two I became more of an expert, and turned off a constant stream of pockets. And just here I wish to enter a protest against putting pockets in the trousers of small boys. It is not necessary, and they are so hard to make. If anyone imagines it is an easy thing to work a sewing machine all day, let him try it for awhile. Abounding health and strength kept me from being prostrated at the end of my first day; a weaker woman unused to toil could not have endured the strain. It is said that strong men who have worked foot-power machines from youth are worn out at thirty- five, oftentimes wholly or partially paralyzed from hips down. It is a gloomy outlook, indeed, for the worker, who realizes that he will be a disabled old man while still young in years. In the modern factory foot-power has virtually passed away and elec- tricity has been substituted. There one may stitch all day, using the foot only when it is necessary to push a button to start or stop the machine.
I cannot now describe the utter weariness that possessed me when my first day's work was over. I sewed from nine in the morning to six in the evening, with a brief halt for lunch ; the others were at work much earlier. I know, of course, that the newness of the task made it doubly hard for me. My com- panions were not so tired as I.
