Page 131 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text
P. 131

Immigration and sweatshops

        acquaintance, that they were in the same category as I was, landing
        not long before on Ellis Island. Their relatives had paid the company
        ten dollars and they had worked two weeks without pay as learners.
        After that period they received three dollars a week for this kind of
        work, until learning a higher level of skill.
           Yankele Gutterman was also a machine operator, but he worked
        for his brother in a small shop. He lodged me in his house and fed
        me for two weeks until I began to earn three dollars a week and pay
        what I owed him. I paid him seven dollars a month rent and fifteen
        cents  for  supper,  breakfast,  and  lunch.  He  lived  in  three  rooms,  a
        parlor, a bedroom, and a kitchen. His wife’s brother lived with them,
        and  slept  in  the  parlor  on  a  folding  iron  bed,  so  I  found  a  bed
        partner.  The  man  was  twice  as  old  as  I  was  and  had  a  wife  and
        children in Poland, so he felt out of place and I felt depressed. Seven
        dollars a month might look to us now as cheap for the meals and
        lodging, but food in those days was at its lowest prices. A meal in a
        Jewish restaurant on East Broadway was only fifteen cents—which I
        used  to  buy,  later,  when  I  became  independent  of  my  landslayt’‘s
        support and guidance.
           I worked at that place where my landsman Perlman was foreman,
        sewing sleeve  linings for months and  months without learning any
        other part of garment-making. The three dollars pay I received for
        that tedious nine-hour grind was not enough to live on and buy a suit
        of clothing for myself. Although Perlman had given me a suit on my
        arrival  which  cost  him  six  dollars—not  cheap  in  those  days  when
        everything was low-priced—it had become shabby and out of shape
        once in the rain. Yankele Gutterman became afraid I would not be
        able to pay him his seven dollars a month lodging, so he took me up
        to his brother’s shop where they also manufactured boys’ coats, and
        he showed me how to do the work there.
           Chaim David Gutterman the manufacturer was a landsman also; of
        course, I did not know him from the old country, but some of his
        family  came  from  there  so  I  was  welcomed  to  his  shop.  He  was
        pleased when I quickly learned the tricks of garment making, and he
        encouraged me—not because of my being a  landsman, but to make
        more profit for him. Payday was never on the day we were supposed
        to receive our hired work’s pay, for he was only a subcontractor, and
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