Page 131 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text
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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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