Page 133 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Immigration and sweatshops

for a year. It was for my sister Hannah’s wedding. She had been
engaged for several years, my father was poor and could not give the
dowry that he promised, and the groom’s family insisted on a nice
wedding. The wedding had been put off many times because my
father could not make even the smallest party, and he had suffered
and suffered. And my sister Hannah was not a beautiful girl whom
anybody will grab and marry without a dowry. So it was a happy day
for me, as I liked my sisters and brothers. I felt their suffering over
there, and, in helping them, I enjoyed over here the happy moment
when they received the money. My sister got married and had
children, and I felt like the happiest man there is, almost like
fatherhood. I could not describe it even if I were a poet.
Mr. Gutterman was recompensed for his magnificent heart, for I
put my brains and brawn into that Singer sewing machine and turned
out coats with the sleeves set in faster and faster, and with that
impetus dragged along the rest of the operators and pressers for
months. Besides sweating and speeding, I spent the lunch hour, when
others played cards or went out to eat, trying to make pockets or
sleeves. I took it seriously and worked hard, so the six dollars a week
he paid me was a good deal for him. Mr. Gutterman whispered into
Yankele’s ear to push me some of the work for which their regular
operator received eighteen dollars a week. I worked for him for one
and a half years and he never gave me another dollar a week.
I was working very fast; speed was the system of garment work,
which became known as the sweat system. But it was not just
working fast that made the workers perspire: it was the conditions
surrounding that work at high speed. When we talk about a shop
nowadays, we mean a place built according to certain city regulations
which protect the workers in it against fire and injury to their health
or their eyes. The shops in which we worked then had very little
ventilation, poor lighting, and were located up three or four flights of
narrow stairs in small rooms. The pressing irons were heated on gas
stoves, adding to the humid heat of New York City in summertime.
Of course, there was no union in that line of manufacturing.
Unions were just organizing in those days, and the small bosses could
get all the cheap labor they wanted from the new immigrants. They
felt they were benefactors to the newcomers, teaching them how to
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