CHAPTER XI
YOUTH AND TRADES UNIONS
The portrayal of youth in a neighborhood such as ours cannot be dissociated from labor conditions, and it was not incongruous that some of the deeper implications of this problem should have been brought to us by young women.
In the early nineties nothing in the experience or education of young people not in labor circles prepared them to understand the movement among working people for labor organization. Happily for our democracy and the breadth of our culture, that could not be so sweepingly said to-day. Schools, colleges, leagues for political education, clubs, and associations bring this subject now to the attention of pupils and the public.
Our neighbors in the Jefferson Street tenement where we at first lived had, like ourselves, little time for purely social intercourse. With the large family on the floor below we had established a stairway acquaintance. We had remarked the tidy appearance of a daughter of the house, and wondered how, with her long hours of work, she was able to accomplish it,—for we knew our own struggle to keep up a standard of beauty and order. We often saw her going out in the evening with books under her arm, and surmised that she attended night school. She called one evening, and our pleasure was mingled with consternation to learn that she wished aid in organizing a trades union. Even the term was unknown to me. She spoke without bitterness of the troubles of her shop-mates, and tried to make me see why they thought a union would bring them relief. It was evident that she came to me because of her faith that one who spoke English so easily would know how to organize in the “American” way, and perhaps with a hope that the union might gain respectability from the alliance. We soon learned that one great obstacle to the organization of young women in the trades was a fear on their part that it would be considered “unladylike,” and might even militate against their marriage.
The next day I managed to find time to visit the library for academic information on the subject of trades unions. That evening, in a basement in a nearby street, I listened to the broken English of the cigarmaker who was trying to help the girls; and it was interesting to find that what he gave them was neither more nor less than the philosophic argument of the book I had consulted,—that collective power might be employed to insure justice for the individual himself powerless.
The girls had real grievances, for which they blamed their forewoman. One or two who tried to reach the owner of the factory had been dismissed,—at the instance of the forewoman, they believed. It was determined to send a committee to present their complaints and to stand by the girls who were appointed on it.
The union organized that night did not last very long, for the stability of the personnel of the trades union, particularly among women, cannot always be reckoned on. People as yet step from class to class in America with ease as compared to other countries, and this has obvious democratic advantages; but it is not so fortunate for the trade organizations or for the standardization of the trade itself, which is thus continually recruited from the inexperienced. There is a flux among the workers, the union officials, and the employers themselves. Among women, the more or less ephemeral character of much of their work, their frequent change of occupation, and marriage, all operate against permanency. The girl who knocked at our door that night, to invite us to our first trades union meeting, is now in a profession.
Later, when we moved to Henry Street, Minnie, who lived in the next block, enlisted our sympathy in her efforts to organize the girls in her trade. She based her arguments for shorter hours on their need of time to acquire knowledge of housekeeping and home-making before marriage and motherhood came to them, touching instinctively a fundamental argument against excessive hours for women.
We invited Minnie to a conference of philanthropists on methods for improving the condition of working girls, in order that she might give her conception of what would be advantageous. Representatives of the various societies reported on their work: vacations provided, seats in stores, religious instruction, and so on. “We are the hands of the boss,” said Minnie when her turn came. “What does he care for us? I say, Let our hands be for him and our heads for ourselves. We must work for bread now, but we must think of our future homes. What time has a working girl to make ready for this? We never see a meal prepared. For all we know, soup grows on trees.”
Minnie, who was headlined by the press during a strike as a Joan of Arc leading militant hosts to battle, had no educational preparation for leadership; no equipment beyond her sound good sense and her woman’s subtlety. Speaking once of the difficulty of earning a living without training, she told me that her mother could do nothing but sell potatoes from a push-cart in the street, “among those rough people.” Then, repenting of her harshness, “Of course, some of those people must be nice, too, but it is hard to find a diamond in the mud.”
Frequent and prolonged conferences at the settlement with Minnie and Lottie, her equally intelligent companion, and with many others, inevitably led to some action on our part; and long anticipating the Women’s Trades Union League, we took the initiative in organizing a union at the time of a strike in the cloak trade. The eloquence of the girl leaders, the charm of our back yard as a meeting-place, and possibly our own conviction that only through organization could wages be raised and shop conditions improved, finally prevailed, and the union was organized. One of our residents and a brilliant young Yiddish-speaking neighbor took upon themselves some of the duties of the walking delegate. When the strike was settled, and agreements for the season were about to be signed by the contractors (or middlemen) and the leader of the men’s organization, I was invited into a smoke-filled room in Walhalla Hall long after midnight, to be told that the girls were included in the terms of the contract.
Though its immediate object was accomplished, this union also proved to be an ephemeral organization. For years I held the funds, amounting to sixteen dollars, because the members had scattered and we could never assemble a quorum to dispose of the money.
When, in 1903, I was asked to participate in the formation of the National Women’s Trades Union League, I recognized the importance of the movement in enlisting sympathy and support for organizations among working women. To my regret I cannot claim to have rendered services of any value in the development of the League. It was inevitable that its purpose, as epitomized in its motto—“The Eight-hour Day; A Living Wage; To Guard the Home”—should draw to it effective participants and develop strong leaders among working women themselves. Those who are familiar with factory and shop conditions are convinced that through organization and not through the appeal to pity can permanent reforms be assured. It is undoubtedly true that the enforcement of existing laws is in large measure dependent upon watchful trades unions. The women’s trades union leagues, national and state, are not only valuable because of support given to the workers, but because they make it possible for women other than wage-earners to identify themselves with working people, and thus give practical expression to their belief that with them and through them the realization of the ideals of democracy can be advanced.
The imagination of New Yorkers has been fired from time to time by young working women who have had no little influence in helping to rouse public interest in labor conditions. My associates and I, in the early years of the settlement, owed much to a mother and daughter of singularly lofty mind and character, both working women, who for a time joined the settlement family. They had been affiliated with labor organizations almost all their lives. The ardor of the daughter continually prodded us to action, and the clear-minded, intellectual mother helped us to a completer realization of the deep-lying causes that had inspired Mazzini and other great leaders, whose works we were re-reading.
More recently a young capmaker has stimulated recognition of the public’s responsibility for the well-being of the young worker. Despite her long hours, she found time to organize a union in her trade, not in a spurt of enthusiasm, but as a result of a sober realization that women workers must stand together for themselves and for those who come after them.
The inquiry that followed the disastrous fire in the factory of the Triangle Waist Company in March, 1911, when one hundred and forty-three girls were burned, or leaped from windows to their death, disclosed the fact that the owners of this factory, like many others, kept the doors of the lofts locked. Hundreds of girls, many stories above the streets, were thus cut off from access to stairs or fire-escapes because of the fear of small thefts of material. The girls in this factory had tried, a short time before the fire, to organize a union to protest against bad shop conditions and petty tyrannies.
After the tragedy, at a meeting in the Metropolitan Opera House called together by horrified men and women of the city, this young capmaker stood at the edge of the great opera-house stage and in a voice hardly raised, though it reached every person in that vast audience, arraigned society for regarding human life so cheaply. No one could have been insensitive to her cry for justice, her anguish over the youth so ruthlessly destroyed; and there must have been many in that audience for whom ever after the little, brown-clad figure with the tragic voice symbolized the factory girl in the lofts high above the streets of an indifferent metropolis.
Before the fire the “shirt-waist strike” had brought out a wave of popular sympathy. This was due in part to the youth of a majority of the workers, to a realization of the heroic sacrifices some of them were making (an inkling of which got to the public), and in part also to disapproval of the methods used to break the strike. Fashionable women’s clubs held meetings to hear the story from the lips of girl strikers themselves, and women gave voice to their disapproval of judges who sentenced the young strikers to prison, where they were associated—often sharing the same cells—with criminals and prostitutes. Little wonder that women who had never known the bitterness of poverty or oppression found satisfaction in picketing side by side with the working girls who were paying the great cost of the strike. Many, among them settlement residents, readily went bail or paid fines for the girls who were arrested.
Cruel and dramatic exploitation of workers is in the main a thing of the past, but the more subtle injuries of modern industry, due to overstrain, speeding-up, and a minimum of leisure, have only recently attracted attention. It is barely three years (1912) since the New York Factory Law was amended to prohibit the employment of girls over sixteen for more than ten hours in one day or fifty-four hours a week. The legislation reflected the new compunction of the community concerning these workers, though unlimited hours are still permitted in stores during the Christmas season.
Few people realize what even a ten-hour day means, especially when the worker lives at a distance from the shop or factory and additional hours must be spent in going to and from the place of employment. And in New York travel during the rush hours may mean standing the entire distance.
Working girls, in their own vernacular, have “two jobs.” Those who have long hours and poor pay must live at the cheapest rate. Often they are not able to pay for more than part use of a bed, and however generous may be the provision of working girls’ hotels, the low-paid workers are not able to avail themselves of these. The girl who receives the least wage must live down to the bone, cook her own meals, wash and iron her own shirt-waists, attend to all the necessary details for her home and person, and this after the long day. The cheapest worker is also likely to be the overtime worker, a fact that is most obvious to the public at Christmas time.
The Factory Investigating Commission, appointed after the Triangle fire to recommend measures for safety, was continued for the purpose of inquiry into the wages of labor throughout the state and also into the advisability of establishing a minimum wage rate. The reports of the commission, the public hearings, and the invaluable contributions to current periodicals are enlightening the community on the social perils due to giving a wage less than the necessary cost of decent living; and as the great majority of employees concerning whom this information has been gathered are young girls, the appeal to the public is bound to bring recommendations for safety in this respect. The dullness of life when pettiest economies must be forever practiced has also been well pictured in the testimony brought out by the commission.
In these chapters I have sought to portray the youth of our neighborhood at its more conscious and responsible period, when the age of greatest incorrigibility (said to be between thirteen and sixteen) has been passed. Labor discussions and solemn conferences on social problems may seem an incongruous background for a picture of youth. Happily, its gayety is not easily suppressed, and comforting reassurance lies in the fact that recreation has ever for the young its strong and legitimate appeal; that art and music carry their message, and that the public conscience which recognizes the requirements of youth is reflected in the increasing provision for its pleasures. “Wider use of school buildings,” “recreation directors,” “social centers,” “municipal dances,” are new terms that have crept into our vocabularies.
Though the Italians have brought charming festas into our city streets, it was not until I admired the decorations that enhance the picturesque streets of Japan, and enjoyed the sight of the gay dancers on the boulevards of Paris on the day in July when the French celebrate, that it occurred to me that we might bring color and gayety to the streets—even the ugly streets—of New York. For years Henry Street has had its dance on the Fourth of July, and the city and citizens share in the preparation and expense. The asphalt is put in good condition (once, for the very special occasion of the settlement’s twentieth birthday, the city officials hastened a contemplated renewal of the asphalt); the street-cleaning department gives an extra late-afternoon cleaning and keeps a white uniformed sweeper on duty during the festivity; the police department loans the stanchions and the park department the rope; the Edison Company illuminates with generosity; from the tenements and the settlement houses hang the flags and the bunting streamers, and the neighbors—all of us together—pay for the band. Asphalt, when swept and cleaned, makes an admirable dancing floor, and to this street dance come all the neighbors and their friends. The children play games to the music in their roped-off section, the young people dance, and all are merry. The first year of the experiment the friendly captain of the precinct asked what protection was needed. We had courage and faith to request that no officer should be added to the regular man on the beat, and the good conduct of the five or six thousand who danced or were spectators entirely justified the faith and the courage.
AN INCIDENT IN THE HISTORICAL PAGEANT ON HENRY STREET, COMMEMORATING THE TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SETTLEMENT
The protective legislation, the new terms in our vocabulary, and the dance on the street are but symbols of the acceptance by the community of its responsibility for protecting and nurturing its precious possession,—the youth of the city.
