Hi
I LLINOI S
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

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University of Illinois at

Urbana-Champaign Library
Brittle Books Project, 2012.

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In Public Domain.
Published prior to 1923.

This digital copy was made from the printed version held
by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
It was made in compliance with copyright law.
Prepared for the Brittle Books Project, Main Library,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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Northern Micrographics
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Reprilited from

OARITI S
April 1, 1905

The Wreck of the Home
How Wearing Apparel is Fashioned in the Tenements

ANNIE S. DANIEL
The New York Infirmary for Women and Children

New York
The Charity Ordanization Society
105 East 22d Street

i-~--E

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Air shaft opening of one 6-story tenement. Four stories below the roof, the light and air which can settle:
through this slit, supplies the tenement workers in the back room apartments.

Tenement conditions in New York City are of national importance, because the products
of tenement labor are sold in every State and Territory in the Union.
A guarantee of safety is found in one line of goods, women and children's.white wear,
which bear the label of the National Consumers' League.
THIS

CLEAuL

LAB

cosunAr

UCENSE

E NO.
4

I-

frZED
A

Certifies that the goods which carry it have been made in clean and safe factories under
good conditions, and that the manufacturers who use the label employ no children and
give out no work to be made up outside the factories.
Sixty factories are now using the label on women's white underwear, corsets, waists,:
stocking suspenders, dressing jackets, children's wash dresses, sheets, and pillow eases.
Every person buying goods of this character should ask that they bear the label.

The Consumers' League of the City of New York
105 East Twenty-Second Street, New York

The Wreck of the Home
HOW WEARING APPAREL IS FASHIONED IN

THE TENEYENTS

Annie S. Daniel
The New York Infirmary for Women and Children

Much has been accomplished by the
efforts to better the conditions of the
working people in New York, but to-day
there are conditions existing over on the
East Side in tenement-houses, which only
those who see daily can believe possible
in a civilized community.
The most
hideous and uncontestable type of sweating is done in what should be the homes
of working people.

From these homes last year, 120 families
applied for the services, at the home, of
a physician from the New York Infirmary
for Women and Children. These "homes"
of working men and women consist of
from two to four rooms. In one room
that which opens on the street or yard,
is carried on all the domestic life. This
room serves for parlor, dining-room, and
kitchen; and in this room in addition is
carried on the manufacturing. It is quite
obvious that the word home was never
intended to apply to such an apartment;
neither does it give a description of an
ideal place in which manufacturing
should be done.
The new law relating to manufacturing
in tenement-houses, provides that thirtythree distinct industries may be carried
on in the living rooms of the workersmanufacturing all of which requires hand
work or simple machinery. Every garment worn by a woman is found being
manufactured in tenement rooms. The
coarsest home-wrappers to the daintiest
lace gown for a fine evening function are
manufactured in these rooms. Corsets
and shoes are the most uncommon. The
adornments of woman's dress, the flowers
and feathers for her hats, the hats themselves-these I have seen being made in
the presence of small-pox, on the lounge
with the patient. In this case the hats
belonged to a Broadway firm. All clothing worn by infants and young children
-dainty little dresses-I have seen on
mSubstance of an address delivered before the annual
meeting of the New York City Consumers' League.

the same bed with chiidrea ick of
contagious diseases and into these little
garments is sewed some of the contagion.
Every garment worn by men is found
being manufactured in rooms whose
legitimate use is for living purposes.
Men's hats are less frequently found, but
one wonders if there are men enough in
the world to wear all the trousers that
All
are finished in tenement rooms.
clothing when not beiig sewed upon is
thrown on the bed or under it, on the
floor or more often used as a couch f'or
a child. In addition to wearing apparel,
boxes, cigars, pocketbooks, jewelry, clocks.
watches, wigs, fur garments, paper bags-anything the manufacturing, altering, repairing or finishing of which requires
hand labor or simple machinery, is found
in these rooms. Often one finds the
women manufacturing, the man sorting
fruit to be sold on the street.
The workers, poor, helpless, ignorant
foreigners, work on in dirt, often in filth
unspeakable, in the presence of all contagious and other diseases, and in apartIments in which the sun enters only at
noon or never at all. The tenement-house
department states that there are "thousands" of apartments in which all rooms
open on an air-shaft; in such an apartment I attended a woman ill with tuberDuring the.
culosis, finishing trousers.
summer, and then only for about two
hours, daylight (not sunlight) came in.
This daylight lasted two months and for
this place of. three air-shaft rooms, ten
dollars per month was paid. Three years
of life in this apartment killed the woman.
The finishers are made up of the old and
the young, the sick and the well. As soon
as a little child can be of the least possible help, it must add to the family income by taking a share in the family toil.
A child 3 years old can straighten out
tobacco leaves or stick the rims which
form 'the stamens of artificial flowers

The Wreck of the Home
through the petals. He can put the covers
on paper bhxes at four years. He can do
§om2:of .he p~atiug of paper boxes, alt ia:s
'a' rule th
iirequires a child of
6 'to 8r yea s. :r - from 4 to 6 years
be can s&olrkbuttons and pull basting
t .rads. A. git"Oiriom 8 to 12 can finish
trouwr s =aSja 'as her mother. After
1i.
she .ki6: 2, if of good size, she can earn
more 'money in a factory. The boys do
practically the same work as the girls,
except that they leave the home work
earlier,' and enter street work, as peddlers,
bootblacks, and newsboys. I have seen
but two children under 3 years of age
working in tenements, one a boy 21/2
years old who assisted the mother and
4 other-children under 12 years in making artificial flowers. The other, an extraordinary case of a child of 11/2 years,
who assisted at a kind of passementerie.
The sick as long as they can hold their
heads up, must work to pay for the cost
of their living. As soon as they are convalescent they must begin again. The
other day a girl of 8 years was dismissed
from the. diphtheria hospital after a
severe- attack of the disease.
Almost
immediately she was working at women's
collars, although scarcely able to walk
across the room alone.
The greatest evils of this particular
form of sweating found in tenements can
be grouped as follows:
A child from 3 to 10 or
12 years adds: by its labor
from 50 cents to $1.50 per week to
The hours of the
the family inicome.
child are as long as its strength endures
or the work remains. A child 3 years
old can work continuously from 1/2 to
2 hours at a time; a child 10 years old
can work 12 hours. Obviously under such
conditions the child is deprived of the
two greatest, rights, which the parents
and the state are bound to give each
child, health and" an education.
The particular dangers to the child's
health are such'as can be induced by
the confinement in the house in an atmosphere always foul. The bad light under
which the child works causes a continual
eye-strain, from the effects of which the
child will suffer all its life. The brain
of the child under 8 years of age is not
Child Labor

developed sufficiently to bear fixed attention. Hence it must be continually forced
to fix its attention to the work and in
doing this an irreparable damage is done
to the developing brain. A child forced
to earn its bread has neither the time nor
the opportunity to obtain an education.
It is absolutely impossible
Hours.
to know the number of
hours per week which one person may
devote to the work. In the busy season
a woman will frequently not have more
than five hours rest in the twenty-four.
Children over 8 years of age who attend
school begin work immediately after
school hours, and frequently work until
late at night, and on Saturdays and
Sundays.
The women usually begin about 5 A. M.,

taking a cup of coffee, working steadily
without stopping from 4 to 6 hours.
When the work must be. finished at a fixed
time, they usually work until midnight
or until 1 or 2 A. Ii.; nothing will be al-

lowed to interfere with it. I frequently
make a medical visit during which the
work is not stopped one minute. Recently
I told a woman to stop her work on paper
boxes long enough to get me a spoon and
towel. She said that it was absolutely
impossible to stop a minute. Unless the
work was at the factory at a certain hour,
she could not get the money needed to
pay the month's rent, then over-due.
The hours are regulated solely by the
amount of work on hand or by the physical strength of the workers; Sundays and
holidays, in sickness and health, work
they must.
The
a

amount

of

pay re-

ceived varies with the kind
of work, from 11/2 cents an hour
to 10 cents very rarely more.
The
little children, according to their ages.
earn from 50 cents to $2.00 per week. A
girl of 10 to 12 years can earn as much
as a woman at certain kinds of work, such.
as finishing men's clothing, and artificial
flowers, or hemming by machine dish
towels for a Broadway firm-a recent example. In other occupations, such as
sewing on buttons, pulling basting threads
or clipping threads between seams, they
simply save time for the women by assisting.
In no case in over 515 families was any
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Exterior of tenement house, where garment making was being carried on.
from the photographer to continue their work.

woman working other than from dire
necessity. The average weekly income
from the man's work was $3.81.
The
,average rent (the one item in ,the living
expenses which must " be paid and
promptly) was $8.99 per month. The
average family to be supported was of 41/
persons. As it requires more than two
weeks' wages to .pay one month's rent, it is
very evident that the women must work

or'the family go hungry.
Of these 515 families, 161 were .supported entirely by men; 30 by men assisted by persons under 18 years; the remaining 324 families in part or entirely
by women. In 150 of these families the
women were engaged in some kind of
manufacturing in the living rooms. The
work continued during the entire illness
for which the family was attended. In the
174 families remaining, the women either
.worked in the factories, at home at
laundry work, or added to the income by
taking lodgers or boarders. The women
of 17 families, who worked in a factory,
also brought home work to do at nightmost often, artificial flowers. As to the
reasons given for the necessity of the

The children were called away

women working--45 were widows; with
14, the husband was sick; 15 of the women
were deserted; with 7, the man. drank.
The remainder excused the condition by
either slack work or insufficient income of
the man. The actual amount of money
which the women earned averaged $1.04
per week. The combined income of the
men and women averaged $4.85. The additional sources of income came from the
work of persons under 18 years and from
what could be received from boarders and
lodgers. This made the average income
from all sources for over 515 families
$5.69.
The fact that -despite the
Housing.
work of the entire family
the income is still too small
for living purposes, gives rise .to greater
evil of overcrowding. The ayerage number of persons in the apartments, due
largely to this cause, was 6.4 persons.
The average number of rooms occupied by
such groups was 2.6. In order to make
the income reach the out-go, boarders,
lodgers, two and three families huddle
together, until not even the ghost of
decency remains.

j~.

Basement of tenement house on block known as "Lung Block," because of prevalence of tuberculosis. No daylight--gas burning at midday. A woman in the last stages of tuberculosis working on fancy collars.

S
Tally

et.

Why does this exist? What
are the advantages derived?

By the workers-The possibility of utilizing every finger old
enough; and unlimited hours.
By the manufacturers-Less factory
space, hence less rent, less light, less fuel
and a decidedly smaller pay-roll. No contract is made with the workers. When
the work is returned, such pay is given
,as the manufacturers choose to give.
By the consumers-An article costs a
little less.
And what are the dangers?
To the workers-Chiefly the loss of
health, physically, morally; the loss of
a home. Absolutely no home life is possible in a tenement workroom.
To the manufacturers-The possibility
of giving out work to people who may be
caught, the work confiscated and the
manufacturers fined. That this is a
danger to which the manufacturer pays
little attention is shown by the fact of
the very few convictions or confiscations
which the labor department is able to
report.
To the consumer-The real danger of

r_

r

being infected by disease germs. Among
the 150 families manufacturing in the living rooms 66 continued at work during
the entire course of the contagious disease
for which we were attending the famiily
We have laws which if enobliterate
would
forced
Its Enforcement. every sweat-shop great and
small in New York. To enforce these laws would require an army of
inspectors working day and night. In
some sections of the city every tenementhouse would require two inspectors
continually, one at the street door
entrances, the other on the roof; and more,
fire-escapes are used as entrances and exits.
We have repeatedly known of the inspector visiting the family (during the
enforcement of the old law) and finding
everything all right. The same day (in
one case within half an hour), the illegal
manufacturing was resumed. Frequently
the visit of the inspector is reported upon
his entrance to the block, and the work
is hidden until after the inspection has
been made. In cases of contagious disease,
the door is usually kept locked; the time
The Law and

3 0112 098983528
The Wreck of the Home
consumed in opening it permits the hiding personal knowledge was being done again
of the work.
in the evening in inside bedrooms, with
We have a new law recently in effect doors locked. Fresh work I saw carried
which provides that the tenement-house in and finished in about the same way that
must be licensed for home-work and not the people would have made counterfeit
the apartment. After an inspection by the money. The next day and since, it has
labor inspector and consultations by the been done openly. Outlooks are posted in
health department, if everything is found dilferent parts of the house who will give
in good order, the owner is given a license. the alarm, in their own language, and
This shall be (the law does not say must work will again be hidden should another
be) posted in the public hall on the en- inspection be made. Any person seeing
trance floor of the building and the build- such a spectacle can but wonder what manings be inspected every six months at ner of United States citizens these people
least. I have a list of tenements licensed thus treated are going to make, trying to
by the Labor Bureau in my neighborhood. make a living, and forced by this law to
I have been in 38 of these houses. The make it illegally.
license was posted in 12.
Theoretically, placing the responsibility
One of the houses on the list, in which upon the manufacturer and the landlord,
no license was posted is an apartment relieving entirely the worker, would seem
house which rents from $900 to $1,200 both just and easily enforced. It is too
per year. Each apartment is leased by soon after the enactment of the new law
the year, as I was told by the elevator boy. (October 1, 1904) to draw conclusions.
In one of these licensed houses I attended The first effect of the change was upon the
a case of measles in an apartment occu- worker in the advance of the rent from
pied by two families. Notice of the con- fifty cents to a dollar per month. I see
tagious disease was posted on the door. absolutely no change in conditions. In
Within, two women were finishing trousers January we attended a child ill with
and one day I found the sick child lying measles. The health board posted the
on a bundle of the trousers. This is very usual notice on the door. During the
common.
three weeks of the illness, which included
A clause of the law forbids the employ- pneumonia, the manufacturer sent three
ment of any but members of the familytimes each week neckties to be made by the
a clause which not only is not obeyed, but woman and carried away those already
the work is carried to other apartments finished. The landlord called every week
and even to other houses. The other day for the rent, as the woman was behind in
two women from another street brought her payments. But no interruption in the
trousers to finish at the bedside of my pa- work occurred, and both landlord and
tient, sick with tuberculosis; they had sim- manufacturer knew that they were disply come to make a social call and brought obeying the law.
their work with them. It frequently ocIs there any other remedy ? I believe that
curs that a woman takes more work than a law absolutely forbidding any manushe can finish. She then distributes it to facturer to have any part of his work done
neighbors or friends; or she takes a large in a tenement-house could be enforced.
quantity of work and obtains the services
If women must add to the income of
of girls, whom she teaches the trade, the family they should do it in buildings
usually neckties or artificial flowers. The built for this purpose; children at least
girls receive no pay for this work.
under eight years of age would not be emThe old law placed the responsibility of ployed; men and women in the last stages
manufacturing on the worker and the of tuberculosis could not work because of
manufacturers. The new law takes the inability to go to a factory. The children,
responsibility off the worker and puts it the future Americans, would stand a better
on the landlord. On January 9, accord- chance of becoming useful citizens; and
ing to the daily papers, a raid was made the consumer possessed of much welth or
by twenty-two inspectors in Elizabeth little, could know that his garments were
street. The people were duly frightened, not stained with the blood of helpless
much of the work was hidden, and to my women and little children.

This book is a preservation facsimile produced for
the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
It is made in compliance with copyright law
and produced on acid-free archival
60# book weight paper
which meets the requirements of
ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (permanence of paper).
Preservation facsimile printing and binding
by
Northern Micrographics
Brookhaven Bindery
La Crosse, Wisconsin
2012