Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-08-20
THURSDAY.
WOMEN WHO WORK
In the Market Gardens of Chicago
Suburbs.


Suburbs.
Every morning from the beginning OF
seed time until frost comes and all the
green things droop their heads and die,
fully l 900 women go out to work in the
market gardens in the immediate vicinity
of Chicago. Some of these women are
aged, some in middle life, and few are
still girls. The majority, however, are
wives vino have husbands unqualified to
support their families, or, as is the case
so often among the ranks of ignorant
people, too dissolute or lazy to do So
They are without exception foreigners
some Bohemians, some Poles, and others
Germans. They have been reared in the
land of their birth to farm labor, and
know scarcely anything else. Their
knowledge of housekeeping is limited,
for the houses they have lived in from
infancy have been but shelters little bet
ter than those given to cattle, and their
means for home-making of the rudest
kind.
They can make greasy soup of pork
and bit of mutton or veal, prepare milk
porridge, or boil pot of strong, coarse
coffee, but there their skill in cookery
ends. They cannot so much as bake a
LOAF of black bread. They know, as
rule, no more of the ordinary simple de-
tails of housekeeping and home-making
than does the squaw whose home is tee
pee, or the gypsy who roams eight
months of the year about the country in
covered wagon. Many of them do not
know how to cleanse their garments.
When they indulge in the process called
washing, it is a mere wetting that bears
no resemblance to the genuine removal of
dirt. In the winter time many of these
women, especially the Poles, would be
glad during the long, cold months to do
any kind of rough housework, but know
not how it is done. "Can you scrub the
fioor?" asked the writer of a Polish
woman in midwinter, who stood in the
small, low, tireless room, and wrung her
hands in misery at the starvation which
had overtaken her and her two little
girls. Scrub the floor" answered she
in her strong native gutterals, stretching
out her sinewy brown hands with ges-
Iure of despair, 81 can do nothing but
Zig in the earth and feed the pigs"
This is the story of seven-tenths of all |
,he women who work in the market gar
lens. The Bohemians, and especially |
he Germans, are on the average more |
intelligent in their ideas of thrift than the |
Poles. Those who have no avocation in
he winter manage to lay trifie by over
md above the payment of the debts con-
racted in the winter and the summers
expense, with which, by dint of much
and such assistance as they OBJ
ain from the county, they maintain an
existence through the year. A few can
ew, and have learned the rudiments of
ailor work. All of them can knit, and
he stout, coarse, wooden hose reaching
bout two-thirds of the way to the knee,
which they wear when they cover feet or
nkles with anything, are their own
andiwork
The young unmarried foreigners who
ONE to this country usually obtain do
nestle work and soon learn enough to
lake their condition far better than it
yer could be in the old world. But the
'oman who comes here with husband
nd children, who has had opportunity
} learn only what the fields could teach,
as scarcely a brighter outlook in life
IAN she had at home. She goes early
, her work and remains till o'clock
II day long she is in the field, it matters
OF whether the rain falls or the hot
ms rays beat down upon her head.
ometimes three or four women
ill make their way across the field and
ack, again and again, on their knees,
ulling up small weeds. They work thus
n hours without once lifting their bodies
ON their cramped position. They will
xr,O,I ,,oao,,u-Iila Gov
ley are not loquacious. Long years of
exposure, hard labor, and want have
lade them for the most part stupid, tact
i'm, and stolid. Sometimes they use the
oe; sometimes they SOW seeds or put
nall plants, that have been started under
Ass, in the ground. A portion of the
omen clean and bunch the vegetables
lady for market.
None of them are beautiful or have the
ightest claim to grace or what is known
''good looks" Without exception they
re square and ill-shaped, and move with
eavy, numbering motion. Their faces are
ronzed. and scanned with many lines.
heir eyes seldom wear any expression,
OF even that of sorrow, nor yet of expect
lcy. For themselves they live almost in
le immediate present, and neither hope
Or dread. OF so little feeling do they
,em possessed that one is moved to won
er why they should have sought life in
le new world no better apparently than
lie one in the old. Should the question
e put to dozen OF these Manufactured,
women, as they bend over
leir work, if they were not quite as well
f at home as they are here, they will
most with one accord, after they have
AIRED at the questioner steadily for mo-
lent, reply: 1--WE may not be better off,
ut bye-and-bye our children will" The
nswer seldom varies.
The market gardens stretch to the
,uth, west and north of the city. Cab
age is grown extensively to the south
nd southwestward, and its cultivation
ives employment to large number OF
omen. Lettuce, radishes, onions, GU
lmbers, spinach, andive and celery COM
rise the greater part of the garden crop
rown close to the city The larger vege-
les are grown farther in the country.
everal crops of each of the smaller
egetables are grown successfully while
lmmer lasts. The first crop of spinach,
,ttuce and radishes are grown under
lass, spinach being put in in the autumn.
hus some of the garden women here
ork the entire wear. These workers
ave been thoroughly trained, and their
,rvices are more valuable than those OF
n ordinary field laborer.