Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-09-21
VOLUNTARY SLAVERY
Gloomy Picture Drawn by a Factory
Girl of Staten Island.
OVERWORKED In BAD QUARTERS.
No Reason Why Such Girls Should Not
Enter Domestic Service.
IT PAYS BETTER AND is HEALTHIER
WRITTEN FOR THE DISPATCH. ]


An American working girl presents
pathetic and pitiable account of the wrongs
done to the 200 or 300 women employed in
dyeing establishment on Staten Island.
They are slaves in every respect, as she
makes out, save that they are not whipped.
Think of it, she urges, "we come to
work in the morning drenching wet, per-
haps. That's all right. We can stand In
our wet shoes and skirts until they are dry.
There's not spot two feet square where we
could change our apparel, il we were able
to. We may get cold, we may become Grip
pied with rheumatism. We dare not be
late five minutes in the morning nor rest
five minutes during the day. Ten hours, II
hours, IA hours day, we women, and even
little girls, stand on our feet in nasty, steam
ing room, crowded together like cattle in a
cattle car, banging and jamming at heavy
wet clothes with irons that weigh IA and
16 pounds each, tugging them back and
forth to the hot stove at the end of the long
room, with never moment of rest between.
Not girl in the place is well unless she has
been there less than month. The infrmary
and the graveyard furnish the conclusion"
MORE OF THE STORY.
These hardships are further ggrayated,
as the story goes, by the fact that the fac
tory is located in a marshy and niasmal
region, where air and water are about
equally poisonous. The girls iron in the
busy season from A. NJ. until 10 P. M,
with only intervals for meals. The rooms
are overheated with the necessary stoves, no
seats are provided OF any sort, and the girls
stand day in and day out ironing until the
rough floor is worn into pathetic hollows by
81, .L.
SAINT and health-wreeking toll these girls re-
ceive 60 cents-and the more expert ones 80
cents-a day on which to board and clothe
themselves.
This picture. if not overdrawn, shows
hardshlps that even slavery did not impose.
When slaves were property and their work
was valuable they were not subjected to
such toll as would break down their health
and make them a charge upon their mas
ters, rather than source of income. The
majority OF Southern masters treated their
slaves we'll, not in some cases perhaps so
much from kindness as from the knowledge
that oyerwork and poor living would unfit
them for doing their best work, and thus
destroy their value as paying property.
HARD TO BELIEVE.
A valuable horse is we'll treated, and is
not overdriyen or overrun. A good COW is
well housed, we'll fed and gently treated.
But these poor working girls are enduring
such hardships as would disgrace slave
drivers or savages. Hearts must ache at
the story of their wrongs. That such harsh
taskmasters could be found among Ameri-
can men is something almost impossible to
believe. That such dire oppression should
be endured by American girls in this coun-
try seems incredible. In thus toiling be-
yond their strength amid such unhealthful
surroundings it is not surprising that Dhysi-
cal exhaustion follows, and that. as the re-
port states. every old hand is afflicted with
some trouble, and that every new one is
bound to break down sooner or later under
such conditions.
But with all the shocking and sickeuiug
details in view, sym pathy and indignation
can hardly fail to be tempered somewhat by
the evident fact that these poor mistaken
girls accept these positions voluntarily, when
good homes, good food, good wages, shorter
hours are ever at their command in private
families.
PLENTY OF HOMES.
Is it not true that they are sacrificing
their com fort, their health, their lives to
their pride? There are thousands of good
homes all over the country in which women
are being broken down by overwork through
lack OF the help that these girls and others
bus
In domestic service no girl is overworked,
or overdriven, or subjected to such odious
oppression as are these whose woes have
found publication in New York. And such
is the demand Tor competent domestic help
that they could have their choice OF situa-
tions. 1t may be there are some woman
tyrants in the households, but with scores
of places open, these could easily De left to
wrestle with their own pots and pans and
difficulties until they were taught better
manners.
A charitable organization was called upon
to endeavor to secure better treatment, more
consideration, shorter hours and more COM
Portable environments for these poor girls,
but without appreeiable success. To these
VINO know that it is in the power of every
capable girl to repeal her own wrongs. to
secure better wages and more com PORTABLE
quarters, these charitable people would have
been more successful in efforts at lessening
their hardships il they could have per-
suaded them to
POCKET THEIR PRIDE
and accept POSITIONS where they could sit
down when they felt like it;
where they were not watched by
hyena OF iorewoman; where they were not
fined for being five minutes late, or "docked"
if their work was not up to par by a mercI- |
health would not be ruined by strain OF IA |
hours daily in standing and using heavy |
hot irons. and where they would not be
poisoned by marsh iniasma and deficient |
ventilation and offensive odors.
Domestic work has its trials and hard |
ships, as all know, but we have yet to learn
OF any such discomfort, onerous enactment,
or cruel oppression in such service as that
of which these poor girls pathetically COM
plain. They do not even have their even
ings, since they work in the busy season, as
they aver, until 1880 P. NJ. Workshops,
glass houses, cigar factories, drygoods
stores and every business in which their
labor can be utilized are thronged by girls
and women who must work to support them
selves. In perhaps many they are subjected |
not only to most arduous toll, but to arbi-
trary taskmasters and insolent injustice. |
Their wages are low, their hours long, their |
complaints many, but since they volunta-
rily prefer such places to positions in fami- |
lies, things can hardly be SO odious or intol-
erable as they are represented.
LOUISE ALCoTT's EXAMPLE.
Men teach and preach that 'shousekeep-
ing Is q woman's first natural duty" but |
these girls would rather suffer anything, it |
seems, in factory than do housework for
wages. They have perfect right to such
choice, and they call this independence, but
it seems like foolish pride after all. They
have an idea that they Will lose caste If they
work in family rather than in factory.
But did Louise Alcott, who made herself |
famous, whose friends were Emerson and
Sanborn and Theodore Parker, and whose
relatives were the Quincys and the Sewalls
and others of aristocratic fame in Boston,