The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1895-03-27
TIE SWEATING SYSTEM"
MANUFACTURING READY-MADE
CLOTHING IN TENBMENTs.


The Garments Worn by the Majority
of Americans Made Under CondI-
uOns Revolving to Humanity.
THE sweating system" is prac-
tically the process by which
ready-made clothing is manu-
factured in tenement houses.
The materials are cut and "bunched"
for each garment by the manufacturer.
They are then distributed in large lots
to special jobbers, known as "con-
tractors" each a specialist i'll his line.
For example, one makes coats, an.
other cloaks, another pantaloons,
while some make special grades or
sizes. With this distribution the
wholesaler washes his hands of the
business, his ignorance of how and
where his goods are actually made up
being as ideal as intentional.
Not far from one-half of the goods
thus distributed are made up in the
contractors factories. As to the other
half, the contractor sublets the work
to sweater, whose shop is gener-
ally one of the two larger rooms of
tenement flat, accommodating from
six to fifteen or twenty sweating"
employes-men, women and children.
In the other large room of the fiat are
his living, sleeping and cooking ar
rangements, overfowing into the
vorkroom. Employees whom he boards,
who eat at their work and who sleep
on the goods, frequently complete the
intimate connection of home and shop.
One fourth of our ready-made and
somewhat of our custommade cloth
ing are thus put together.
The people engaged are those whose
families are most prolific, whose sense
of cleanliness is least developed, who
comprehend no distinction between
living and work rooms, whose prem
ises are dirty to the point of filth, and
who are found in the most densely
populated portions of the city.
But this is not the worst. Single
families, inhabiting one or more
rooms, generally having family as
subtenants, or number of dodgers or
boarders, subcontract work from the
tenement sweaters. Thus by tene-
ment "home-workers" are made an
other one-fourth of our ready-made
clothing and much larger proportion
of our children's clothing. The homes
of these home-workers include many
of the most wretched in which human
beings exist among us. The condi-
tions of squalor and filth are frequent
ly such as to make even inspection
impossible, except by one hardened to
the work, while the quarters in which
this work is conferred are those into
which tend the most helpless of our
population.
AS TO wages in this tenement
homework" there is nothing which
can properly be so called. The work
is secured by underbiddlng of tene-
ment sweat shops, and is generally
piece-work, one process of which may
be attended to by the head of the
family, and the rest by its other mem
bers according to their capacity.
Those engaged are so generally COM
PEELED to accept rather than to choose
their work that it is taken without
reference to the possibility of gaining
a livelihood therefrom, the miserable
workers earning what they can, beg
ging to supplement it, and dying or
being supported as paupers when they
fail.
A large proportion-nearly, if not
quite, one-half-of all the clothing
worn by the majority of our people is
thus made under conditions revolving
to humanity and decency, aud such as
to endanger the health of the wearer.
1t is in children's clothes that the
worst features most thoroughly
characterize the manufacture. But
the same conditions so far apply to all
grades of clothing that not any can be
considered as exempt. The use of
ready-made goods has become so uni
Versal that no community, and almost
no family, is free from danger.
Better laws, and more efficient and
tactful administration of law, can do
much; organization of those em-
ployed can do more, the slow better
ment of conditions as the mass of
foreign immigration is better digested
by our population will do most of all.
But for many years to come, in our
great seaboard cities--especially New
York-the sweating system" will re-
main a reproach to humanity, breed
ing nest of disease, unless one of two
remedies shall be applied.
The Federal Government can throt-
tie the evil by absolutely prohibiting
Interstate commerce in articles of
manufactured under other
than such as may be APP
proved by law. Or the wholesale
clothiers in each of our cities can
stamp out the evil promptly, if they
really care to do so. The first alter
native is repugnant to our theory of
non-interference by the Federal Gov
the second Is thus far OPP
posed by the general policy OF the
themselves. - Harper's
Weekly.
Great Seal OF the COniederacy.