The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-09-28
WOMEN FARM HANDS IN
AMERICA NUMBER 100000
Long is Their Great Field and There Thousands
Poles Boemians, Italians, French and Slavs Make Good
Wages Wedding and Gathering the Pro-
ducts of Truck Farms
1912 NV
American in Europe it looks
Copyright. 1902, by James Heaton.

To an American in Europe 1t looks
strange to see women at work in the
fields. He thinks it sign of superior
civilization that in the United States
women do not commonly till the crops.
Yet within the limits of the city from
which he sailed hundreds of women
are to-day employed as farm laborers,
and within a few miles radius of New
York may be found more than 5000
women farmers and farm hands.
In fact, if the returned tourist were
to explore the country roads to the
south of the village of Jamaica, Long
Island, he might almost think himself
back in Austria or Italy, so gay are
head kerchiefs and the cotton dresses
of the small brown-skinned. bright
eyed women who are everywhere busy
in the fiat. level fields. Towards even
ing. when the sun is setting behind the
trees of Woodhaven, gliding in the
distance the spire of a little Italian
church, the. tourist might see before
him many a scene suggestive of Mil
lais' "Angelus.' The woman with the
hoe is as common as she is picturesque
in the landscape.
Crowded in the tenements of ia
maica live at least 1000 women who
are employed more or less steadily on
the surrounding truck farms. Here
is another foreign touch for the trav-
eler In former days the European
peasant was a village-dweller for the
sake of security-as in brigand-cursed
Sicily he still must BEGGING out in
the morning to work in perhaps distant
fields. The habit thus established, has
nd fT>of cd q
Joined with convenience and the social
instinct, it explains why there are hud-
died in Hicksville, Mineola, Wood
haven, and especially in Jamaica, the
Poles, Bohemians, French, Italians and
Slovaks whose work on the Long ISL
and farms may be miles away.
Capturing Woman Farm Hands.
Long Islands women farm hands
are mainly Poles from Russian Poland
They work for American Irish and
German truck farmers, who hire them
by the day In harvest time, when a
farmer needs women laborers, he lays
in a stock of one-dollar bills and passes
the word to one of his men. The man
stops the first Polak he meets and
points to a field. Few Polaks speak
English, but the sign is enough. The
mans work is done. Next morning al
the farm gate there may be fifty wo-
men waiting.
The farmer who lives at a distance
from the village uses a different meth
cd. Harvesting a big hay cart, he
drives to town, halts, beckons to a
group of women in the street, waits
until twenty or more have scrambled
in, and then drives off with his cap
ture. His object is TO prevent the strag-
Cling of his help, and to make sure of
the number wanted; but in the dewy
freshness OF the early morning the
wagon loads Of laughing girls look
less like laborers than a picnic party.
Women are employed for planting
onions. for harvesting crops that are
picked by hand such as green peas.
string beans. lima beans and toma-
toes; for punching rhubarh and for
wedding tender crops. like onions and
young carrots, that cannot stand the
cultiYatOr
ln planting time and IN June and
September when the first and second
crops ~ peas are gathered the out
hooking n women IS Sudden. one may
zee as many as ffty ~ work m "a plot
OF few acres where the day before
mere Wae not one
tnny say leb0rE scarce IN the
Wfal said one farmer. ste plenty
mere whistle and Yougi zee d dozen
N''iiisn eomiua" Another farmer SAD