Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-04-09
EAST SIDE HORRORS
MAKING CLOTHING IN NEW YORK
TENEMENT HOUSES.

! Annie s. Daniel. in Charities.
| Much has been accomplished by the eff
| forts to better the conditions of the work
| ing people in New York, but today there are
! conditions existing over on the East SIDE in
| tenement houses, which only those who see
| daily can believe possible in u civilized COM
| munity. The most hideous and uncontest-
| able 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 car
ried all the domestic life This room
serves for parlor, dining room and kitchen:
and in this room in addition is carried on
the manufacturing. 1t 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.
Tenement Manufactures.
The new law relating to manufacturing in
tenement houses provides that thirty-three
distinct industries may be carried on in the
living rooms of the curing
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 Wrap-
pers to the daintest lace gown for a fine
evening function are manufactured in these
rooms. Corsets and shoes are the most nm
common the adornmentS of woman's
dress, the Mowers and feathers for her hats
the hats themSelveS-these l have seen he
ing made in the presence Of smallpox on
the lounge with the patient In this case
the hats belonged to Broadway firm. All
clothing worn by infants and young chill
/ Qten--dainty little dreSSeS-I have seen on
the same bed with children sick of con-
tag1ous diseases and into these little gar
| ments is sewed some Of the contagion.
Every garment worn by men is found be-
ing manufactured in rooms whose lepiti-
mate use is for living purposes Mems hats
are less frequently found. but one wonders
IL there are men enough in the world to
wear all the trousers that are finished in
i tenement rooms. All clothing when not
being sewed upon is thrown on the bed or
under 1t, on the floor, more often used as
a couch for child. In addition to wearing
apparel boxes, cigars. pocketbooks, jewelry,
| CLOCKS, watches. wigs, fur garments, paper
bags-anything the manufa curing 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.
Poor and Helpless.
eigners. work on in dirt, often in filth I'M
speakable, in the presence of all contagious
and other diseases, and in apartments in
which the sun enters only at noon or never
at all. The tenement house department
states that there are thousands" of apart
ments In which all rooms open on an air.
shaft; in such an apartment / attended a
woman Ill with tuberculosis finishing trous-
ers. During the summer, and then only for
about two hours, daylight mot sunlight)
came in. This daylight lasted two months
and for this place of three air-shaft rooms
$40 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 little child can be of the least possible
help 1t must add to the family income by
taking share in the family toll A child
three years old can straighten out tobacco
leaves to stick the rims which form the
stamens Of artificial flowers through the
petals. He can put the covers on paper
! boxes at four years He can do some of the
pasting of paper boxes, although as a rule
this requires a child of six or eight years
But from -four to six years he can sew on
from eight to twelve can finish trousers as
well as her mother After she is twelve If
or good size, she can earn more money I'm 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 news
boys. have seen but two children under
three years of age working In tenements.
one boy two and a half years old who
assisted the mother and four other chill
dren under twelve years In making artificial
flowers. The other, an extraordinary case
sisted at q kind of passementerie.
The sick, az long as they can hold their