American Thread Company spool, 1990s
date: label: date made
content: Late 20th Century
label: date made
content: 1990s
name: label: maker
content: American Thread Company
notes: label: Description
content: Workers in the El Monte sweatshop used this spool of black thread with the Juki industrial sewing machine seen in object 1996.0292.29a. The spool was seized during a well-publicized 1995 sweatshop raid and is part of a larger Smithsonian collection of artifacts documenting apparel industry sweatshops, focusing on the El Monte operation.
label: Description
content: On August 2, 1995, police officers raided a fenced seven-unit apartment complex in El Monte, California. They arrested eight operators of a clandestine garment sweatshop and freed 72 workers who were being forced to sew garments in virtual captivity. Smuggled from Thailand into the United States, the laborers’ plight brought a national spotlight to domestic sweatshop production and resulted in increased enforcement by federal and state labor agencies. The publicity of the El Monte raid also put added pressure on the apparel industry to reform its labor and business practices domestically and internationally.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanical and Civil Engineering
label: See more items in
content: El Monte
label: See more items in
content: Work
label: See more items in
content: Sweatshops
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: State of California. Department of Industrial Relations. Division of Labor Standards Enforcement
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1996.0292.01
label: accession number
content: 1996.0292
label: catalog number
content: 1996.0292.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: spool
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: plastic (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: cotton (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 1/2 in x 2 1/4 in; x 11.43 cm x 5.715 cm