Juki industrial sewing machine
date: label: date made
content: 1974 - 1995
notes: label: Description
content: This Juki industrial sewing machine was used in a suburban El Monte, California sweatshop. Law enforcement officers seized the sewing machine 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. The El Monte sweatshop, like the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in 1911 earlier, took on an iconic role as government and activists used media coverage to galvanize the American public into action.
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.
place: label: place made
content: United States
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanical and Civil Engineering
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content: Government, Politics, and Reform
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content: El Monte
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content: Cultures & Communities
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content: Work
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content: Sweatshops
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content: Many Voices, One Nation
label: Exhibition
content: Many Voices, One Nation
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
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: 1996.0292.29a
label: accession number
content: 1996.0292
label: catalog number
content: 1996.0292.29a
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Sewing Machine Workstation
label: Object Name
content: Juki straight stitch sewing machine workstation
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 59 in x 48 in x 20 in; 149.86 cm x 121.92 cm x 50.8 cm