Dolphin trimming fabric, 1990s
date: label: date made
content: Late 20th Century
label: date made
content: 1990s
notes: label: Description
content: Workers in the famous El Monte sweatshop used this bundle of knit trimming fabric (collars and cuffs) as they sewed Airtime brand shirts. While the sweatshop was located in El Monte, California, Dolphin Trimming Inc. (where the fabric was cut) was nearly 3,000 miles away in Miami Lakes, Florida. The apparel production business is typified by small shops doing specialization work. Authorities seized the fabric along with other evidence during a well-publicized 1995 raid. The bundle 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: Florida, Miami Lakes
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanical and Civil Engineering
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content: El Monte
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content: Work
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content: Sweatshops
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content: Many Voices, One Nation
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: 1996.0292.06
label: accession number
content: 1996.0292
label: catalog number
content: 1996.0292.06
objectType: label: Object Name
content: trimming fabric
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: cotton; polyester (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 2 in x 18 3/4 in x 3 7/8 in; 5.08 cm x 47.625 cm x 9.8425 cm