Jay M. Brown
For many of the East European Jews the drudgery of daily life was epitomized by the clothing industry with its long hours, low pay and its sweatshops.
The sweatshop was the industrial locale in which Jewish workers in the needle trades earned their bread by the sweat of their brows. The sweatshop was generally not a shop at all, or at least not a plant designed and equipped for industrial production.
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Sweatshops were usually located in a tenement, often in one of the rooms of the owner’s apartment. In many cases there were no windows or other ventilators in the room. Today sweatshops are rematerializing in the South Bronx area of New York City utilizing Black and Hispanic laborers.
Adult workers in the sweatshops worked six days a week for twelve to sixteen hours a day. But adults were not the only workers. It is estimated that in New York City alone, some 60,000 children worked in sweatshops for wages of 50¢ to $1.50 a week.
Conditions in factories were not much better than those in the sweatshops. Young girls and men worked in crowded conditions, usually in a loft-type room that was cold in the winter and stifling in the summer. There were, at all times, health and fire hazards. For working approximately sixteen hours a day, six days a week, the men earned six to ten dollars a week, while the girls and women earned four to five dollars a week. If a worker complained about conditions, he or she was fired.
In an effort to attack the sweatshop system, Jewish immigrants helped form two large labor unions, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) in 1900, and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America in 1914.
In 1909, with the support of the United Hebrew Trades, a federation of Jewish Unions, there erupted a series of strikes in New York which were without precedent for their size, duration and fury.
First the bakers—two thousand strong—struck in the spring; they were joined on November 22, 1909 by 20,000 shirtwaist makers, mostly female, who were striking for better working conditions.
Women were subjected in the factories to sexual discrimination as well as to class exploitation. They were charged for the needles they used and the power supplied to the factory at a twenty percent profit for the owners. In addition, workers were taxed for the chairs on which they sat, made to pay for clothes lockers, and fined if they came five minutes late to work. During the first month of the “Uprising of the 20,000,” which lasted until February 1910, 723 workers were arrested. The conclusion of the strike saw general improvements in working conditions for the shirtwaist-makers.
Ironically the “Uprising of the 20,000” began with two localized shop strikes, one against an employer named Leiserson, the other against the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, a firm destined to enter Jewish immigrant folklore and become a legend in American labor history.
At 4:35 p.m. on March 25, 1911, a fire broke out in the Triangle Company and spread quickly among scraps of cloth. In the eighteen minutes it took to bring the fire under control, 146 workers, most of them young Jewish and Italian girls, burned or jumped to death.
Although the Triangle Company’s owners were placed on trial for manslaughter, it could not be proven that they knew that a stairwell door was locked on the day of the fire. Three months after the fire the New York legislature created the Factory Investigating Commission whose job was to check factories for fire hazards, unsafe machines and poor health conditions.
From the Triangle fire disaster and other similar events, the immigrant working class emerged in America. The Lower East Side and its ghetto was for most a stopping-off point where one lived until one could afford something better. Although the older generation of Jewish immigrants held on to their European heritage with tenacity, the younger generation desired to leave the ghetto image behind by moving to an “American” neighborhood. By the first quarter of the twentieth century, newly-landed immigrants were bypassing Manhattan and its Lower East Side for Brooklyn.
During the period of mass Jewish immigration to America the Lower East Side offered hospitality, jobs, business and political contacts, investment possibilities, schools and settlement houses. All helped the Jewish immigrant to assimilate and to acquire essential skills; he could then help his newly-adopted country to grow and prosper.
Course Outline
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I.
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Introductory Activities
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a.
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General background information on immigration
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b.
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Family tree exercise
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c.
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Pretest
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II.
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Why Eastern European Jews Came To America
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a.
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Current exodus of Jews from Russia
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b.
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Shtetl life
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c.
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The May Laws and government policies
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d.
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Pogroms, and economic and social conditions in Europe
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e.
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Film:
Voyage to America
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III.
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Migration To The United States
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a.
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The voyage
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b.
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U.S. immigration policies
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c.
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The reception centers
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d.
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Film:
The Golden Door
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IV.
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The Lower East Side
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a.
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Tenement living
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b.
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Reaction of earlier immigrants
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c.
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Record:
The East Side Story
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d.
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Guest speaker from Jewish Federation
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V.
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Adjusting to America
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a.
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Mutual benefit societies and social agencies
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b.
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Fraternal and community organizations
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c.
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Role of the public schools
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VI.
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The Yiddish Press and Theatre
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a.
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Role played in americanizing the immigrants
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b.
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“Bintel Brief” exercise
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VII.
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How The Immigrants Aided The U.S. Labor Movement
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a.
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Sweatshop and factory conditions
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b.
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Child labor
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c.
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Triangle Fire
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d.
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The Jewish unions and the “Uprising of the 20,000”
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e.
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Film:
The Inheritance
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VIII.
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Concluding Activities
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a.
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Simulation:
Gateway
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b.
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Filmstrip:
Minorities Have Made America Great
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c.
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Field trip to New York City
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Jewish Museum
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Ellis Island
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Lower East Side
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ILGWU Headquarters
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Yeshiva University
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d.
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Unit test
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