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White Slaves

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WHITE SLAVES

OR

THE OPPRESSIONS OF THE WORTHY POOR

BY REV. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS, D.D.




To My Father and Mother,

Who instilled into my mind and heart, in the days of a happy boyhood,
their own love for liberty and hatred of oppression, this volume is
gratefully dedicated.




TO THE MERCY AND HELP DEPARTMENT OF THE EPWORTH LEAGUE

Mr. Edison tells us that ninety per cent of the energy that there is in
coal is lost in the present method of converting it into a usable
force. May I, without being considered a croaker, say that almost the
same amount of spiritual power goes to waste in our average church
life? One is startled at times as he notes the manifestations of fervor
and warmth in the devotional meetings of the present day, and the
meagre results that follow in the transformation of society into the
likeness of the kingdom of heaven. Exactly what we have to do, however,
is to help hasten the answer to the prayer our Lord taught us, "Thy
will be done on earth as it is in heaven," and not to be forever
seeking to build tabernacles on some Mount of Transfiguration.

This book of Dr. Banks's is a positive stimulus to this work of social
transformation. The young men and women of our Epworth League could not
do better than to carefully and thoughtfully study its vivid pictures
of every-day scenes in our great, and even in our lesser, cities.

Such study will open their eyes to sad deformities in their own
communities, to which too many have become strangely indifferent
through custom and wont. True, it is not pleasant to consider these
distressing matters; but is it the business of the Christian to avoid
that which is unpleasant? Consideration leads to sympathy, and sympathy
wonderfully quickens the inventive faculties; and the aroused intellect
and active affection are leavening forces that alter social conditions
always for the better.

I take great pleasure, therefore, in commending this work, because it
stirs all who read it. It may make you indignant. What of it? Would
that more were alive enough to be indignant with the indignation of our
Lord at the forces of unbrotherliness at work in our midst! It will do
more than rouse your indignation; it will help you to utter the prayer
that gave the accent to the life of Paul: "Lord, what wilt thou have
_me_ to do?" When in works of Mercy and Help our tens of thousands of
Epworth Leaguers are loyally living this prayer, the problem of Edison,
as applied to spiritual dynamics, will be solved, and the latent forces
of spiritual energy used to their utmost. Then, as slavery has passed
away, war and tyranny and idleness and poverty will be no more, and the
end to which Christ leads us, and for which He died, will be attained.

WILLIAM INGRAHAM HAVEN,

_Vice-President for Mercy and Help Department_.

INWOOD LODGE, PINE ISLAND N.H. _August_ 1893




AUTHOR'S PREFACE

This volume had its origin in experiences which came to me in the daily
duties of a city pastorate. The inadequate wages received by some of
the members of my own congregation, and the impoverished and unhealthy
surroundings of many of the poor people who came for me to christen
their children, pray with their sick, or bury their dead, so aroused my
sympathy for the victims, and my indignation against the cruel or
indifferent causes of their misery, that I determined upon a thorough
and systematic investigation of the conditions of life among the worthy
Boston poor. By the word "worthy" I do not mean to indicate a class of
saints, but the poor people of the city who are willing and anxious to
exchange honest hard work for their support. I have not, in the series
of studies here presented, entered into a discussion of the vicious and
criminal classes. I have tried to perform, as it seemed to me, a far
more important task--to make a plea for justice on behalf of the
crushed, and often forgotten, victims of greed, who work and starve in
their cellars and garrets rather than beg or steal.

The larger part of the matter contained in these pages was originally
delivered in a series of discourses from the pulpit of St. John's
Methodist Episcopal Church, South Boston, and retains here the direct
form of the spoken address.

I desire to make a personal acknowledgment to some who have given me
great assistance in making the investigations, the results of which are
here recorded. I am greatly indebted to Mr. B. O. Flower, Editor of
_The Arena_, for many kindnesses, and especially for the use of several
interesting illustrations originally prepared for the magazine over
which he so ably and gracefully presides. The Rev. Walter J. Swaffield,
of the Boston Baptist Bethel, the Rev. C. L. D. Younkin, of the North
End Mission, the Rev. Geo. L. Small, of the Mariners' House, the Rev.
John G. May, of the Italian Mission, and that indefatigable reformer,
Mrs. Alice N. Lincoln, have each put me under great obligations by
their unwearying kindness and willing assistance. I am also greatly
indebted to Mr. Sears Gallagher, the brilliant young South Boston
artist, and to the veteran photographer of Boston Highlands, Mr. W. H.
Partridge, for many courtesies in connection with the illustrations
which illumine these chapters.

LOUIS ALBERT BANKS. BOSTON, _September_ 15, 1891.



CONTENTS

I. THE WHITE SLAVES OF THE BOSTON "SWEATERS"

II. LETTER OF CRITICISM

III. REPLY TO A CRITICISM ON "THE WHITE SLAVES OF THE BOSTON SWEATERS"

IV. THE PLAGUE OF THE SWEAT-SHOP

V. THE RELATION OF WAGES TO MORALS

VI. THE WAGES AND TEMPTATIONS OF WORKING-PEOPLE

VII. BOSTON'S UNCLE TOM'S CABIN

VIII. SOCIAL MICROBES IN BOSTON TENEMENT HOUSES, AND HOW TO DESTROY
THEM

IX. OLD WORLD TIDES IN BOSTON

X. OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS, THE BOSTON PAUPERS

XI. COMMENT ON "OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS, THE BOSTON PAUPERS"

XII. THE GOLD GOD OF MODERN SOCIETY



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PORTRAIT OF AUTHOR
PORTUGUESE WIDOW IN ATTIC
PORTUGUESE WIDOW AND CHILDREN
LITTLE CHILDREN FINISHING PANTS
INVALID IN CHAIR
POSTAL UNIFORMS
A TENEMENT-HOUSE COURT
SUNDAY ON NORTH STREET
CLARK'S MISSION
NORTH END JUNK SHOP
HOME OF THE MATHERS
THE PEANUTTER
INSIDE A SWEAT-SHOP
PAUL REVERE HOUSE, NORTH SQUARE
REAR OF NORTH END TENEMENT HOUSE
COMMONWEALTH AVENUE
DRYING "THE FIND"
THE NORTH END MISSION
A BOSTON "BRIDGE OF SIGHS"
COURT OFF NORTH STREET
CELLARWAY LEADING TO UNDERGROUND APARTMENTS
SICK MAN IN UNDERGROUND APARTMENT
AN ANCIENT TENEMENT
ITALIAN FRUIT-VENDERS AT HOME
COCKROACHES BY FLASH-LIGHT
BANANA SELLER
UNDERGROUND TENEMENT WITH TWO BEDS
TWO O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING
EXTERIOR OF A NORTH END TENEMENT HOUSE
WIDOW AND TWO CHILDREN IN UNDERGROUND TENEMENT
THE BANK OF THE UNFORTUNATE
OUT OF WORK
A CHEAP LODGING-HOUSE
THE "GOOD LUCK" TENEMENT HOUSE
THE SAND GARDEN
CHRIST CHURCH TOWER
ON THE CUNARDER
ON THE WAY TO THE RABBI
PASSING THE QUARANTINE DOCTOR
SURGICAL THEOLOGY
BUILDING USED BY THE BRITISH AS A HOSPITAL
VICTORIA SQUARE
OAK DOOR AT ENTRANCE
READING-ROOM AT FACTORY
FERRIS BROTHERS' CORSET FACTORY
QUARTER SECTION OF ONE OF THE WORK ROOMS
THE QUEEN OF THE DUMP
TRAMPS WOMEN'S
HOSPITAL WARD AT LONG ISLAND
GETTING A BREATH OF FRESH AIR
ATTIC AT RAINSFORD ISLAND
MARINERS' HOME
CHILDREN PLAYING IN COPP'S HILL BURYING-GROUND
DIGGING IN THE ASH-BARRELS IN WINTER
FOUR SHINERS
SOUTH BOSTON RAG-PICKERS




I.

THE WHITE SLAVES OF THE BOSTON "SWEATERS".


"Hard work is good an' wholesome, past all doubt;
But 'tain't so, ef the mind gits tuckered out."

--JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL: _Biglow Papers_.

A wise man of the old time, after a tour of observation, came home to
say, "So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done
under the sun: and behold the tears of such, as were oppressed, and
they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was
power; but they had no comforter." If this report had been written by
one who had been climbing with me through the tenement houses of not
less than a score of Boston streets, conversing with the sewing-women,
looking on their poverty-lined faces and their ragged children,
breathing the poisonous air of the quarters where they work, and
listening to their heart-rending stories of cruelty and oppression, it
would be an appropriate summary of our observation. It is my purpose,
at this time, to take you with me on a tour of observation. As
well-lighted streets are better than policemen to insure safety and
good order, so I believe that the best possible service I can render
the public is to turn on the light, and tell, as plainly and simply as
I can, the story of what I have seen and heard and smelled in the white
slave-quarters, which are a disgrace to our fair city. I shall confine
myself at this time entirely to the work of women and children in their
own homes. Most of this work is parcelled out to them by middlemen who
are known as "sweaters." That word sweater is not in the old
dictionaries. It is a foul word, born of the greed and infernal lust
for gold which pervade the most reckless and wicked financial circles
of our time. The sweater takes large contracts and divides it out among
the very poor, reducing the price to starvation limits, and reserving
the profits for himself.

Some of the women whose story I shall tell do not work for sweaters,
but are treated almost as badly by the powerful and wealthy firms who
employ them. In these cases the firm itself has learned the sweater's
secret, and through an agent of its own is sweating the life-blood out
of these half-starved victims.

Let us begin near at home with a South Boston case, which came to my
notice through the dispensary doctor for the district. It is a widow
with one child--a little boy scarcely three years old. The child is
just recovering from a troublesome sickness, through which the doctor
became acquainted with her. She has been sewing for a good while for
one of the largest and most respectable dry-goods houses on Washington
Street--a firm whose name is a household word throughout New England.
Her sewing has been confined to two lines--cloaks and aprons. For some
time she has been making white aprons--a good long apron, requiring a
yard, perhaps, of material; it is hemmed across the bottom and on both
sides, the band or "apron string" is hemmed on both sides, and then
sewed on to the apron, making six long seams. For these she is paid
fifteen cents _a dozen_! And besides that, this great, rich firm, whose
members are rolling in wealth and luxury, charges this poor widow
fifteen cents expressage on her package of ten dozen aprons, so that
for making one hundred and twenty aprons, such as I have described, she
receives, net, one hundred and thirty-five cents! If she works from
seven o'clock in the morning until eleven o'clock at night, she can
make four dozen; but, with the care of her child, she is unable to
average more than three dozen, for which, after the expressage is taken
out, she receives forty cents a day for the support of herself and
child.

Her rent for the one little room is one dollar per week. It is idle to
say that this firm is compelled to do this by competition, for the
material and making of these aprons cost less than ten cents, and the
firm retails them ordinarily at _twenty-five cents apiece_. On cloaks
she did better, receiving from fifty to seventy-five cents apiece, she
furnishing her own sewing-silk and cotton. On these she could make, by
working from seven A.M. till eleven P.M., nearly a dollar a day, but
she could never get more than six cloaks a week, so that the income for
the week was about the same.

[ILLUSTRATION: PORTUGUESE WIDOW IN ATTIC.]

Now come with me a little farther around the harbor. Let us climb up
three flights, to a little attic suite of two rooms, so low at the side
that, with my length of anatomy, I have to keep well to the middle of
the room in order to stand upright. Here live a Portuguese mother and
five children, the oldest thirteen, the youngest not yet three, a poor,
deformed, little thing that has consumption of the bowels, brought on
by scanty and irregular food. Its tiny legs are scarcely thicker than
my thumb, and you cannot look at its patient, wasted, little face, that
looks old enough to have endured twenty-five years of misery, instead
of three, without the heartache. I ask the mother how she earns her
living, and she points to a package that has just come in. Picking it
up, and untying the strings, I find there six pairs of pants, cut out
and basted up, ready for making. Looking at the card, we are astonished
to find that it bears the name of one of the largest firms in the city
of Boston, a firm known, perhaps, as widely as any. Three pairs of
these pants are _custom-made_; they are fashionable summer trousers,
with the names and addresses of the men for whom they are made tacked
on them. The other three pairs are stamped with "New York" as customer,
from which we infer that they are made for a New York house, the Boston
firm acting as sweater. This woman and her little children must finish
these pants by the same hour to-morrow, when the messenger from the
store will bring a new lot and take these away. She receives _ten cents
a pair_--three pairs being _custom-made_ pants! In order to finish the
six pairs in the twenty-four hours, she must get to work at six in the
morning, and improve every available moment until eleven or twelve in
the evening, and sometimes, if the sick child is fretful, until one
o'clock in the morning. Her wages for this tremendous strain that is
wearing her very life away, until she looks almost as frail as her
dying child, is _sixty cents!_ Her rent for these two small attic
pockets is one dollar and fifty cents per week. She has one bed for
herself and five children. Only through the aid of the Boston Baptist
Bethel is she able to keep up the struggle. And yet, O my brothers!
this is in sight of the old North Church, and the tower where they hung
the lanterns for a signal to Paul Revere, when he rode through the
darkness to arouse the Fathers to fight against oppression. God help us
to hang another light for liberty in the midst of this cruel slavery!

Perhaps you are tired now, and want to rest, but I am insatiable, and
will go on. Let me give you the record of six families found in the
same tenement.

Family No. 1. They are Italians. The wife and mother is finishing cheap
overcoats at four cents apiece. She can finish from eight to ten in a
day. She has two finer coats, lined with handsome satin; of these she
can complete only five a day, and receives eight cents apiece. There
are three in the family, and they pay a dollar and a half per week for
their one room. I asked about the husband, and a neighbor woman from
the next room remarked contemptuously, "He is no good."

No. 2. These are Poles. The woman makes knee pants of grammar-schoolboy
size; she receives sixteen cents a dozen pairs. Two dozen are as many
as she ever gets done in a day.

No. 3. They are Italians here, and are at work on knee pants. This
woman receives sixteen cents a dozen pairs for most of them, but for
some extra nice ones she gets eighteen cents a dozen. She has two dozen
brought to her from the sweater's shop every day about two o'clock. She
works from two in the afternoon until ten at night, and from six in the
morning until noon the next day, to complete her allowance, for which
she receives from thirty-two to thirty-six cents. The rent is a dollar
and seventy-five cents per week; she has two children.

No. 4. This woman makes men's pants at twelve cents a pair. Formerly,
when she was stronger, she could drive herself through six pairs a day;
but now, with a little babe to look after, she can get only four pairs
done. The room is intolerably dirty; but how can you have the heart to
blame her?

No. 5. Polish Jews. The woman makes knee pants, working from seven in
the morning till ten o'clock at night, and nets from twenty-seven to
forty-four cents a day.

No. 6. Italians. This woman is an expert seamstress. She is finishing
men's coats at six cents apiece; and with nothing to bother her,
working sixteen hours a day, she makes fifty-four cents. The rent for
the narrow little back room is one dollar and thirty-five cents per
week.

If you want variety, we will climb four flights of stairs, with half
the plastering knocked off the walls, and talk with an English woman.
She is working on fine cloth pants; she gets thirteen cents a pair; by
working till very late in the evening, she can complete four pairs a
day, and thinks it would be almost a paradise if she could make her
fifty-two cents every day; but it is one of the characteristics of a
sweater to systematically keep all his people hungry for work, and she
seldom is able to get more than twelve pairs a week. She lives alone in
a little sweat-box under the roof, for which she pays a dollar and a
quarter per week.

Not far away, up two flights, we find a Portuguese widow, with four
little girls, the eldest fifteen, the next thirteen, and the younger
ones three and six, respectively; they are all dwarfed by hardship and
insufficient food, so that the one who is fifteen is not larger than an
average girl of twelve. The mother is sick, and the girls are trying to
keep the wolf from the door by carrying on the sewing. They are all
hard at work; they carry the pants back and forth themselves, and so
for the most of their work receive twelve cents, though for some they
get only ten cents a pair. They have only two little rooms with the
most meagre furniture; the rent is one dollar and a half per week, and
the sick mother and four girls huddle together in the one bed at night.
They are pretty, bright-faced, intelligent girls, and with a fair
chance would grow into strong, noble women; but one shudders when he
takes into consideration the fearful odds against which they will have
to struggle in this poverty-stricken, crime-cursed alley.

[Illustration: PORTUGUESE WIDOW AND CHILDREN.]

[Illustration: LITTLE CHILDREN FINISHING PANTS.]

Here is another case of a similar description only a few blocks away.
We go up three narrow flights, steep and dark, for space is as
important in a low-class Boston tenement house as in a sardine box. The
stairway is slippery from filth on the last flight, for on a small
bench at the top, in a dry-goods box, a little boy is raising squabs
for the market, and the pigeon business, however much it may help to
pay the rent, is not conducive to cleanliness. We find here a suite of
three little rooms, the largest of which is not more than 10x10; the
others are much smaller. In these three little pigeon boxes eight
people live, at least sleep--five men and boys, and a mother and two
girls. The men are off most of the day, and work at such jobs as they
find; the mother and little girls make pants for another leading Boston
clothing house. The two little girls, the younger only three years, are
both overcasting seams. The three make on an average sixteen pairs of
pants a week, for which they get thirteen cents a pair; the young
pigeon fancier, already spoken of, carrying the goods to and fro. The
rent of these crowded quarters is two dollars and a quarter per week.
In the same building, down-stairs, we went into a room which could not
have been more than 10x12, where an American woman, with seven young
women helping her, was at work dressmaking. We could not discover
whether they were working for the stores or not, but the air was
poisonous, and the workers had that deadly pallor which comes from
habitually breathing bad air and from lack of sufficient food.

[Illustration: INVALID IN CHAIR.]

Sickness, to be dreaded anywhere, is especially pitiful among these
sweaters' slaves in the city. In the country the fresh air, fragrant
with the breath of new-mown hay, or sweetened from ten thousand clover
blossoms, is free to the poorest, but to be sick in a tenement house is
something terrible. Yet crowded quarters, poisonous air, and filthy
clothing make sickness a common guest in such places. I climbed one day
up two flights into a dirty little room, the smell of which was
sickening to me in three minutes, and yet there I found a man on a
little cot (that had been given by the charitable missionary who guided
me) who has been lying there for more than three years. For two years
and more he had not even a cot, but lay on the floor in his dirt and
pain. There are two children, too young to be of much assistance; the
wife and mother sews, finishing pants for a rich Washington Street
firm. She gets twelve, and sometimes, on fine, custom-made pants,
thirteen cents a pair. She has worked so hard and continuously on poor
food and with insufficient clothing, that rheumatism has settled in the
joints of her fingers and stiffened them, till she is only able to turn
off nine or ten pairs a week. Last week she could only make a dollar
and fifteen cents; the rent was a dollar and a quarter. They have
absolutely none of the ordinary comforts of life; the sick man has no
sheets for his cot, and the rheumatic mother sleeps with her children
on the floor.

Down-stairs, we look in on a mother and two grown daughters who are
finishing pants for another fashionable firm, one which does a large
business with clergymen. They are paid thirteen cents a pair,
ordinarily, and for the very finest custom-made pants they receive as
high as twenty cents, but complain, as it takes so much longer with the
fine pants, that from two to three pairs is as much as one woman can
complete in a day. There is a helpless air about this mother and her
daughters that is very depressing.

[Illustration: POSTAL UNIFORMS.]

There has been quite a controversy recently as to where the new United
States postal uniforms for the Boston carriers were made. I settled
this question to my own satisfaction during the past week, when, in
company with Dr. Luther T. Townsend, of Boston University, and two
other gentlemen, one of them being an Italian interpreter, I climbed
the rickety stairs of an old North End tenement house, and found the
pants for these same uniforms being made by Italian women at _nine and
a half cents a pair_! They received them from a Jewish sweater. One of
these women says that, by beginning at four o'clock in the morning and
frequently working until twelve o'clock at night, she can make six
pairs of these pants in a day. She has five children; the rent is two
dollars per week. The husband has been out of work for eight months;
the only one of the children who is able to earn anything is a boy who
is a bootblack, and can earn, in fine weather, three dollars a week.
Another woman at work on these postal uniforms, who was not able to
labor quite such long hours, could only make four pairs a day. She also
had five children, the only one able to earn anything being a daughter,
fourteen years of age, who works in a sweater's shop for two dollars a
week.

On the walls of the rooms in this building where the postal uniforms
were being made, the cockroaches were crawling, and in some places were
swarming as thick as ants about an anthill.

I have my note-books full of many other cases, including Portuguese,
Italian, English, Polish, and a few Irish and American women, of the
same general character as those already related; but a similar wicked
scale of prices runs through the making of other clothing. I called on
a woman in South Boston last week who was making overalls for a city
firm at sixty cents a dozen pairs. They are the large variety of
overalls, such as expressmen and such workers use, with straps going
over the shoulders. I took a tape-line and carefully measured the
sewing on one pair of these overalls. When they come to the seamstress,
there has not been a stitch taken in them--they are simply cut out.
There are thirty separate and distinct seams to be sewed, making in the
aggregate thirty-two and a half feet of sewing, for which she receives
the gross amount of five cents, out of which she has to pay the
carrying to and fro. If she goes after them herself, she can bring only
two dozen at a time, which will cost her ten cents car-fare, going and
coming. When sent by express in a package of five or six dozen--the
number she is able to make in a week--she is charged fifteen cents
expressage each way, so that the expressage eats up the making of six
pairs. In addition to this, the stiff cloth is very hard on machine
needles, and she will break about ten cents worth per week. This
woman's story is a sad one. Her husband, who was a strong, hard-working
man, fell ill through an over-strain, and died after fifteen months'
sickness, two months ago. She has three little children, the oldest
four years and the youngest a little over a year. Work as hard as she
can, driving her machine until late into the night, she is able to make
only five dozen pairs of overalls a week, which, when expressage and
breakage of needles are taken out, leaves her two dollars and
sixty-five cents. The rent is a dollar and a half, which leaves one
dollar and fifteen cents for the food and clothing of a mother and
three children. Of course she cannot live on that, and would starve to
death if she were not assisted by charity. And yet there is a firm
doing business in South Boston mean enough to take advantage of the
fact that people living in this part of the city are compelled to pay
car-fare or expressage on work secured in the city proper, and so has
reduced the price for work given out in South Boston to _fifty cents a
dozen pairs_.

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