"Do you consider the reason you have given for reducing our scanty wages
to be either just or generous? You require us to sit up half the night
to get this work done, that you may supply customers who, by your own
statement, will pay you as good a profit on our next week's work as you
get on that which we have just delivered. You advance your own prices,
but cut down ours. By the money paid us you see that we have made only
four dollars in the week, and now you ask us to work for three. Can two
women live on three dollars a week? You might"----
I was so fully under way, that there is no knowing what more I might
have said, had not my mother stopped me short. But my indignation was
roused, and I was about to begin again, when the tailor interposed by
saying,--
"Do as you please, Miss,--that's my price,--and yours too, or not, just
as you choose."
Just then the man's wife came into the shop, and called off his
attention from us. I noticed that she was dressed in the extreme of the
fashion. There were silks, and laces, and jewelry in abundance, the
profits of the unrequited toil of many poor sewing-women. I told my
mother we would take no more vests from this shop, and would look for a
new employer, and started to go out. But she, being less excitable,
lingered, asked for a second bundle, and came out with it on her arm. I
carried it home, but it weighed heavily on my hands. We made up the
vests, but the otherwise pleasant labor of my needle was embittered by
the reflection of how great a wrong had been done to us. The sting of
this imposition continued to rankle in my heart so long as we were the
bondwomen of this particular man.
This persistent tendency to a reduction of wages acquired new strength
from the introduction of sewing-machines. As they came gradually into
general use, we found the cry raised in all the shops that machine-work
was so much better than hand-work, that nothing but the former was
wanted,--customers would have no other. I am satisfied that this also
was to some extent a mere pretext to accomplish a fresh reduction of
prices. The work may really have been better done, yet, notwithstanding
that fact, we were told the shops would continue to employ us at
hand-work, if we would do it at the same rate with the machine-work. It
was thus evident that it was not a question as to the quality of the
sewing, but simply one of price. Machinery had been made to compete with
muscle, and we were fairly in a dilemma which occasioned us an amount of
uneasiness that was truly distressing.
I did not attempt to fly in the face of this state of things by argument
or repining. I saw the result--at least I thought so--from the
beginning. To satisfy my doubts, I first went to see the machines while
in operation. How they could possibly overcome the mechanical
perplexities of needle and thread I could not imagine; neither, when I
saw them performing their work with such beautiful simplicity, could I
clearly understand how it was done. But my curiosity was gratified, and
my doubts resolved,--the great fact was made manifest. It struck me with
a sort of dismay. My mother was with me on this occasion, and she was
quite as much discouraged as myself, for her darling theory of the
supremacy of the needle had been blown to the winds. She would be
compelled to admit that hereafter the machine was to be paramount, and
the seamstress comparatively obsolete.
It could not be denied that the machines were capable of doing work as
beautifully as it could be done by needle-women. Then we were confounded
by the amazing rapidity with which they made the stitches. We saw that
it was vain to expect our slow fingers to compete with the
lightning-like velocity attained by simply putting the foot upon a
treadle. I have no doubt that thousands of sewing-girls, all over the
country, were equally astonished and disheartened, when they came to be
assured of the success of these machines. They must have seen, as we
did, that prices would speedily go down. Indeed, all who were in
immediate communication with the tailors became aware, at a very early
day, of the downward tendency. I confess that no other result was to be
expected, and that in this instance the call upon us was not entirely a
pretext of the tailors, but a necessity forced upon them by a new agency
suddenly introduced into their business, which they must immediately
counteract or embrace, or else give up their occupation.
The first tailor who bought a dozen machines found no difficulty in
having as many girls taught to operate them. The makers saw to it that
no impediment to their sale should occur from girls of ordinary
intelligence being unable to use them; so the first sewers were taught
either by the inventors themselves or by the skilled mechanics who
constructed the machines. As the girls learned quickly, so, when only a
small number had become expert at using them, they served as teachers to
others. Thus the operatives were multiplied almost as rapidly as the
machines. It was quite as difficult, at the first introduction, to
obtain the machines as it was to procure operators, so immediately was
the invention recognized by a vast industrial interest as the forerunner
of a complete revolution in all departments of sewing.
But, as already mentioned, the first tailor who bought machines was able
to set them at work directly. As one machine would perform about as much
in a day as ten women, the saving in the labor of the nine thus
dispensed with enabled him to reduce the price of his manufactured goods
to a figure so low that he could undersell all others in the trade.
Cheapness being everywhere the cry, he who sold at the lowest rates was
able to dispose of the most goods. It is not likely that he gave his
customers the full benefit of all the saving made by discharging nine
girls out of ten. This was large; for, while he saved their wages, he
made little or no advance in those of the remaining girl, who now did on
a machine as much work as the whole ten had previously done with their
needles. The only difference to her was, that she dropped the needle,
and employed a machine. She was, in either case, a mere sewing-girl; and
if she made her two or three dollars a week, it was enough. She had
never made more: why should she be permitted to do so now? It would have
been altogether contrary to usage to permit such a hand to have any
benefit from any general improvement or economy in the employer's great
establishment. The men are frequently able to exact it, but the women
never.
A tailor thus underselling all others, and yet making greater profits
than ever, invited imitation and competition. All who were able to
procure machines did so as fast as the inventors could supply the
demand. This became so enormous and pressing that new manufactories were
speedily established, and rival machines came into use by scores.
Clothing-shops and other establishments went into operation with a
hundred machines in each, throwing multitudes of sewing-women out of
employment. Steam was called in to take the place of female fingers. The
human, machine was suddenly discarded,--turned off, without notice or
compunction, to seek other occupation, or to suffer for want of it.
No wonder that we should be dismayed when such a prospect as this was
seen opening itself before us. Neither is it to be wondered at that
prices broke down as the revolution progressed. I was confounded at the
low rates to which wages fell. The price for making a shirt was reduced
one half. Fine bosoms, crowded with plaits and full of seams, were made
for a few cents per dozen. Even the mean slop-shop work was so poorly
paid, that no woman, working full time, could earn much more than a
dollar a week. If ill, or with a family of children to look after, her
case was apparently hopeless. How all the sewing-women thus suddenly
reduced to idleness were to gain a livelihood I could not comprehend. A
cry of distress rose up from the toiling inmates of many a humble home
around us. The privilege to toil had been suddenly withdrawn from them.
Even my mother, as I have said, began to wake up from the delusion under
which she had hitherto labored, that the needle was a woman's best and
surest dependence; for here was a revolution that had not entered into
her imagination. Though not at any time impoverished or even straitened
by it, yet she saw how others were; and it led her to think that women
might be not only usefully employed at many new things, but that they
ought to be qualified by education for even a variety of occupations, so
that, when one staff gave way, another would remain to lean upon. I
suggested that the reason why so many were at that time idle was, that
all of them had been brought up to do the same thing,--to sew,--and that
they did not seek employment in other pursuits because their industrial
education had not been sufficiently diversified; they were not
qualified, and consequently would not be employed.
A woman can become expert at the needle only by proper training through
a regular apprenticeship. If necessary in that instance, it is equally
so in all others. Every great city abounds in employments for which
women are especially fitted, both mentally and physically; and they are
shut out from them only for want of proper training, and the deplorable
absence of available facilities for acquiring it. The boy is
apprenticed, serves out his time, and secures remunerative wages. Why
not give a similar training to his sister? If girls were properly
instructed, they would be profitably employed. It has been so with the
seamstress: why should it be otherwise in a different sphere?
At no time had we been in the habit of telling my father the particulars
of our experience with the tailors. He heard only incidentally how
little we earned, while our greatest grievances were rarely spoken of
before him. The truth is, that he had a very poor opinion of the craft.
I am sure, that, if he had known as much of them as we did, it would
have been even more unfavorable. But here was an entirely new trouble to
be met and overcome, requiring the utmost wisdom of the whole family to
master it. As to our ceasing work, no one dreamed of that; the anxiety
was, to be kept at it. Our consultations and discussions were
consequently frequent and long. My father joined in these with great
interest, but could suggest no remedy.
I had noticed that our penny paper was crowded with advertisements for
girls who understood working on a sewing-machine; and I learned from
several of my acquaintances that not only was the demand for such
operatives unlimited, but that an expert hand was able to earn quite as
much as with the needle formerly, while some were earning much more. It
struck me that I had overlooked the important fact that all the sewing
for the public was still to be done by women, even though machines had
been invented on which to do it: in our first depression, we had
innocently supposed that in future it was to be done by men. It was
obvious, then, that our only course was to get machines,--one for my
mother, and one for myself. I knew that I should learn quickly, and was
sure that I could earn as much as any one else.
My mother entered heartily into the plan, as it held out to us the
certainty of continued employment. We explained the case to my father,
and he also approved of the project, and agreed to buy us a machine. He
thought it better to begin with only one, to see whether we could
understand it, and find a sale for our work, as well as how we liked it.
Besides, when these machines were first made, the inventors exacted an
exorbitant price for them,--they, too, in this way levying a cruel tax
on the sewing-women. The cost at that time was from a hundred and twenty
to a hundred and fifty dollars. My father could manage to provide us
with one, but the expense of two was more than he could assume. I was
then within a few weeks of being eighteen; and it was arranged that I
should devote the intervening time to learning how to operate a machine,
by attending one of the schools for beginners then opened by lady
teachers, and that the new purchase should be my birthday present. So,
paying ten dollars for instruction, and agreeing to work eight weeks
without wages, I took my position, with more than a dozen others, as a
learner at the sewing-machine.