Making Both Ends Meet: The income and outlay of New York working girls

sova. She is little, looking hardly more than twelve years old, with a pale, sensitive face, clear dark eyes, very soft, smooth black hair, parte

s family, a Jewish farmer, misunderstanding that manifesto of the Czar which proclaimed free speech, and misunderstanding socialism, had printed and scattered through the

house in the little town. Thirty innocent Jews were clubbed to death, and then literally cut to pieces. Natalya and her family, who occupied the last house on the street, crept unnoticed to the shack of a Roman Catholic friend, a woman who hid sixteen Jewish people under the straw of the hut in the fields where she lived, in one room, with

aid the

door and l

glanced in only very casually; and it was in utter ignorance that the rage of

the right of free belief and of free speech. Here they settled on the sixth floor of a tenement on Monroe Street, on the East Sid

aded wigged women, beautiful young girls, half-dressed babies swarming in the gutters, playing jacks. Push carts, lit at night with flaring torches, line the pavements and make the whole thronged, talking place an open market, stuck with signs and filled with merchandise and barter. Everybody stays out of

ed to nearly three times as much as that manufactured in any other city in the United States. The women's clothing made in factories in New York City amounted to more than ten times

tions. The roar and whir of the machines increase as the door opens, and one sees in a long loft, which is usually fairly light and clean, though sometimes neither, rows and rows of girls with heads bent and eyes intent upo

ya worked, there were four hundred girls-six hundred in the busy season. The hours were long-

'clock in the morning; so that, even if Natalya reached the foot of the shaft at half past seven, it was sometimes half past eight before she reached the shirt-waist factory on the twelfth floor. She was docked for this inevitable tardiness so often tha

the work of shirt-waist workers is of many grades. The earnings of makers of "imported" lingerie waists sometimes rise as high as $25 a wee

to $15 a week. Here are the yearly budgets of some of the better paid wor

d until in a very busy week she could earn from $14 to $15 by piece-work. "But," she said, "I was earning too much, so I was put

little sister had been killed in a massacre. Her parents had gone in one d

other girls, and, besides working in the shirt-waist factory, di

work a week, for three months she had five days' work a week, and for four months only did she have work for all six days. Unhappily, during these months she developed a severe cough, wh

; suppers with landlady at 20 cents each, $63; other meals, approximately, $90; board while ill, seven weeks at $7, $49; doc

ith such amazing rapidity that she had needed a new pair once a month. At $2 each,

d drawn heavily upon her health and energy. Her cough continued to exha

this extra time had brought her income up to $480 for the year. Of this sum she paid $312 ($6 a week) for board and lodging alone in a large, pleasant room with a friendly family on the East Side. To her family in Russia she had sent $120, and she had somehow contr

ho had been in the United States only a year, he

actory, where her best wage was $7. But her earnings in this place had been so fluctuating that she was uncertain what her total income had been before the last thirteen weeks. A

or her younger brother, who still attended school. The weekly expense was palpably increased by 60

en spent for four pairs of shoes. Two ready-made skirts had cost $9, and a jacket $10

or the theatre, and economi

arning from $7 to $10 a week, less skilled than the w

mature and responsible than that of many women of forty. Irena Kovalova had not been out of work for one whole week in the year she described. She had never done night work; but she had almost always worked half a day on Sunday-except in slack weeks. She was not cert

he had been forced to buy four pairs of these at $2 a pair. They all realized that if Irena could spend a little more for he

erent drain of her vitality that she mentioned as alarming. She was obliged to work at a time of the month when she normally needed rest, and endured anguis

ven went to evening school. She had worked for five months, earning $9 a week for five weeks of this time, and sometimes $6, sometimes $7

been too ill to work, having developed tuberculosis. Dora, too, did her own washing. She made her own waists, and went to evening school. She had paid $2.75 a week for partial board and for lodging. The food, not included in her board, cost about $1 a week. The little Molly had paid

g, $41.85; total, $203.10. As her income for the year had been $297.50, this left a balance of $94.40 for all other expenses. Items for clothing had

nd from work and the ill little worker's lack of strength and time for darning. The outlay for footwear i

-waist makers who were earning Natalya's

t first a finisher in a cloak factory. Afterward, obtaining work as operator in a waist factor

half hours to the nine and a half already spent in operating. Her food cost $2.25 a week so that, with 93 cents a week for lodging, her regular weekly cost of living was $3.18, leaving her 82 cents for

ghtly in the room; several people were talking; and this frail-looking little Ida lay on a couch in their midst, sleeping, in all the noise and light, in

anxious older sister, who told about her experience. Ida needed all the rest of her $2 for her clothing. She did her own washing. As the inquirer came away, leaving the worn little

uring twenty-one weeks of this time she was employed in a Wooster Street factory, earning

had a surplus of 50 cents for all clothing,

fourth floor of a tenement. After working nine and a half hours and walking an hour and tw

kept tenement, with a family who made artificial flowers. She had been totally unable to find work for the las

$4 the second. She was then put on piece-work, and in fifty-four hours and a half could earn only $3. Laid off, she found e

weeks. Fortunately, a brother was able to pay her doctor's bi

he flower-makers, $3.50 a month, and about $2.50 a week for food. Before her dull season and s

heavily upon him and upon the poverty-stricken family of her hostess. And Sonia was in deep

r eight years-ever since she was twelve. She had been employed as

k for food and lodging in an inside tenement room in very poor East Side quarters, so far from her work that she was obliged to spend 60 cents a

ly six months. During this time she had

tiative, and her inexpensive dress had a certain daintiness. She was eager for knowle

rassing burden and disappointment both for

a week. Her average weekly wage for the year would be about $6. Of this she spent $3 a week for suppers and a place in a tenement to sleep, and about 50 cents a week for breakfast and

dues. She had, of course, very little left for dress. She looked ill

wn some 40,000 garment workers, I exclaimed on the hardships of the trade for the number of married men it contained, and was about to make a note of this item when he eagerly stopped me. "Wait,

nine weeks' board and lodging for her sister, bear eloquent testimony. On the girls' part they were mentioned mere

the push carts. Such an eager hunger for complete change of scene and thought, such a desire for beauty and romance as these two comparative items show, appear in themselves a true romance.

cribed above, were all-with the exception of Irena Kovalova, who supported a f

yment, long hours, unfair and undignified treatment from her employers, and in the conditions of her peaceable effort to obtain juster and better terms of livi

girl, a piece-worker, shaking her head and objecting sadly to the low price the foreman was offering her for making a wai

iry, she found that the workers in other shirt-waist factories had stru

in front of the shops to insult and attack the Union members whenever they came to speak to their fellow-workers and to try to d

on the 19th of October ten girls belonging to the Union, who had been talking peaceably on the day before with some of the strike breakers, were suddenly arrested as they were walking quietly along the street, were charged with disorderly

the side and broke one of her ribs. She was in bed for four weeks, and will always be somewhat disabled by her injury. These and other illeg

he strike breakers. Miss Dreier is a woman of large independent means, socially well known throughout New York and Brooklyn. When the sergeant recognized her as she came

against the arbitrary oppression of the strikers by the policemen. He was asked to investigate the action of the police. He replied

e Union. Afterward, in the Bruch factory, whenever any complaints arose, she would say casually, in pretended helplessness, "But what can we do? Is there any way to change this?" Vague suggestions of the Union headquarters would arise, and she would inquire into

-waist workers in New York City. The hall was packed. Overflow meetings were held at Beethoven Hall, Manhattan Lyceum, and Astoria Hall. In the Cooper Union addresses were delivered by Samuel Gompers, by Miss Dreier, and by many others. Finally, a girl of eighte

table. "Do you mean faith?" he called to the workers. "Will you take the old Jewish oath?" Thousands of right hands were held up and t

and one boy was appointed at the Cooper Union meeting, and went from one to the other