Effects of Home Working on the Lives of Children in the NYC - Essay Example

THESIS MENT I will be examining the practice of 'home working' and its effects on the lives of children in the NYC tenements during the end of 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries . DOCUMENT LIST I will be using material gathered from the following sources: Jacob A. Riis, 'How the Other Half Lives' 1890 at http://www.bartleby.com/208 Mary Van Kleeck 'Child Labor in New York City Tenements' Elizabeth C. Watson 'Home Work in the Tenements' both at http://www.tenant.net/Community/LES The Cassell Atlas of World History 'Population and Economy of the United States. 1865 - 1914' 1. Name: Tutor: Course: Date: From a 19th century Europe, affected by economic depression, immigrants flocked to the United States, with dreams of a better life for themselves and their children. Instead of the opportunity to work hard for a fair wage, many found themselves herded into poor living conditions, exploited by employers and landlords alike, trapped into poverty. In a country endowed with riches, it seemed these were out of reach. In order to survive at the lowest level of subsistence the children lost their childhood to long hours of tedious work for little reward. In turn of the 19-20th century New York, in the Land of the Free, being a child of a poor immigrant family simply meant unending toil, exploitation and slavery. Using the case studies reported by Mary Van Kleeck and Elizabeth C. Watson, and also the findings in the research of Jacob A. Riis, this paper will show how the children existed at that time. There will be references made to the law, and those required to enforce it, as well as to the organizations which sought to alleviate the suffering. One of the most poignant quotations in Watson's research, sums up the horror of the situation; when speaking to a little girl of about five years old, who cut out embroideries, n being asked how long she had been cutting embroidery, shrugged her little shoulders and replied, ! Ever since I was.(Watson, p.5) She lived in the Bronx where embroidery factories provided the work, and as soon as she could manage to use scissors, she helped in separating the strips of cloth. The question arises as to how and why such a set of circumstances was allowed to happen, to rob this child and thousands of others, of the natural, playful, learning experiences of a normal childhood. Jacob Riis' research, presented with drawings, photos and narrative, in his book of 1890, 2. 'How the Other Half Lives', goes some way to providing answers. He explained the growth of the tenements as created by the need to house many very quickly, and how the rich moved out and away from the nice homes at the East River. Such houses were then taken over by 'real estate agents and boarding-house keepers' (Riis, Chp. 1 p1). The old houses became valuable commodities, where large rooms were divided into small, dark spaces, to squeeze more people in, make more money. The important fact of fixing the rents high because of the belief that the poor were destructive, immoral and lived in squalor: o cover damage and abuse from this class, from whom nothing was expected, and the most was made of them while they lasted(Riis, quoting a report to the Legislature, 1857, p.1) The need grew for more cheap housing; more immigrants came, wanting to be near their place of work, but the condition of that housing, and the fact that landowners or proprietors were also employers, kept people in the loop of poverty from which there was no escape. In his chapter on 'The Bohemians Tenement House Cigar Making', this system and the involvement of the children in the arduous task of just existing, he clarified thus: en, women and children work together seven days in the week in these cheerless tenements to make a living for the family, from the break of day till far into the night." (Riis, Chp.12,p.2) and.. ather, mother and son, together a full team, make from fifteen to sixteen dollars a week(Riis, p.3) They were paid $3.75 for 1,000 cigars, the parents had never had time to learn English, the father to seek work in his proper trade, and there were four younger children to be fed and cared for. Food was cut back when rent week came around ($11.75 a month). Demands for more pay could and did result in eviction. The 'boss' had total control over their lives. The statistics presented for 1888-89, in the Appendix to the book, give factual back-up evidence as to the impact of living and working conditions on the lives of immigrant children, and 3. the chances of survival. Despite Riis' warning of the inaccuracy of Health Department figures having been underestimated, and the dispute with census results, he used their calculations in the absence of time for a re-count. he ordinarily conservation and careful calculations of the sanitary Bureau make the death rate of New York, in 1889, 25.19 for the thousand of a population of 1,575,073, while the census would make it 26.76 in a population of 1,482,273 (Appx. Riis) The population in tenements in 1890 is quoted as 1,250,000 of which, 163712 were children under five. Given that the figures for deaths relate to those living in tenements, for children living in newer and larger buildings, with more people, the rate quoted is 104.04 per thousand. Short, hard lives, little changed by 1908 and 1911 respectively, when Van Kleeck and Watson presented their research findings. When Mary Van Kleeck produced her report in 1908, it appeared that despite various laws designed to protect workers and ensure better living conditions, little had changed. Her report was the result of an investigation carried out between October 1906 and April 1907. Those organizations involved, obviously wishing to help, were as follows: The National Consumers League The Consumers League of New York City National and New York Child Labor Committees and The College Settlement Association. As would be expected in a democratic society, laws were in place to prohibit employing children under fourteen years of age. But these, in New York State, applied to certain places of work, such as factories, shops, restaurants etc. Thus an employer could not use children to make artificial flowers in his factory, but he could pass the work out to a family living in a house licensed for work, where even the smallest child could work without breaking the law. Van Kleeck explained what she described as he evils of the system(sweating system) - ntense competition among unskilled workers in a crowded district, low wages, 4. unrestricted hours of work, irregularity of employment, and utilization of child labor - are the very conditions which make the system possible and profitable to the employer." (Van Kleeck, p.2) She contended that trying to resolve the problem would mean attacking the system, thereby lowering profits for manufacturers. In describing the conditions through the individual stories of children, she succeeded in portraying a horrific reality, while at the same time, exposing the weaknesses in labor laws as tools to protect children. She pointed out that various family circumstances, work regularity, types of work available, education or lack of it, need to care for younger siblings, all contributed to deprivation of childhood. In order to demonstrate the laws and their impact on child labor, she first examined the licensed houses. Having passed as part of the 'new law' regulations, where light, air and sanitary conditions satisfy, the tenements on Sullivan, Thompson, Macdougal and Houston (areas where manufacture of artificial flowers prevailed) were places where the law was not broken, but failed to help children. Two little girls worked for 80 cents a day, creating 1440 small roses, so tired they could barely keep awake at school they conformed to the laws of compulsory education and licensed housing. Similarly, ecilia aged fourteen years, Julia aged ten and Josie aged six [...] were helping their mother make violets at three and one half cents a gross. They worked till 9 p.m. To finish between 1440 and 1780 flowers in a day, for which they were paid 35 or 40 cents(Van Kleeck, p.5) No laws were broken, except those of human rights. It seems unbelievable that if a child lived in a licensed house, the school authorities had great difficulty in enforcing the compulsory education laws. Because one little girl of ten years was supporting her family by her labor, her father being out of work, and with four younger children to feed, help was given by a relief society. This was 5. on condition that Sarah go to school; the the society were fully aware of the need to keep an eye of the family. As soon as the clothing trade entered a busy period, everybody in that household would work. Van Kleeck goes further when showing more dreadful circumstances in a disease ridden house, a fact unreported to either the Board of Health or Department of Labor, the latter being over-burdened with the inspections of both licensed and unlicensed tenements. She cited a family which had been working at finishing clothing in a room where a sixteen year old girl lay dying of tuberculosis. A relief society worker found that in seven years of living in the United States, neither this girl or her little sister Rosina, thirteen, had ever been to school. Rosina had been caring for four younger siblings, then working to help support everyone from the age of six. But she, her eleven year old brother Guiseppe, mother and father, could only earn between them, four or five dollars a week, felling seams, finishing linings, sewing buttons on trousers etc. No childhood for any of these children, then. The society got the sick girl into hospital and Rosina and Guiseppe went to school. But the society later reported: osina and Guiseppe were busy at work finishing. Rosina said that she went to school regularly all day sessions, and that she and her brother helped at finishing after school." (Van Kleeck, p.7) Rosina working broke no law, until the oldest child became ill; staying away from school by the age of eight, was a violation of compulsory education law. That license though, meant that a little girl, her older sister and younger brother, could work so hard for so little, legally. In circumstances where disease was reported or detected, Van Kleeck showed that the Department of Labor and Board of Health took action, burning the garments being worked on and revoking the license. In the case cited, a boy had scabies, a very contagious skin disease, and following their action, the family were evicted in order to regain the license. The poor family ended up in worse living conditions, still doing home work. There was nothing else for them. 6. With regard to unlicensed houses, as pointed out by both Van Kleeck and Watson, items other than those 41 restricted by law, could be worked on. So, licensed or not, the scope for exploitation of child labor was wide, as in the case of children carding buttons or making silk tassels for around five cents a gross. Van Kleeck ended her report by pointing out how children could work legally either because of the licensing system or the work not being one of the 41 exclusions; they were working illegally only when the houses were unlicensed. The is where the law was shown to be defective as a means to protect the child. The difficulty in arriving at actual number was explained; there were no official figures of children working, and those for adults were not fully recorded. The only inferred, from figures gathered in 1902 and a further Department of Labor study in 1907, that in 1901, 27,019 persons were able to work in 16,068 family workrooms. Having examined Van Kleeck's case studies, there can be little doubt that a large majority of those 'persons' were children robbed of the right to be a child, by a system corrupted by greed and inhumanity. Elizabeth Watson also documented the manner in which the laws worked negatively for the poor and the children. They are explained clearly as follows: he owner or agent renting the property files with the Department of Labor a personal application for a license. The department sends out an inspector to investigate the building. If it comes up to sanitary regulations and there are no charges files against it in the Health or Tenement House Departments, a license is granted that allows all families living in the house to take in work if they desire. (Watson, p.2) Two inspections per year should have taken place, but there were so few inspectors and so many houses, that this was cut to once a year. As already mentioned, everything not listed by law could be worked on in either licensed or unlicensed tenements, the conditions of the latter being dreadful at times. Watson quoted some examples of what exactly this could mean in reality. o license was necessary to sort coffee, therefore it could be and was sorted. 7. The halls and stairways in this house were in unspeakable condition[...] The two little girls of the family, one aged nine, the other eleven, were continually staying out of school and only attended enough days to keep of the truant list.(Watson, p.3) As she clarified, labor laws did not protect home working children, while the compulsory education law insists on school attendance for enough days to avoid that list. The harsh reality in all this was that a child would work from dawn till school started, then till midnight once it finished no law prevent this. The work itself covered many areas of painstaking effort with little reward, and was determined by the area in which manufacturing took place. The Lower West Side had artificial flowers, fancy feathers and 'finishing', with as mentioned earlier, embroidery in the Bronx. Children who could not manage some of the more detailed work could and did sew and card buttons, or carried bundles of work to and from home to factories and shops. In addition, many had to care for the younger children. Where in this Brave New World was the joy and freedom to be a child Of course, manufacturers and contractors had a willing and needy workforce which could be paid the lowest rates. One example cited was the willow plume trade, where the feathers were lengthened by tying on extra flues, making them longer and better looking. Watson told that in the beginning of the trade, because so few people knew how to do it well, fifteen cents per knot (extra inch) was paid. By 1910, the price was 3 cents an inch. However it worked out, a woman and two children tied 41 knots for a cent! The figures she quoted showed an average income of three dollars a week for feather making, which took place mostly on the Lower East Side, meeting the demands of those fashionable richer and more fortunate women in society. As one Italian woman told Watson: verybody, all a people, they willow the plumes. It hurts the eyes, too, bad, bad. How can we help it [...] The children must have to eat. (Watson, p. 10) 8. The men had jobs, but many earned money by the day, as carpenters, bricklayers, etc., some being employed by the city as streetcleaners. But in winter, on holidays, weekends, no work, no money. When comparisons were made between home working and non- home working families, results showed that average non-attendance at school was 10 days for the latter group, while children working at home lost 29 days of schooling. The tragedy of their circumstance is shown further in the numbers of deaths, the home working children figures being 177 as opposed to 104. Home working children also suffered from more contagious diseases small wonder when they hardly saw the light of day, rarely played in the fresh air, or ate good food they had little resistance. So the situation deprived them of education, exercise and nourishment. Watson ended her report with these telling questions: hat are we going to do about it Are we ready to ask that all children be exempt from such work Is the time ripe to say all such work must be eliminated from the tenement houses And if so, how shall we do it (Watson, p.10) In attempting to make sense of something which goes against all beliefs in simple humanity, the wider picture of the times might provide some answers, if no justifications. As more and more immigrants arrived from Europe and beyond, they settled where they could get work, and mostly in the larger cities. There was undoubtedly prejudice and racial tensions, not only between them and the indigenous population, but between different ethnic and national groups. Hence the lack of concern as to how they would be housed, their education, welfare or human rights. This was coupled with the potential for exploitation. No doubt the tenement houses were perceived, at least under the 'new law', as a better option than what had previously served as dwellings for the immigrants. However, the tying together of landlord/employer as 'boss' of everything can be blamed as part of the problem of keeping people in poverty and robbing their children of childhood. The overarching factors must include the economic boom in the United States, the wars and depression in Europe, and of course, supply and demand for a workforce. That the labor force 9. was abundant allowed the manufacturers and employers to pay the lowest wages. This shows the downside of Capitalism, though it has to be said that many rich entrepreneurs did much in the way of philanthropy. Sadly, the children in the cases presented here were unable to benefit at that time in their lives. As Jacob Riis said of the democracy which the United States so proudly upheld: or be it remembered, these children with the training they receive or do not receive with the instincts they inherit and absorb in their growing up, are to be our future rulers if our theory of government is worth anything. (Riis, Chp.15, p.1) Sadly, this seemed not to apply to those children of the poor, whose dreams were not to be realized then, if ever. Works Cited List Riis, Jacob A. 'How the Other Half Lives' Chapters 1, 12, 15, 24 & Appendix. 1890. 4 November 2006. At http://www.bartleby.com/208 The Cassell Atlas of World History. 'Population and Economy of the United States. 1865-1914 1998 Published by Andromeda Oxford Ltd. Oxford, U.K. Van Kleeck, Mary. 'Child Labor in New York City Tenements' Charities and the Commons 18 January 1908. Watson, Elizabeth C. 'Home Work in the Tenements' Survey 25 772-781. 4 February 1911 5 November 2006. Both at http://www.tenant.net/Community/LES/Kleeck9.html AND LES/Watson8.html Read More