Hellraisers Journal – Thursday November 14, 1918
“One of Them” by Elizabeth Hasanovitz, Union Garment Worker
“One of Them” describes lingering remnants of the old sweat-shop in the every-day shop vernacular.
From The Ladies’ Garment Worker of October 1918:
The Garment Worker offers a review of a new book by Elizabeth Hasanovitz, member of Ladies’ Waist and Dressmakers’ Union, Local No. 25.
“One of Them”
By Elizabeth Hasanovitz,
Just Published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Price $2.00
[Book Review by Aaron Rosebury]
From The Liberator of November 1918.
This book is described by the publishers as “The pilgrimage of a Russian girl to the Land of Freedom and her life in the garment factories of New York; an unforgettable picture of an unconquerable soul.” But to us who live, move and have our being in the very union referred to in its pages the book is not only the individual experience of one unconquerable soul. It typifies thousands of souls who united in soul and effort to conquer sweat-shop conditions and modern shop slavery and finally succeeded in effecting a great industrial change.
We have not hitherto made it a practice of reviewing books in this publication. But “One of Them” is one of the members of our Ladies’ Waist and Dressmakers’ Union, Local No. 25—a local union so big and enterprising that it has provided rich material for the economist, sociologist and student of human nature. Moreover, the book deals with union experience and shop life that rarely gets into print. It is a revelation not only of one soul’s struggles but of the collective struggles of a numerous class of young women who rarely find self-expression in the form that Elizabeth Hasanovitz has chosen to make her own. It is because she has dared to bare her soul to the general public and thus call attention to the great work of the union in remedying the abominable shop conditions which had reigned supreme only a few years ago that the book merits more than a passing notice in our officially printed records.
Heretofore such experiences found expression mostly in “shop meetings.” Any disclosure of the way the human being, regarded as a mere labor commodity, was dealt with in the garment factories-anything of the kind appearing in print was usually elaborated by one skilled in the art of wielding the pen. Thus it was difficult to disarm suspicion or rebutt the charge that strong color had been lent to the picture. This accounts for the fact that that section of the public which never has its fingers soiled by anything savoring of the shop has been so slow in arriving at the conviction that shop life for women workers is one long process of pain and suffering.
Elizabeth Hasanovitz has not gone through experiences of the time prior to the strike of 1913 or 1909. The process in the garment making factories of only a decade back was even far more aggravated than her own experience. Shop practices of that time might be described as a shocking inhumanity meted out to men and women. They might be characterized as the NEEDLES OF THE OPERATING MACHINES OFTEN ENTERING THE VERY HEARTS OF THE YOUNG WOMEN OPERATORS AND THE HOT PRESSING IRONS SEARING THE SOULS OF THOSE WIELDING THEM. What is more, captains of industry and their hired assistants often found delight in making this process as wounding and lacerating to the young hearts as they possibly could. The experiences of Elizabeth Hasanovitz were not so shocking, although bad enough, showing what the women workers are up against under boss rule even where improved conditions prevail.
Perhaps, on the theory that pain and suffering refines and brings out the best human qualities, that process was necessary. For it intensified righteous indignation. It generated tremendous energy and will-power and enthusiasm in the tens of thousands of “hands.” Eventually the hands turned into minds and intellects, planned and carried out unprecedented revolts, veritable industrial revolutions and overthrew the sweatshop and most of its oppressive features.
“One of Them” describes lingering remnants of the old sweat-shop in the every-day shop vernacular. It is to be hoped that it will find its way to that, still disbelieving section of the public and open the eyes of its prejudiced mind. For in its pages there is no extraneous color, no superficial pen flourishes to create effect; nothing to lend significance to the charge that facts have been stretched by fancy to give them a semblance of truth. Here is the truth itself, the plain, unvarnished truth, portrayed in the simple, chatty shop manner. Hence penetrating and unforgettable.
“One of Them” when read reflectively and mentally associated with such remarkable events of our time as the National War Labor Board will help us to understand the nature of the industrial changes that the war is fast bringing about both here and in Europe.
We are all thankful to Elizabeth Hasanovitz for placing on record a vivid picture of shop experiences which could not easily be reconstructed from the official records. For there is a tendency on the part of the historian to pass over personal experiences as being too subjective for general application. Yet the outstanding feature of these experiences is that they have been very common and general. Hence “One of Them” must be commended for reading and reflection.
For more on Aaron Rosebury: The Samuel Gompers Papers, Volume 8
Progress and Reaction in the Age of Reform, 1909-13
-ed by Peter J. Albert & Grace Palladino
University of Illinois Press, 2000
(search: “aaron rosebury”) https://books.google.com/books?id=5IYsQ_8fSIoC
Aaron Rosebury (b. 1866) was a member of International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union 17 (Children’s Cloak and Reefer Makers) of New York City. He served as assistant secretary (1910-14) of the international, as editor (1914-18) of the Ladies’ Garment Worker, the union’s official journal, and as editor (1917-21, 1923-30) of the Fur Worker, the official journal of the International Fur Workers’ Union of the United States and Canada.
