Tag: Child Labor

Hellraisers Journal: The Coming Nation: How the National Consumers’ League Stands with Working Women, Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Mother Jones Quote ed, Suffer Little Children, CIR May 14, 1915—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 8, 1911
The National Consumers’ League Stands with Working Women and Children

From The Coming Nation of June 3, 1911:

How Women Help Women

By Grace Potter

[Part I of II.]

Child Labor, Flower Makers, Cmg Ntn p10, June 3, 1911

Child Labor, T, Cmg Ntn p10, June 3, 1911

HE National Consumers’ League believes that the six million wage-working women in the United States are in many ways earning their bread under greater difficulties than the men wage slaves endure.

The shirt waist strike two years ago and the present strike of the box makers in New York illustrate one of the handicaps women suffer. Whatever move they made in the progress of their battle, the shirt-waist strikers were hauled into police court. They were often treated brutally by policemen, they were thrust into cells, they were fined, they were imprisoned. They suffered as no men strikers ever have in New York. The police were not deterred from unjust action against these young women by the thought of the way they might vote at the next election, because women have no vote.

Woman’s inferior physical strength, her maternal cares, her need to give attention to her home the while she is a wage earner, all are handicaps, too.

The National Consumers’ League is trying to make conditions better for working women because she is so handicapped. Incidentally they are making conditions better for men in many places.

It was over twenty years ago that the Consumers’ League was started in New York City. It has spread to many states and many countries since then and it is still spreading. It has two definite aims:

1. To abolish the sweating system.
2. To extend among all mercantile establishments commendable conditions.

These are the means taken to accomplish such ends:

1. The Consumers’ League Label.
2. The White List of Fair Houses.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for April 1901, Part IV: Scranton Silk Strike Called Off; Smallest of Mill Girls Parade in City

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, St L Lbr, Apr 13, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 12, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for April 1901, Part IV
Scranton Silk Strike Called Off; Smallest Girls Celebrate with Parade 

From the Scranton Tribune of April 29, 1901:

PA Silk Strike Called Off, Scranton Tb p5, Apr 29, 1901

Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901At a general  meeting of the employes of the silk mills of this city, held yesterday afternoon in St. Thomas College hall, the strike which has been on during the last three months was formally declared off and the announcement made that work will be resumed Tuesday morning.

This afternoon the younger girls will celebrate the end of the strike by holding a parade, and tonight a mass meeting will be conducted in College hall, at which Editor William Mailly, of the New York Worker; National Committeeman Frederick Dilcher, of the United Mine Workers of America, and “Mother” Mary Jones will make addresses…..

AN OPEN SESSION.

[Yesterday’s meeting] was open, and of very short duration. The announcement was briefly made that the strike was over, and all hands were ordered back to work Tuesday morning. “Mother” Jones then made a short address, in which she briefly mentioned the successful culmination of the long struggle, and then urged all of the younger girls to participate in today’s parade…

“Mother” Jones spent Saturday in Paterson. Trouble seems brewing there, and a general strike is threatened on account of difficulties with the ribbon workers.

—————

[Drawing added.]

THE YOUNG UNIONISTS.
———-
Bootblacks and Newsboys’ Union
Yesterday Were Dined at College Hall
-Several Speeches Made.
———-

A unique, but pleasing, spectacle was presented yesterday afternoon, when between three and four hundred boys representing the youngest and newest union in this city filed into St. Thomas’ College hall and there listened to a number of addresses, ate and were merry.

It was the initial appearance of the Bootblacks’ and Newsboys’ union in the city streets and everywhere the youngsters were greeted with friendly and good natured smiles…

“Mother” Jones gave a hearty, cheerful address to the boys, in which she spoke of the necessity of organization and assured the lads of the benefits which would arise to them from their union. Reading rooms will be established for them, those of their number who are musically inclined formed into a band, instructors provided and other advantages secured.

William Mailly, editor of the New York Worker, also addressed the boys. He spoke along the same lines as “Mother” Jones, and, among other things, told of the recent strike of the New York newsboys…..

———-

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for April 1901, Part III: On Child Labor, Christian Sunday School Teachers and Civilization

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Quote Mother Jones, Child Labor Sleep on factory floor, Ab Chp 14 p120—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 11, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for April 1901, Part III
The Sunday School Teacher and the Little Wage Slaves

From the Illinois State Register of April 23, 1901:

Christian Zeal Off the Track.

Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901

Chicago American: When human beings make idiots of themselves the most extraordinary things are sometimes done by those who think they are doing good.

“Mother Jones,” who interests herself in working people and their condition, declares that she attended Sunday school at Birmingham, Ala., and heard a teacher address the following remarks to a class of little millhands ten or twelve years old:

“God put it in the heart of Mr. B— to build a factory so that you little children can have work and earn money, so that you can put a nickel in the box for the poor little heathen Chinese children.”

That kind of thing is apt to make the devil suffer from the effects of too violent laughter.

“Mr. B—” spoken of by the foolish Sunday school teacher is, of course, one of the most dangerous elements in civilization. He exploits child life in his money-making process. In the midst of a poor community he establishes a factory, knowing that want will induce parents, when the opportunity offers, to force their little children to work long hours in crowded rooms.

“Mr. B—” gets his money by killing just so many children a year and stunting the growth of all of them.

It would be far better for the world if, instead of building a factory and employing a thousand children, he would erect a gallows and hang five hundred. That would a least give the remaining five hundred children some kind of chance for normal development.

As long as there are persons like “Mr. B—” to build factories in which children shall be worked to death, and foolish, ignorant teachers to talk like the one quoted here, this world cannot call itself civilized.

———-

[Drawing added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for April 1901, Part II: Scranton Silk Strikers: “Little Tots ranging from 8 to 14 years of age.”

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Quote Mother Jones, St L Lbr, Apr 13, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 10, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for April 1901, Part II
Scranton Silk Strikers-Little Tots Worked by Master Class

From St. Louis Labor of April 13, 1901:

The Strike in Scranton

Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901

Mother Jones makes the following statement concerning the strike of the 5,000 silk mill hands in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Most of them are little tots ranging from 8 to 14 years of age. The poverty of the parents compels them to swear that these babies are of the age when they can be legally worked by the master class. In one mill I found children who toiled twenty-four long, weary days of ten hours each; and at the end of that time received  $2 apiece. The vampire who runs the plant felt deeply aggrieved because his little slaves went on strike. He complained that he had built and paid for a new mill and cleared $10,000 in two years, and just as he was getting his head above water, the ungrateful little wretches run away! And then some people say there is no hell! And others that there is no wage slavery! Why, I have got a trunk full of evidence showing that miners were plucked of all their earnings, and didn’t have a dollar from one end of the year to the other. This is capitalism with a vengeance, the robber system that is upheld by those who vote Republican and Democratic tickets.

Boss Davis, the ringleader of the plute cannibals, has offered this compromise: If the strikers allow him to measure their work and take his word for it, he will pay them 25 cents a week more. If they won’t allow him to measure, they must go back at the old rate. It’s a scheme with robbery on its face , and little ones won’t yield.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for April 1901, Part II: Scranton Silk Strikers: “Little Tots ranging from 8 to 14 years of age.”” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for April 1901, Part I: Found Threatening Mill Owners with Arrest for Crime of Child Labor

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Stt Dly Tx p3or5, Feb 23, 1901———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 9, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for April 1901, Part I
Found Threatening Silk Mill Owners of Scranton with Arrest

From the Wilkes-Barre Daily News of April 1, 1901:

SILK OPERATORS TO BE ARRESTED
———-
“Mother” Jones Gives Out
Important Statement
———-

STRIKE NOT SETTLED
———-
Strikers Bluntly Refuse Ten Per Cent.
Increase Offered.
———-

HELD CONFERENCE YESTERDAY WITH SECRET BALLOT
-“MOTHER” JONES OFF FOR CLEVELAND
TO STUMP THE STATE.

Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901

SCRANTON, Pa., March 30-“I leave for Cleveland. Ohio, at once to seek financial aid for silk strikers.” was the statement given me to-night by “Mother” Jones, the noted labor leader.

I will stump the State and when I return I expect to arrest every mill owner who has in open defiance of the State law, employed children under 14 years of age in their factories. Warrants will be issued for parents also.

The strike has not yet ended. At the conference to-day of the leadership the silk workers it was decided by almost an unanimous vote to reject the offer of the operators of a 10 per cent, advance and the bitter struggle which last night seemed to be nearing a satisfactory settlement has been renewed under a new coupe which will carry the greatest battle of feminine labor into the courts…..

[Drawing added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones and the Victory of the Striking Silk Mill Girls of Scranton, Pennsylvania, by William Mailly

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Stt Dly Tx p3or5, Feb 23, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 7, 1901
Scranton, Pennsylvania – Silk Mill Strikers Secure Victory

From the New York Worker of May 5, 1901:

Mother Jones, Victory Scranton Silk Strike, NY Worker p1, May 5, 1901

Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901

After a strike extending over three months the 5,000 silk workers of Scranton have secured a favorable settlement of their grievances, winning a complete victory, and returning to work under better conditions than they have ever experienced before. This has come about after a most stubborn fight, and only the solidarity of the strikers, under the leadership of Mother Jones gained the victory.

The strike began on January 23, when the girls at one of the mills were compelled to strike because of the treatment received from one of the forewomen. The girls had formed a union the Saturday previous and efforts were being made to disrupt it. The other mills followed the example, and within two weeks all the twelve mills in the city were closed down.

The smaller children led the way, and were the first ones to rebel. And they rebelled none too soon.The writer had the opportunity to see some of them during the past week, and he can say truthfully that anything heretofore said about their age or appearance has not been overdrawn. It is a sickening sight to see the pinched, colorless faces of these children. Their bodies are dwarfed and misshapen through the drudgery of the mill and their legs show startlingly frail and thin below the short dresses.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Spokane Industrial Worker: “Child Labor” -a Poem by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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Mother Jones Quote, Child Labor Man of Six Snuff Sniffer—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 28, 1911
“Child Labor” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

From the Spokane Industrial Worker of April 27, 1911:

POEM Child Labor, by CP Gilman, IW p2, Apr 26, 1911

“Little Spinner” by Lewis Hine, North Carolina , December 1908:

Child Labor ed, L Hine, Spinner, Whitnel Cotton Mill, NC, Dec 1908

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for March 1901, Part I: Found Writing for The Review and Marching with Striking Silk Mill Workers

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Quote Mother Jones re Child Labor AL 1896, ISR p539, Mar 1901———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday April 10, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for March 1901, Part I
Found Writing for The Review and Marching with Striking Silk Workers

From the International Socialist Review of March 1901:

ISR Mar 1901

Civilization in Southern Mills
———-

T Graphic, ISR p539, Mar 1901

The miners and railroad boys of Birmingham, Ala., entertained me one evening some months ago with a graphic description of the conditions among the slaves of the Southern cotton mills. While I imagined that these must be something of a modern Siberia, I concluded that the boys were overdrawing the picture and made up my mind to see for myself the conditions described. Accordingly I got a job and mingled with the workers in the mill and in their homes. I found that children of six and seven years of age were dragged out of bed at half-past 4 in the morning when the task-master’s whistle blew. They eat their scanty meal of black coffee and corn bread mixed with cottonseed oil in place of butter, and then off trots the whole army of serfs, big and little. By 5:30 they are all behind the factory walls, where amid the whir of machinery they grind their young lives out for fourteen long hours each day. As one looks on this brood of helpless human souls one could almost hear their voices cry out, “Be still a moment, O you iron wheels or capitalistic greed, and let us hear each other’s voices, and let us feel for a moment that this is not all of life.”

We stopped at 12 for a scanty lunch and a half-hour’s rest. At 12:30 we were at it again with never a stop until 7. Then a dreary march home, where we swallowed our scanty supper, talked for a few minutes of our misery and then dropped down upon a pallet of straw, to lie until the whistle should once more awaken us, summoning babes and all alike to another round of toil and misery.

I have seen mothers take their babes and slap cold water in their face to wake the poor little things. I have watched them all day long tending the dangerous machinery. I have seen their helpless limbs torn off, and then when they were disabled and of no more use to their master, thrown out to die. I must give the company credit for having hired a Sunday school teacher to tell the little things that “Jesus put it into the heart of Mr. – to build that factory so they would have work with which to earn a little money to enable them to put a nickel in the box for the poor little heathen Chinese babies.”

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for February 1901, Part III: Found Standing Firm with Striking Silk Mill Workers of Pennsylvania

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Stt Dly Tx p3or5, Feb 23, 1901———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 11, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1901, Part III
Found Standing with Striking Silk Mill Workers of Pennsylvania

From the Wilkes-Barre Record of February 20, 1901:

“MOTHER’ JONES IN TOWN.
———-

ADDRESSES A LARGE AUDIENCE AT THE B. I. A. HALL.
———-

Mother Jones, at Her Lecture Stand, Detail Crpd, Phl Iq p1, Sept 24, 1900

“Mother” Jones arrived in town yesterday and addressed the striking silk mill girls at B. I. A. Hall. There was a large attendance and her address created much enthusiasm. P. J. Boyle, president of the Central Labor Union, presided and a number of other labor leaders were on the platform, among them president Duke of the Pittston C. L. U.

“Mother” Jones was introduced by Mr. Boyle and she said in part:

This presents on one side a deplorable picture of greed and avarice and on the other side a new chapter in progress and civilization. In labor’s dark and dismal days past she has had her heavy burden. Labor, and labor alone, has made the American nation great, has built State houses and mansions, has raised civilization, but all the while has overlooked her own best interests. The greatness of the nation she showed-that the Mississippi Valley alone is capable of supporting six hundred millions of people. Then why is it necessary to suffer so much and work so hard for a crust of bread.

Babies are taken from the cradle to the mill. The great commercial American nation cannot be built on the bleaching bones of American children. School is the proper place for children, and those who try to place them there are called anarchists. There are millions of helpless slaves held in the hollow of the hands of a few and we propose to set them free. No longer the lash of the black slave is heard, for his wail touched the heart of the nation. The wail of the factory girls will yet touch the heart of the nation. We have wondered why the pulse of the nation has not long since throbbed. It is an appalling picture, but the spirit of greed has been so well implanted in the commercial world that the picture does not appeal to the factory owner.

She illustrated the pains that are taken to care for animals, but the deplorable condition of children is never noticed.

Here in Wilkes-Barre you have a lot of little children who ought to be in the school room. These children are paid low wages and even then do not know how much they will receive until they receive their envelopes. If they are docked and ask the reason they are discharged. If they form a union to protest the leaders are told to seek work elsewhere. The silk manufacturers unite to keep up the price of silk and why then should not the girls who produce the article unite to keep up the price of labor?…..

———-

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “Child Slaves of the Cotton Mills” by Carrie W. Allen, Part II

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Mother Jones Quote, Child Labor Man of Six Snuff Sniffer———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 5, 1911
Carrie W. Allen on Child Slaves of the Cotton Mills, Part II

From the International Socialist Review of March 1911:

Child Labor, Slaves of Cotton Mills by CW Allen, ISR p521, Mar 1911

[Part II of II.]

The Senate report already quoted gives this verbatim statement from one of the federal agents concerning a mill in North Carolina:

The mill employs many children, and the smallest I have seen working in any mills. I asked five exceptionally small ones how old each was and each answered, “I don’t know.” These children, the superintendent says, work from 6 p. m. to 6 a. m. * * * I know, beyond a reasonable doubt, that there are ten or twelve children under twelve years of age working in the mill, seven or eight of them at night.

One of the children is an emaciated little elf fifty inches high, and weighing perhaps forty-eight pounds, who works from 6 at night till 6 in the morning, and who is so tiny that she has to climb upon the spinning frame to reach the top row of spindles.

Instances might be multiplied of the criminally long hours these little victims are imprisoned in the mills, no sound reaching them except the racking whirr of the machinery, no air reaching their choked lungs except the fluff laden air of the dusty factory.

Is it any wonder that these poor little over-wrought beings under continuous nervous strain, frequently have their fingers and hands caught in the cruel cogs, which lacerate and tear and frequently cripple them? One hundred and twenty-two mills reported 1,241 accidents for a year, and it is known that these figures are only partial, as mill owners only report accidents when forced to do so.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “Child Slaves of the Cotton Mills” by Carrie W. Allen, Part II” →