SOME PHASES OF THE SWEATING SYSTEM IN THE GARMENT TRADES OF CHICAGO.
THE garment trades are, in the main, among the belated industries of this age. A mode of manufacture only a little way removed from the old domestic system still prevails to a large extent. It must not be supposed, however, that all clothing is made under the sweating system.
There are various ideas as to what constitutes a sweat-shop. The term was first used by the employes of the contractor who made a shop of his living rooms and worked his toilers to the utmost limit of their strength. The rooms were sometimes used for bedrooms at night, and kitchen, dining-room, and workshop in the daytime. The people were crowded together, and real home life was undermined, if not destroyed. Mrs. Florence Kelley says :
Technically a sweat-shop is a tenement-house kitchen or bedroom in which the head of the family employs outsiders, persons not members of his immediate family, in the manufacture of garments for some wholesaler or merchant tailor. 1
There are many who choose to use the term only in this sense of a "home-shop," while others apply the term to any "uncon- trolled manufacture" of clothing.
The use of the term "sweating" in this paper follows closely the statement of Mr. Cunningham, of New York, who says :
What is commonly known as the " sweating system " is a general term used to designate a condition of labor by which a maximum amount of work possible per day is performed for a minimum wage, and in which the ordinary rules of health and comfort are disregarded. 2
This is practically the view held by Lord Derby, who declares that sweating exists wherever an "unusually low rate of wages, excessive hours of labor, and unsanitary work places prevail. 3 "
^Public Opinion, Vol. 23, p. 334.
'Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Convention of the International Association of Factory Inspectors, p. 37.
3 Report of the House of Lords.
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