Energy books

As the Civil War had so profoundly affected the sewing trades, so
it was war, although not upon this continent, that added to the
difficulties of American cigar-makers. In the Austro-Prussian War,
the invading army entered Bohemia and destroyed the Bohemian cigar
factories. The workers, who, as far as we know, were mostly women, and
skilled women at that, emigrated in thousands to the United States,
and landing in New York either took up their trade there or went
further afield to other Eastern cities. This happened just about the
time that the processes of cigar-making were being subdivided and
specialized, so presently a very complicated situation resulted.
Finding the control of their trade slipping away from them, the
skilled men workers in the New York factories went out on strike, and
many of the Bohemian women, being also skilled, followed them, and so
it came about that it was American girls upon whom the manufacturers
had to depend as strike-breakers. Their reliance was justified.


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