Energy books

All its agitation told, and prepared
the way for the Women's Trade Union League, which, a decade later,
took up the very same task.
In the year 1900, the status of the steam-laundry-workers of San
Francisco was about as low as could possibly be imagined. White men
and girls had come into the trade about 1888, taking the place of
the Chinese, who had been the first laundrymen on the West Coast.
Regarding their treatment, Miss Lillian Ruth Matthews writes:
The conditions surrounding the employment of these first white
workers were among those survivals from the eighteenth century,
which still linger incongruously in our modern industrial
organization. The "living-in" system was the order, each laundry
providing board and lodging for its employes. The dormitories were
wretched places, with four beds in each small room. The food was
poor and scanty, and even though the girls worked till midnight or
after, no food was allowed after the evening meal at six o'clock.


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