Energy books

The girls who did not go out were mostly
Americans. One observer estimated at the time that about forty per
cent. of those in the trade were under twenty years of age, running
down to children of twelve.
When the workers, with no sort of warning or explanation, or making
any regular preliminary demands, just quit, it upset matters
considerably. A little girl waist-maker may appear to be a very
insignificant member of the community, but if you multiply her by
four thousand, her absence makes an appreciable gap in the industrial
machine, and its cogs fail to catch as accurately as heretofore. So
that even the decent manufacturers felt pretty badly, not so much
about the strike itself, as its, to them, inexplicable suddenness.
Such men were suffering, of course, largely for the deeds of their
more unscrupulous fellow-employers.
One manufacturer, for instance, had gained quite a reputation for
his donations to certain orphanages. These were to him a profitable
investment, seeing that the institutions served to provide him with a
supply of cheap labor.


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