It’s 1892 and you, Esther Klein, are a 17-year-old textile mill worker in the American northeast. You are new to the country and to industrial work, having worked previously on your parents’ farm in the old country. As much as you longed to come to America, your life as a poor Jewish industrial worker in the United States makes you have second thoughts. And life at the mill—why you and some of the other girls dream of organizing and standing up to the mill owners, but what you’ve seen of other labor organizing worries you! So tell me, Esther, what are the sources of your dissatisfaction as a poor woman, a worker, and a Jewish immigrant? Why have your dreams, of what life in America would be, changed?
I am Esther Klein, a 17-year-old Jewish immigrant. I came to America in hopes for a better life; in hopes for living the American dream. My personal dream was to work in a textile mill and eventually make enough money to bring the rest of my family over to live in this wonderful country together. Everyone told me that America was filled with opportunities. There were talk of textile mills that provided hundreds of jobs to anyone willing to put in the time. It sounded to easy, but now that I am here I am seeing that things are a lot different than I had previously imagined.
As a woman in America, I have no rights. I can not vote. As a woman, no one listens to me no matter how good my ideas may be. I work long, painful hours in the mill for very little pay. We work excruciating hours for not much over a dollar a day. How am I ever going to be able to provide for my family with pay like that? I can barely feed my family from day to day. The factories are very unhealthy with all the fumes they produce. There are many people in my same situations. So many families live in tight quarters that are very uncomfortable and unhealthy as well. I just pray that I don't get hurt because I know no one would take care of me. It is useless to strike. My company has workers that will come take my place if I decided to take a stand against this unjustice.
As a Jewish immigrant, I get treated very poorly. Americans think that I do not deserve to be here and trying to provide for my family. How am I any different than they were when they came over from Europe in hopes for a fresh start and better life? There is nothing I can do to change my circumstances so I continue to push on and dream.
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Good work. You say she dreamed of textile mill work, but do you think she comprehended the nature of industrial work in the U.S. during the Gilded Age?
ReplyDeleteNo, I think many people just wanted to have jobs and get paid. I don't think she fully understood what her job in the textile mill would entale.
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