David Von Drehle : A Writer

Sweatshops have been around for centuries, beginning around the late 1880’s. Sweatshops are classified by three main components, long work hours, very low pay and unsafe and unhealthy working environments. Sweatshops are usually found in manufacturing industries and the most highlighted production is clothing corporations, who take full advantage of the low production costs of their products. Many may think sweatshops are a thing of the past but they are still affecting many lives across the nations. There are many ways sweatshops affect lives, but a recent article titled “New study finds ‘more sweatshops than Starbucks’ in Chicago” explains that there are many low wage industry jobs that are violating labor laws in the United States alone. The article also reports how employees who are working in such conditions won’t speak up in fear of the retaliation employers will implement. Analyzing Sweatshops through the lens of the Sociological perspectives will help us better understand the illegal conditions of workplaces that still exist today.

It was the fire, that caught America by surprise, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire. Killing 145 workers, the workers were young immigrant women looking for jobs, some even as young as 13 were employed. Usually the workers would work 12 to 14 hour shifts a day, 6 days a week, getting payed only four to five dollars a week. The company was owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris. The book “Uprising” by Margaret Peterson Haddix is a historical fiction that teaches students about how working in a factory was. This book is about these three young girls named Yetta, Bella, and Jane began to realize the factory owners were cheating them and not paying the right amount they were told. So they went on strike and kept fighting for what they believed

Life in the early 1900’s wasn’t easy. Competition for jobs was at an all time high, especially in New York City. Immigrants were flooding in and needed to find work fast, even if that meant in the hot, overcrowded conditions of garment factories. Conditions were horrid and disaster was inevitable, and disaster did strike in March, 1911. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York set on fire, killing 146 workers. This is an important event in US history because it helped accomplish the tasks unions and strikes had tried to accomplish years earlier, It improved working conditions in factories nationwide and set new safety laws and regulations so that nothing as catastrophic would happen again. The workplace struggles became public after

The factories housed the latest technology of the Gilded Age, such as the assembly line. The mass production that the assembly line brought about made the rich richer, but did nothing to help the poor. They were working long hours in sometimes extremely dangerous conditions. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was considered one of the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city. Since, the owners locked the doors to the stairwells and exits - due to theft and unauthorized breaks - many of the workers were trapped with nowhere to go. As a result 147 garment workers died from smoking inhalation and falling to their deaths. In response a newspaper published an article titled “Fire Trap Victims Buried Draft New Law to Save Shop Workers,” covers the stories of the survivors and witnesses as well as questioning who was at fault and what further actions would take place (Document

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was a factory where blouses were made. The majority of the workers were young immigrants. On AND, a tragic fire started and spread to the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the factory. Firefighters searching for victim Firefighters getting coffins

All of the workers who worked at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory were very young and were not treated well. They were all around 15 years old and were mostly Italian and Jewish immigrants. Their work was 7 days a week and 12 hours a day. For all of this work and time, they were only paid about 6-15 dollars a week which is not a lot of money. Lunch was their only break during the 12 hour day and it was for just a half an hour. However, during the factories busy season, their work was basically non stop and even more demanding. Also, in some cases, they were required to bring their own supplies including needles, thread, irons and sometimes even their own sewing machines. Surprisingly, around 500 people worked there every day.

Fannia Cohn too had a similar experience. Though she came from a middle class background, Orleck points out that Cohn “…realized that if [she] wanted to really understand the workers, [she] should experience the life of a worker in a shop”. She took a position in the “white goods” trade which Orleck describes as, “…particularly hard to organize”. This was a result of the nature of the “white goods” trade being run out of small sweatshops where the work required little skill and the workers, most of whom were under 15 years old, were from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Therefore Orleck notes, “…it was difficult for them to communicate with each other, let alone organize”. However, with Cohn’s particular set of skills, which included fluency in 3 languages and a high school education, many of the girls in the shop looked up to her as a mother figure. Using these skills, Cohn and some select other women began to operate as mentors to the sweat shop girls, providing an education which was so highly valued in their culture and upbringing, which these girls could not attain though normal avenues.

This tragedy pointed out the negatives of sweatshop conditions of the industrialization era. It emphasized the worst part of its times the low wages, long hours, and unsanitary working conditions were what symbolized what sweatshops were all about.

1. In the essay “Sweatshirts to Sweatshops,” many of the universal intellectual standards are violated. To begin with, the speaker talks about the “little girl…working hour after hour…trying not to collapse from the heat…” and that violates the fairness of the argument. He is trying to manipulate the audience by appealing to their emotional side. This argument is not based in factual evidence, and therefore, could be dismissed by the audience. There may not be a little girl in this exact situation described, and therefore, this statement is irrelevant. This could be corrected by leaving the entire story of the “little girl” out, or an interview of a child that works in the factory could be conducted giving a first-hand look into the

In the early 1900's a newly arrived immigrant worker faced numerous challenges that had to be overcome. Often times literally arriving with the clothes on their back and a few meager dollars, it was crucial for these

     Near closing time on Saturday afternoon, March 25, 1911, in New York City a fire broke out on the top floors of the Asch Building in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. One of the worst tragedies in American history it is known as the “Triangle Shirtwaist Fire”. It was a disaster that took the lives of 146 workers, most of which were women. This tragedy pointed out the negatives of sweatshop conditions of the industrialization era. It emphasized the worst part of its times the low wages, long hours, and unsanitary working conditions were what symbolized what sweatshops were all about. These conditions were appalling, and no person should ever be made to work in these conditions.

In the early 1900's a newly arrived immigrant worker faced numerous challenges that had to be overcome. Often times literally arriving with the clothes on their back and a few meager dollars, it was crucial for these

The scheme was that their compensation could only be used in the stores owned by their white masters. This caused the workers to be indebted to their owners’ as a way of keeping since slaves were not allowed to terminate their slavery before clearing their debts. These conditions made the characters of both stories fed up, and they started to rebel due to such an injustice.

     The working conditions for these immigrants at the meat packing plants were appalling and displayed how badly in need of a change they were. Workers in the factory that did unskilled labor would be paid only somewhere between a mere fifteen to twenty-five cents an hour. They would have to work from early in the morning until it was dark at night, with only a half hour break for lunch. They had no choice but to accept whatever position

It was late in the evening on September 3rd in Cassopolis, Mi when Dave Weiss a truck puller known as dynamite dave came up to the sled to pull. No one could have guessed what was going to happen that tragic night but like all surprises this one was a real shock. This is the story of the night Dave Weiss died doing what he loved to do. I will tell you now that this isn’t a story of how he died in a big crash, boom, or bang with guns blazing this is simple and just sad to hear for some.