Horatio Alger

Luke:

     The appeal of Horatio Alger's “Ragged Dick” stories showed readers how they can achieve success through hard work and honesty. Things like “dumb luck” were used by Alger to help show his audience how success can be attained rather than “infinite ability” showing people achieving success with some special power they have. Characters like “Oliver Twist” achieving success with Artful Dodger and Fagin, continuing on with their lives shows how characters are able to rise above their humble surroundings. It is similar in the “Ragged Dick” stories with Henry working a job as an errand boy at a hat and shirt store, while Dick continues on being a shoe polisher and at the conclusion of the story Dick gets a nice job working at a counting house with Henry remaining as an errand boy. Alger’s purpose of the story was to stress the principles of hard work and honesty being essential for success that his audience could easily identify with rather than him using “infinite ability” or a romantic “rags to riches” story that could prevent many readers from identifying with the story.            

Cristin:

“What tailor do you patronize?” asked the gentleman, surveying Dick’s attire.
“Would you like to go to the same one?” asked Dick, shrewdly.
“Well, no, it strikes me that he didn’t give you a very good fit.”
“This coat once belonged to General Washington,” said Dick, comically. “He wore it all through the Revolution, and it got torn some, ‘cause he fit so hard. When he died he told his widder to give it to some smart young fellow that hadn’t got none of his own, so she gave it to me. But if you’d like it, sir, to remember General Washington by, I’ll let you have it reasonable.”
 
“Thank you, but I wouldn’t want to deprive you of it. And did your pants come from General Washington too?”
“No, they was a gift from Lewis Napoleon. Lewis had outgrown ‘em and sent ‘em to me – he’s bigger than me, and that’s the reason why they’re a little loose.”
 
~Dick was a shoe shiner who had a good sense of humor in which he would joke with his customers. In any profession in which you need to base your whole living on your clientele, it is risky to joke around. One never knows how the client will react. Dick seemed to be a guy that everyone liked due to his personality. Dick charged 10 cents and the customer only had 25 cents and Dick did not have the change. The customer then gave Dick his office’s address in which he could bring the change to him once he received it. He did this to test how honest Dick was, “I wonder whether the little scamp will prove honest,” said Mr. Greyson. “If he does, I will give him my custom regularly. If he don’t, as is most likely, I shan’t mind the loss of fifteen cents.”
 
~Dick seems to be a man who knows what he wants and seems to be a role model for others. He tells his friends that they can make as much as he does by keeping your eyes open and not being lazy. He basically was saying that they needed to work for their money. “I don’t get near as much as you, Dick.”
“Well, you might if you tried – I keep my eyes open, that’s the way I get jobs. You’re lazy, that’s what’s the matter.” ~Dick also does not steal and does not see the need to.
 
“Dick, as Johnny took his departure, “aint got no ambition. I’ll bet he won’t get five shines to-day. I’m glad I aint like him, I couldn’t go to the theatre, nor buy no cigars, nor get half as much as I want to eat.” ~Dick likes the way he lives and knows how to keep himself in that manner.

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Florence Kelley

Ann-Marie:

Florence Kelley is an innovator and a leader in the Chicago sweat shop movement. Born in Philidelphia to a Quaker family, Florence Kelley was raised by a pro labor Republican congressman, William Kelly.  In 1882 Kelly graudated from Cornell, after she had a hard time getting into the University of Pensylvannia law school program.  She then attended the University of Zurich.  She lost touch with her family and friends when she joining the Social Democratic Party and married a socialist medical student from Russia, Lazare Wischnewetzky.  After her husband started to beat her she took her kids and moved into the Hull House run by Jane Addams.  

From there Kelley, supported by Jane Addams, was able to looking to the labor laws of the sweat shops in Chicago.  She investigated into the “Sweating System of Chicago” from there she created reports to help get the ball moving on sweat shop labor laws.  Kelley quickly gained leadership in Chicago’s anti-sweatshop campaign. In the 1890’s Florence Kelley was the front runner in the fight for better sweatshop regulations.  

The section that I found to be very interesting was the “Disease and Infection” section.  What Kelley found was that, although there wasn’t a high death rate, the place which housed most of the factory workers were a breeding ground for disease.         

“Observation among sweated people confirms the opinion that a direct consequence of their occupation is a general impairment of health in both sexes; in men the debility takes the form of consumption, either of the lungs or intestines, and of complete exhaustion and premature old age; the girls become victims of consumption, dyspepsia, and life-long pelvic disorders. These are the results of the overexertion, bad housing, undernourishment and noxious surroundings common to their calling and condition in life. But in addition to these disabilities they are constantly exposed to the inroads of typhoid and scarlet fevers, and other zymotic diseases.” (Florence Kelley)

Emily:

• “In the inside shops the manufacturer deals with his employés through foremen and forewomen instead of contractors. These shops are in large buildings, steam is provided for motive power, the sanitary ordinances are, in a measure, observed, and the establishments, being large and permanent, are known to the municipal authorities and are subject to inspection. Even these shops, in which there is, strictly, no sub-letting, are pervaded and dominated by the influence of the sweating system. There is but little uniformity of hours, wages, rules, length of season or proportion of men to women and children. The competition of the outside contractors renders the position of employés constantly more precarious, and the inside shops which thrive are those which approximate most closely to the organization of the sweaters' shops, substituting many subdivisions of labor for the skilled workman.”

• “A few examples may be cited illustrating what some of these places are like: In one case several men were found at work pressing knee-pants in a low basement room poorly lighted and ventilated by two small windows. There was no floor in this room, and the people were living on the bare earth, which was damp and littered with every sort of rubbish. In another case seven persons were at work in a room 12 by 15 feet in dimensions and with but two windows. These people with the sewing machines of operaors and the tables used by the pressers, so filled this meagre space that it was impossible to move about. Charcoal was used for heating the pressers' irons, and the air was offensive and prostrating to a degree. Separated from this shop-room by a frail partition which did not reach to the ceiling was a bedroom about 7 by 15 feet in size, containing two beds, for the use of the family of the sweater. In another instance, in a small basement room which measured only 7 feet 10 inches by 6 feet 6 inches, and without door or window opening to the outer air, a man was at work pressing knee-pants by the light of a very poor gasoline lamp and using a gasoline stove for heating his irons.”

• “But the worst conditions of all prevail among the families who finish garments at home. Here the greatest squalor and filth abounds and the garments are of necessity exposed to it and a part of it during the process of finishing. A single room frequently serves as kitchen, bed-room, living-room and working-room. In the Italian quarter four families were found occupying one four-room flat, using one cook stove, and all the women and children sewing in the bed-rooms. For this flat they pay $10 a month, each family contributing $2.50 a month. Another group was found consisting of 13 persons, of whom 4 were fathers of families, and 5 were women and girls sewing on cloaks at home. These 13 people pay $8 per month rent, each family contributing $2.”

• “The inspectors submit the following recommendations, based upon their experience in enforcing the law:

       1. No child under sixteen years of age should be permitted to work at any occupation dangerous to life, limb, health or morals, and the inspectors should be given power effectually to prohibit such employment of children.
       2. No woman, and no child under sixteen years of age, should be permitted to work after 9 p.m., or before 6 a.m., in any manufacturing or mercantile establishment.
       3. No child under sixteen years of age should be permitted to work in any manufacturing or mercantile establishment who cannot read and write simple sentences in the English language.
       4. The law should be so amended as to include in its provisions all mercantile establishments employing women and children.
       5. Section Five of the law should be so amended as to prohibit the employment of male children under sixteen years of age longer than 8 hours in any one day and 48 hours in any one week, in addition to its present prohibition of longer hours than these for females.
       6. No minor should be permitted to run any elevator, whether for passengers or freight. The inspectors are now powerless to prohibit the employment of boys of fourteen years in this manner.
       7. The number of inspectors should be increased by the additon of two physicians, of whom one should be a woman, for the purpose of effectively enforcing that part of Section Four of the law which refers to the physical condition of minors.
       8. The manufacture of garments, in whole or in part, in any tenement, or in the rear of any tenement, or upon the same city lot with any tenement, should be absolutely prohibited in the interest of the public health.
 9. The inspectors should be given power to require fire escapes, elevator guards, ventilation, sanitation, and the guarding of all dangerous machinery, and employers should be required to report to this office all accidents occurring upon their premises.”

Hull House

Shirtwaist, c.1906

Lewis Hine, "The Breaking Point," 1912 — Elderly woman carries bundle of fabric home.

Lewis Hine, Women Embroidering Shirtwaists, c.1912