Jews in the American
Needle Trade
Arthur L. Finkle
Immigrants from cities such as Lodz and Bailystock possessed
marketable skill. Particularly in the needle trades sector of the economy.
Jews played an important role in the development of Polish
industry during the nineteenth century, as businessmen., traders and artisans.
Ending the Napoleonic Wars, the Treaty of 1815, among other
things, ceded Russian Poland to Russia as a proto-state. Poland possessed minimal
sovereignty and ultimately Russia integrated it Russia in 1867.
In the Kingdom of Poland, Jew helped to establish the textile,
sugar, and tobacco industries. Greqat maufactureres were the Hermanow,
Lyszkowice and Konstancja L. Kronenberg sugar refineries). Jewish
industrialists were active in Lodz: I. Poznanski (1833-1900), M. Silberstein,
A. Gerszon, A. Likiernik, M. Elbinger, M. Zand, H. Konsztat, M. Szlosberg, A.
Stiller, H. Wolfson, S. Barczynski, O. Kon, B. and N. Ejtingon (Eitingon).
Pioneers of the textile industry of mass production had been
developing in Poland since the mid-nineteenth century, whose main markets were
Russia and the Far East. The textile industry also established itself in the
Bialystok district, where there were many small-scale Jewish and German
manufacturers, as well as a few larger enterprises.
In Warsaw, J. Orzech was producing finely woven textiles, such as
muslin and cambric. In Tomaszow, near Lodz, the Landsberg family had one of the
largest interwar Polish factories producing synthetic silk; the Bornseins were
engaged in the manufacture of broadcloth, and Szeps produced carpets, runners,
and transmission belts. The clothes industry developed in the area of small
goods manufacturing (crafts).
On Lodz, the Manchester of
Polish manufacturing Abraham Prussak innovated Polish textiles by importing
spinning machines from England, the center of the world's textile mass
production. Markus Silberstein, Adolf Dobranicki, and others later brought many
improvements but, among the list of Lodz's Jewish industrialists, the city's
most successful and its greatest benefactor was, without a doubt, Izrael
Poznanski (1833-1900).
To encourage fairness to workers, the Jewish Bund (similar to a
labor union with socialist tendencies) emerged as the most relevant force in
unifying a divided Jewish workforce. Formed in Vilna in October 1897, the Bund
created newspapers, organized youth groups and summer camps, set up welfare
offices for the needy, apprised workers of their rights, fought anti-Semitism,
and established numerous unions which consistently struggled for better
conditions and wages for Jewish workers. http://epyc.yivo.org/content/17_4.php
By the 1900’s. immigrants from these Polish cities exhibited
marketable skills in the trades as skilled workers and artisans, with the
potential of entrepreneurship. See Kanfer.
Garfield, Passaic and Paterson operated famous woolen mills.
Among them were the Botany Mills, Forstmann Woolen Mills, and Gera
Mills. Carpets were woven at Karagheusian in Freehold. Ribbons were
made at Columbia Ribbon and beautiful silks printed at Oriental Silk in
Haledon. Clark Thread was located in East Newark until moving to Georgia
in the late 1940s. Linen Thread was spun by the Barbour family in
Paterson. http://www.textilehistory.org/NewJersey.html
The Clothing and Textile businesses generally became Jewish
enterprises in the United States . The
clothes branch thrived in wartimes. Jews had knowledge in the textile industry
from Europe. Further, for those
immigrants fresh from the boats, the whole family could work in the clothing
industry. In this way the family connections reserved and there was no need to
work on Saturdays. See Koch. Harry Podmore of the Trenton Times comments in
1943.
Jews
were an integral part of the textile industry of Lodz, which was known as the
"Manchester of Poland." Jews owned 175 factories by 1914. One of the
most well known plants was the I.K Poznanski plant, which was one of the
largest textile plants in Europe.
European Jews, particularly in Lodz, Poland established a viable
textile industry. Because of this great textile industry, Lodz (pronounced
Wooch) was called the Manchester of Poland .
Among the first of the Jewish industrialists was Abraham Prussak, who
innovated Polish textiles by importing spinning machines from England, the
center of the world's textile production. Markus Silberstein, Adolf Dobranicki,
and others later brought many improvements but, among the list of Lodz's Jewish
industrialists, the city's most successful and its greatest benefactor was,
without a doubt, Izrael Poznanski (1833-1900).
To encourage fairness to workers, the Bund emerged as the most
relevant force in unifying a divided Jewish workforce. Formed in Vilna in
October 1897, the Bund. The Bund created newspapers, organized youth groups and
summer camps, set up welfare offices for the needy, apprised workers of their
rights, fought anti-Semitism, and established numerous unions which
consistently struggled for better conditions and wages for Jewish workers.
World
War I devastated the city of Lodz. Many factories were destroyed. Jewish
industrialists were not given financial support from the government to rebuild.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Lodz.html
Cosmetic Industry
David
Dubinsky
David
Dubinsky (1892-1982), another immigrant from Lodz, was a very influential
American trade union official. His leadership of the International Ladies'
Garment Workers' Union demonstrated his ability to combine the more mundane
attributes of the labor movement with the broader social vision of a reformer.
Together
with such men as John L. Lewis, Sidney Hillman, and Philip Murray, David
Dubinsky built the American labor movement as it now functions. During the
Great Depression and the New Deal of the 1930s, through the creation of
industrial unions (as opposed to craft unions) in the mass-production
industries, these leaders brought trade unionism into a position of power
whereby labor influenced big business and national politics.
Dubinsky
(originally Dobnievski) was born in Brest-Litovsk in Russian Poland on Feb. 22,
1892, the youngest of six children in a poor Jewish family. His father moved
the family to Lodz, where he operated a bakery. At the age of 11, David went to
work for his father. By 14 he was a master baker and a member of the Bakers'
Union, an affiliate of the Polish Bund, a revolutionary organization of Jewish
workers.
Membership
in the Bund led to Dubinsky's arrest in 1907 during a wave of Czarist
repression following the abortive 1905 Russian Revolution. After a short jail
term, he returned to union activity, leading a strike by bakers in Lodz, which
resulted in another arrest and expulsion to Brest-Litovsk. Dubinsky, however,
returned illegally to Lodz and to union affairs, only to be arrested in 1908
and this time sentenced to exile in Siberia.
Too
young to be sent to Siberia, so Dubinsky was jailed in Lodz for a year and a
half, until he was old enough to be transported. On the way to Siberia, he escaped and,
convinced he had no future within the Russian Empire, decided to emigrate to
the New World. In 1911, Dubinsky arrived in the United States.
Within
two weeks, Dubinsky took out his first papers, joined the Socialist party, and
enrolled in night school. He soon became a garment cutter (the most skilled
craft in the garment industry) and a member of Local 10, International Ladies'
Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), the union which represented the trade's
skilled-labor "aristocrats." At first Dubinsky devoted his time to
Socialist party activities and to the Cooperative movement, but after his
marriage to Emma Goldberg in 1914 he began to concentrate upon his craft and to
take more interest in local union affairs.
Dubinsky
spoke for the more recent immigrants in the union, whose increasing numbers
assisted his rise to union power. In 1918 he was elected to Local 10's
executive board and a year later was vice-president. Elected president in 1920,
the following year Dubinsky also became general manager, a full-time, well-paid
position that allowed him to leave the cutter's bench. By 1924 he added to his
offices the secretary-treasurer of the local, thus becoming the most powerful
figure within the New York locals that dominated the ILGWU.
A
born pragmatist, Dubinsky joined the anti-Communist faction of the ILGWU during
the 1920s in the internal war that almost tore the organization apart. With the
aid of Dubinsky's powerful Local 10, the anti-Communists triumphed, but the
union was wrecked and nearly bankrupt.
A
member of the ILGWU's general executive board since 1923, Dubinsky was elected
secretary-treasurer in 1929, allowing him to run the union since its president
was desperately sick. In 1932 the president died, and Dubinsky replaced him,
still retaining his secretary-treasurer's office. Until 1959 he held both
positions.
Franklin
Roosevelt's election to the U.S. presidency in 1932 offered Dubinsky true
opportunity. Taking advantage of New Deal labor legislation, Dubinsky had
increased his union's membership to over 200,000 by the end of the next year.
Elected
to the American Federation of Labor (AFL) executive council in 1934, Dubinsky
supported the industrial unionists' effort to organize mass-production workers.
When the AFL refused its assistance, Dubinsky in 1936 resigned from the
executive council. He assisted in forming the Committee on Industrial Organization
(CIO). Always a firm believer in labor unity, however, when the CIO became a
permanent, second national labor federation in 1938, Dubinsky took the ILGWU
out. He returned his union to the AFL in 1940 and 5 years later was reelected
to the AFL executive council.
During
the 1930’s, Dubinsky broke with socialism, becoming a fervent supporter of
Roosevelt's New Deal. He declared, "Trade unionism needs capitalism like a
fish needs water." Because New York City's Jewish workers looked with
suspicion upon the local Democratic machine, Dubinsky helped create the
American Labor party to capture former Socialist voters for the New Deal. When
he thought that Communists had taken over the American Labor party, he helped
found the Liberal party. By the mid-1940’s he was one of the nationally
respected leaders of the pro-New Deal, rabidly anti-Communist wing of the
American labor movement.
At
his retirement from union office in March 1966, Dubinsky left a thriving labor
organization, though it was no longer committed to the establishment of a
cooperative society. Dubinsky's heritage to the labor movement was a belief in
militant economic action, a trust in reform politics, and a faith in the
justice of a socially conscious capitalism.
Dubinsky
died on September 17, 1982.. According to the New York Times, "Dubinsky's
most notable achievement was bringing in a standard 35-hour week to the
sweatshop industry that was in a constant state of chaos."
The immigrant Jewish population which has arrived here during the
past three decades has come from Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Roumania, the
greater part from the first mentioned country. A considerable proportion from
Austria-Hungary cames from the Polish section of the empire, Galicia. The
Galician Jews have emigrated for economic reasons chiefly.
The new immigrant frequently unskilled; not knowing the English language,
nor the political, social, economic or religious circumstances this new land,
made the earning of a livelihood there difficult.
Ready to work here, he had to endure hardship before he became settled
in a regular occupation. He may have been a tradesman (Handels-mann) in the
"Old Country," but he usually undertook some other occupation here, because he is a
greenhorn—"greener." And he
could not pursue the tradesman's business even if he had capital.
Many new immigrants became peddlers. Of 225 heads of families in a
block of the lower East Side of New York, about one-third, .retained the same
vocation as abroad.
It is noteworthy that the
largest proportion in any one occupation before coming here were tradesmen,
viz., 66 out of the 225, or about 30 per cent. This is but natural, since Jews
were forbidden in former centuries to enter many occupations and restricted in
others, so that they have become middlemen and merchants in the Russian,
Galician and Romanian provinces.
The following specimen list showing the former and the present
occupations of fifty of the 225 heads of families, picked out at random will
give some idea of the individual changes that have taken place from one
occupation to another. The average residence in this country of the heads of
the families was about seven years.
Present Occupation. Former
Occupation.
Grocer Grocer.
Painter Tradesman.
Scarfmaker Scarfmaker.
Tailor Tailor.
Upholsterer Shoemaker.
Peddler Peddler.
Presser Teacher.
Cloak operator Shoemaker.
Cloak tailor Cloak
tailor.
Coal agent Horse dealer.
Cloak presser Tradesman.
Ladies' tailor Ladies'
tailor.
Ladies' waist operator Storekeeper.
Fish cleaner Fish
dealer.
Butcher Butcher.
Peddler Tradesman.
Peddler Factory worker.
Skirt operator Tradesman.
Peddler Saloonkeeper.
Baker Tradesman.
Barber Barber.
Storekeeper Peddler.
Mattress maker Wine
merchant.
Mattress maker Tradesman.
Present Occupation Former Occupation.
Peddler Tradesman.
Cloak presser Tailor.
Tailor Tailor.
Scarfmaker Tradesman.
Laborer Tradesman.
Presser Storekeeper.
Painter Painter.
Salesman . Real estate
dealer.
Jeweler Jeweler.
Janitor and tailor Tailor.
Peddler Baker.
Peddler Grocer.
Peddler Storekeeper.
Egg candler Egg
candler.
Tailor Tailor.
Peddler Tradesman.
Saddler Saddler.
Painter Painter.
Expressman Tradesman.
Ladies' tailor Ladies'
tailor.
Cloak presser Shop
foreman.
Presser Factory laborer.
Tailor Tailor.
Egg candler Egg
candler.
Driver Laborer.
Egg candler Egg
candler.
The clothing industry was important to immigrants because of its
explosive growth and need for workers and the change in production methods custom-made
clothing to factory-made clothing for men, a process that started in the
1860s-1870s.
More important, the very
rapid growth of women’s ready-made clothing became the fastest growing sector
in the clothing industry. This latter division of the industry accounted for
almost two-thirds of the growth of the factory labor force in the total
clothing industry during 1899-1914.
The immigrant Jews entered the apparel trade in such numbers
because it was close at hand, required little training, and allowed the
congeniality of working with one's kind. The contracting system, which became
widespread in the industry by 1890, was responsible in large measure for these
conditions. Contractors, acting as middlemen, received cut goods from the
merchant or manufacturer, rented shop space (or used their own tenement flat),
bought or hired sewing machines, and recruited a labor force. Generally, about
ten people worked in these "outside shops" (in contrast to the larger
"inside shops," where the manufacturer directly employed the work
force and where working conditions were better). The minute division of labor
that prevailed permitted the employment of relatively unskilled labor. In the
intensely competitive conditions of the time – compounded by the seasonal
nature of the industry – hard-pressed contractors recurrently raised the
required "task" of garments for payment. Under these circumstances the
notorious sweatshops developed with their cramped quarters and long hours of
work. In 1890 the journalist and social reformer Jacob Riis wrote:
The homes of the Hebrew
quarter are its workshops also… You are made fully aware of [economic
conditions] before you have traveled the length of a single block in any of
these East Side streets, by the whir of a thousand sewing-machines, worked at
high pressure from earliest dawn till mind and muscle give out altogether.
Every member of the family, from the youngest to the oldest, bears a hand, shut
in the qualmy rooms, where meals are cooked and clothing washed and dried
besides, the livelong day. It is not unusual to find a dozen persons – men,
women, and children – at work in a single small room.
Until the turn of the century, a 70-hour work week was not
uncommon.
Despite notorious abuses, the system of small shops on the Lower
East Side had advantages for the new arrival. Old Country ties often played a
role in the system and softened harsh conditions with an element of
familiarity. Manufacturers set up fellow townsmen, landsleit, as contractors;
contractors hired landsleit. Bosses who were practicing Orthodox Jews made
allowances for the religious requirements of their workers. The smaller shops
of the contractors, in particular, were closed on the Sabbath. Reuben Sadowsky,
a large cloak manufacturer, not only closed on the Sabbath but encouraged
weekday services in his factory. The production system with its extreme
specialization also had its advantages. The new immigrant could master a sub-specialty commensurate with his experience – or lack of it – and his
physical stamina, and do so quickly. Finally, the very competitiveness and
instability of the industry provided opportunities and hope. The ascent from
worker to contractor to small manufacturer, categories not far removed from one
another, beckoned to the enterprising and ambitious.
Although the needle trade was the largest single employer of East
European Jews, Jewish immigrants found employment in other industries as well.
Approximately 20% of the cigar makers in the city in the early 1900's were
Russian Jews. The building boom attracted Russian Jewish builders, who opened
the way for their countrymen to enter the field as craftsmen. At first, because
of limited capital and the discriminatory practices of the craft unions, Jewish
building activity was limited primarily to renovating old tenements. But in
1914, for example, when the Jewish painters were finally accepted into the
Brotherhood of Painters and Paperhangers, 5,000 joined the union. An Inside
Iron and Bronze Workers Union, organized in 1913 under the auspices of the
United Hebrew Trades, had a membership of 2,000 in 1918.
Branches of the food-processing industry – like baking and the
slaughtering and dressing of meat – were "Jewish industries" because
of the ritual requirements of kashrut. One of the oldest labor unions in the
Jewish quarter represented the bakers. It had 2,500 members by 1918.
The compact Jewish settlements had a broad working-class base. A
survey of the most heavily populated Jewish wards of the Lower East Side
conducted by the Baron de Hirsch Fund in 1890 showed that 60% of those
gainfully employed were shopworkers in the needle trades, 6.9% were shopworkers
in other industries, 8.2% were artisans (mainly painters, carpenters, and
tinsmiths), and 23.5% were tradesmen, nearly half of these being peddlers.
Except for Hebrew teachers and musicians, no other profession was listed, and
the latter group accounted for but 1.4%.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0015_0_14806.html
Chicago
The new Russian immigrants of the 1880s preferred factory work and
small business. The greatest number of them, 4,000 by 1900, were employed in
the clothing industry, mainly its ready-made branches. The second largest
number, 2,400 by 1900, entered the tobacco industry, primarily the cigar trade,
many of them in business for themselves. The Russian immigrants had been
preceded in these trades by the earlier Jewish immigrants, but now far
outnumbered them. Among the Russian Jews at the turn of the century were also
about 2,000 rag peddlers, 1,000 fruit and vegetable peddlers, and a good number
of iron peddlers; others found work ranging from common laborers to highly
skilled mechanics and technicians. The growth of sweat-shops in the needle
trade in the 1880s with their unsanitary conditions and excessive hours was the
determining factor in the development of the Jewish socialist movement and the
Jewish trade-union movement. The Chicago Cloakmakers Union, predominantly
Jewish, was the first to protest against child labor, which persisted despite
compulsory education, and conditions in the sweatshops. They succeeded only in
establishing a 14-year-old age limit and limiting any one sweatshop to the
members of one family. In that period there were many short-lived unions and
several strikes in the clothing industry in Chicago, mainly by East European
workers against German-Jewish shopowners, but the first successful strike did
not take place until 1910;
The role of Jews in Czenstochow industry was very significant both
during the Russian times, when it produced for the wide Russian market and,
later, in independent Poland when it adapted to the internal market in the
nation itself.
taken into consideration that these technical methods were devised
by people who did not have any technical and theoretical preparation. The
Jewish entrepreneurs often began manufacturing almost as soon as they got off
the yeshiva [religious secondary school] bench, or left the Hasidic shtibl [one
room prayer house]. A number of them did not later even throw off the long
kapote [coat worn by religious men]. Their mastery of the trade that they
achieved only through experience would be refreshed in such a peculiar manner:
they would sometimes take a quick trip to Leipzig or they would visit a German
factory and actually only take a quick look, just like a good card player who
knows the cards of his partner when he takes a look only at their tops.
Understand that this industry developed from a very small beginning.
The “factory” was often arranged in the bedroom of the owner. The relationship
between manufacturers and workers was “patriarchal.” Even, when a long time
later, the factory was built in a modern manner. Several workers from Werder's
gold factory, from Jerzy Landau's celluloid factory, from Wajnberg's comb
factory, would later tell how they would sometimes interrupt the work at night
and go to pray Minkhah-Maariv [evening prayers] in the small synagogue that was
arranged in the factory itself. The manufacturer would with great effort gather
money to pay the workers and they would often wrack their brains over how to
collect a commercial debt.[a] A
great problem then, too, was how to obtain raw material for the toy
manufacturers, as well as celluloid, nickel-tin, mirrors and the like. These
reminiscences of the past pioneer era was given to the writer of these lines by
the manufacturers Landau, Wajnberg, Zelikson, Ringelblum,
Hocherman, Rozenberg and others.
For the years 1899-1914 a total of 458,476 tailors, dressmakers,
and seamstresses was admitted to the U. S.8 The percentage of Jewish immigrants
among them was 60.3 percent,9 or a total of 276,517. The census data suggest
for the period of 1899-1914 a net increase in clothing-industry
Among the occupations which the men pursue in this country, the
needle industries claim the largest number, because, with the organization and
the division of labor in these industries, one can easily acquire the skill
necessary to enter one of the sub-divisions of the trade and thus soon after
landing can make at least sufficient to keep the family from the direst need,
or can start saving sufficient to bring over those who have been left behind.
There is another important issue which ought to be mentioned in
connection with the clothing industry. Most industrial employment for Jewish
immigrants was provided during this period by Jewish industrial entrepreneurs.
Thus, employment of Jewish immigrants depended upon the relative success of
Jewish entrepreneurship in the clothing and related industries
Major Ports of Entry: New
York, Boston, and Baltimore; Philadelphia and Newark
A notable feature of the relationship between skills in the
clothing industry and the pattern of economic adjustment of the Jewish immigrants involved the location of industry and the residence pattern of the immigrants.
Due to the growing production of women's clothing, the initial high
concentration of the clothing industry in the large urban centers of New York,
Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maryland, and New Jersey was maintained and even
strengthened during the period under investigation. In Illinois most of the
growth of employment was accounted for by the expansion of men's clothing. The
major ports of entrance for the immigrants were New York, Boston, and
Baltimore; Philadelphia and Newark were close by and Chicago had special
opportunities to offer. These cities were thus the places of
"natural" habitat for the Jewish immigrants and were also the preferred
locations for the clothing industry. They had an available labor supply and
were attractive markets in view of the patterns of urban growth.
There was, however, one
case of almost automatic transfer and utilization of skills acquired in Eastern
Europe which is worth mentioning. This was the case of the silk-weavers in
Paterson, New jersey.15 The silk industry in Paterson was not founded by Jewish
entrepreneurs; in fact Jewish businessmen and Jewish workers were the
late-comers in Paterson. But with the setting-up of factories by Jewish
entrepreneurs, a stream of Jewish silk-weavers from the Pale of Settlement in
Russia began to arrive. The Jewish immigrants entered and remained at the very
bottom of the industrial pyramid, with wages considerably below most of the
other immigrant groups.' To the extent that wages were not only a result of
skills from the old country but were highly correlated with the length of
residence in the U.S., the Jewish silk-weavers were at a relative disadvantage
as late-comers to the U.S. By 1909, 46 percent of the Jewish male labor force
had been in this country less than 5 years and 38.4 percent between 5 and 9
years.l;
The Jewish silk-weavers from Paterson possessed two characteristics
however, which set them apart from the -typical- Jewish immigrants and
indicate the change in the characteristics of successive immigrant cohorts:
91.4 percent of the males had worked as factory hands in textile mills prior to
their arrival in the U.S. and 16.7 percent of the females had previously been
textile factory operatives. Also, 100 percent of the males could read and 99.8
percent could write, while among females the comparable figures were 95.1
percent and 92.7 percent. These were clear indicators of their urban, industrial background in Russia.
The participation of Jews in the clothing industry also created a
vertical structure extending into the area of distribution, a development that
in part accounts for the special role of Jewish immigrants in the clothing
trade. To be certain, the Jewish immigrants could not and did not compete with
the mail-order houses or with the established large-scale firms in the
clothing business, but both in the larger cities and in the dispersed smaller
towns they entered the clothing retail trade. Whether the road led from the
jobber, from the participant and entrepreneur in the putting out system, or
from a clerical position in the factories, a knowledge of the industry and the
market was helpful in getting established, provided credit could be obtained
from the manufacturers. Thus, the relatively large proportion of clothing
shops, men's furnishing stores, et cetera, established during the early phases
of penetration by Jewish immigrants into commerce should be considered as a
by-product of their experience in the clothing industry.
Indeed, by 1860, 65 of the 70 garment firms were Jewish-owned in
Cincinnati. By 1890, Jewish owned and employed over 50% of Cincinnati’s Jewish
population. Further, data from the 1890 United States Census indicated that 50%
of employed Jews worked in the clothing industry.
Why was the clothing and textile business viable Jewish
enterprises? The Dressing branch thrived in wartimes. Jews had knowledge in the
textile industry from Europe. And the whole family could work in the dressing
field. In this way the family connections reserved and there was no need to
work on Saturdays.
Cleveland Jews
Cleveland, a large base for the garment industry, (and
unionization) modeled, itself, as secular and socialist.
Initally, peddlers, these immigrants joins the ranks of thse
wotking in the growing Garment Industry.
The East European Jews not only faced a loss of status in cities
across the United States, but also experienced a profound culture shock when
they entered the hectic American workplace. The new workday was no longer
circumscribed by meals shared with family, prayer, or Jewish holidays and the
Sabbath. They agonized about having to abandon the structured and religious
traditions of their homogenous village life.
The Eastern European Jewish immigrants may have been poor, but
most possessed skills as merchants from the Russian shtetls. Since the Russian
government prevented Jews from owning land or raw materials, Eastern European
Jews possessed a skill set different from other immigrants.
immigrant Jews went into commerce, starting as peddlers until they
earned income to open their own small businesses.
Data from the 1890 United States Census indicated that 50% of employed
Jews worked in the clothing industry. The pattern generally was peddling and
tailoring, to later outright ownership of clothing stores and factories.
As the 20th century progressed, Jews increasingly left the garment
industry in favor of the professions. In addition to operating businesses, the
Ohio Jews were also employed in the professional field as doctors, engineers,
dentists, pharmacists, lawyers, and teachers. According to a 1938 study, Jews
amounted to 8% of all Ohio physicians, and if it were not for the American
Medical Association who enacted a quota on Jewish medical school students, the
number would likely be much greater.
In 1938, thirty present of all dental school students were Jewish,
which reflected the lack of restrictive
quotas in dental schools.
Similarly, 12% of Ohio’s lawyers were Jewish; however the
likelihood for success was less than that of doctors. During the early to mid
20th century, Jewish lawyers relied solely on a Jewish practice. Ohio Jews
represented only 1% of all Ohio
teachers, due to hiring discrimination in both rural and urban
districts. Due to quotas and increasing discrimination, Jews chose professions
with the least amount of obstacles.
The Sweatshop
Many garment workers began their garment working in their own
homes, paid by the piece of cloth produced.
In New York City, a contemporary journalist describing the
tenements observed:
They are
great prison-like structures of brick, with narrow doors and windows, cramped
passages, and steep rickety stairs. They are built through from one street to
the other with a somewhat narrower building connecting them. The narrow
courtyard in the middle is a damp, foul-smelling place supposed to do duty as
an airshaft; had the foul fiend designed these great barracks they could not
have been more villainously arranged to avoid any chance of ventilation. In
case of fire they would be perfect death traps. The drainage is horrible, and
even the Croton, as it flows from the tap in the noisome court year, seemed to
be contaminated by its surroundings and have a fetid smell.
Although
the East European Jews were accustomed to poverty and had learned, through the
ages, how to subsist on the barest of essentials, the first-generation
immigrant was not prepared for Americais way of life. In Europe, especially in
the shtetl, the social structure was based on scholarship;how well you knew and
were able to interpret the Talmud. But in America the social structure was
based on money, not scholarship.
Most of
the Russian immigrants were penniless when they arrived in America. They
received little, if any, assistance except from relatives. The Jewish
immigrants began to fill factories and shops, especially in the clothing trade.
The trade rapidly expanded; immigrant workers themselves started home industries and finally shops of
their own
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1979/2/79.02.02.x.html; Gartner, History of
the Jews of Cleveland, 165.
The German Jews’ arrival to America in the 1840’s-1850’s, coincided
with the flood of immigrants that came to America in search of freedom.
Therefore, their assimilation overlapped with countless other immigrants,
making the Germans a less significant addition to Ohio.
When the Russian Jews fled to America in the 20th century, they
not only faced stringent immigration policies but also were challenged by the
nativist response from both non-Social and Political Activism. To protect themselves, the new immigrants formed
formal fraternal organizations to adjust to American culture.
Labor organizations, such as the Jewish Workmen’s Circle, offered
cultural and social activities with a socialist slant to Jewish workers that served
as the cornerstone of the Socialist movement.
The Jewish Workmen’s Circle
The Russian immigrants also contributed to the political scene by
promoting their socialist agenda. Jewish socialists called for trade unionism
that effectively represented Jewish workers.
In 1905, socialism emerged in Cleveland with the establishment of
the Jewish Branch of Socialist Party.
By staging strikes, organizing social activities that promoted the
socialist agenda, and offering a public library of socialist materials, the socialists
delivered their message throughout Cleveland.
The Socialist Party also formed in Columbus and met biweekly. Jewish
socialists hoped to unify Jews into an influential political movement, a theory
that the Zionist movement also shared. Socialist fraternal organizations were
far more successful than trade unionism in
Homogenization
As different as the German and Russian Jews were from one another,
Jewish Community Centers (JCCs) that emerged in the 1920s managed to unify the
two groups.
JCCs served as an important gathering place in Ohio cities by
promoting tolerance for both Jews and non-Jews. JCCs held a distinct Jewish
identity while remaining committed to American values.
As each Ohio city planned for their own JCC, they were forced to evaluate
the purpose of the Center and how it could serve the community yet remain a neutral
gathering place.
In 1919, Columbus established the Schonthal Center, a community
center that served the underprivileged Jewish population.
In its opening year, the Center reported an average monthly
attendance of 6,000.48 Over time, the Schonthal Center emerged as a community
center that served the entire community by hosting meetings, dances, and other
social functions.
Russian and German Jews worked together in the business world, but
their distinct religious and cultural identities caused tensions between them
that worsened throughout the 20th century. Not having much in common and
feeling distaste for one another, Russian and German Jews established separate
social, fraternal, and political organizations that accommodated their own
principles, thereby excluding members of the other group. The Germans flexed
their economic muscle by establishing elite and secular organizations, and the
Russians responded with organizations that served their religious and political
orthodoxy. The troubled relationship resulted in the emergence of countless
disputes and misunderstandings.
Despite all of their differences, two important developments
managed to unite the groups in the late 1920's. First, Ohio’s Jewish Community
Centers offered popular programming that served a major role in bringing the
two groups under one roof. While the German and Russian Jews underwent two
completely different immigrant experiences,
by 1930, they shared the reality of growing Antisemitism. Both
Russian and German Jews were garnering attention from their increasing high
profile in politics, Ohio industry, and community activities. The growing
Jewish influence and rising xenophobia due to World War II made Jews a target
for nativism. Non-Jews identified German and Russian Jews as a single ethnic
minority, thus it was essential that the two groups accept each other and work
together to overcome their shared challenges.
Eventually future American-born generations ceased to maintain the
distinctions that were manifested earlier.
While the Jewish community infrastructure may be strong in the
Midwest, additional considerations should be given to geographic indicators.
First, the smaller, close-knit communities that Ohio Jews created may make it
more difficult for Midwestern Jews to not be involved in the community.
Midwestern cities are quite different from the East and West
coasts where Jewish populations are large and amorphous. Ashley L. Koch ,Jewish
Immigrant Communities In Ohio: A Microcosm Of Early 20th Century America, Unpub
Thesis, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 3/25/11
The Rest of the United States
Jewish immigrants were prominently represented in many other
sectors. An interesting example is cigar
and cigarette making, in which Jewish workers, primarily women, were heavily
represented in the Pale of Settlement; the Jewish immigrants in England, prior
to the mass migration to the U.S., had also gone into this branch of
production, either as a home industry or in shops. Other crafts could be cited,
but they did not absorb much employment during the period of the mass
migration.
Generally, there was scarcity of capital within the immigrant
milieu, and although the capital requirements for entering into commerce might
have been relatively low, there was a significant time factor involved in
accumulating savings or in obtaining credit in order to enter into commercial
activity.
There was an abundance of commercial skills among the Jewish
immigrants, either from past experience in commerce or from general familiarity
with the activities and attitudes of businessmen. Such skills and attitudes
were latent until the opportunities presented themselves or were sought, and
the means of communicating with potential customers were developed.
Indeed, we find that out of
a total of 333 heads of families (which include the 225 already adverted to)
there were 112 in the needle industries, that is to say, about one-third. These
were divided as follows: 40 tailors, 32 operators, 27 pressers and 13
finishers. Then there were 46 peddlers.
Large manufacturing centers, such as New York, Philadelphia and Chicago
provided for a mass of Jewish immigrant employment.
In an article in Charities
and the Commons, for January 2, 1909, Miss Anna Reed, describing Jewish
immigrants living on two blocks in
Pittsburgh, PA. pointed out: "The stogy industry and peddling are
predominant; of those who have become stogy makers years. He earned from $3.00 to $6.00 a week as a finisher. Work
was slack during three months. His income was calculated to be $175 a year. A
daughter of eighteen years, a finisher on cloaks, earned $6.00 a week, or $250
a year. A son of sixteen was an errand boy, earning between $2.50 and $3.00 a
week, or $125 a year.
In another instance, the head of the family, aged forty-seven, in
this country over eighteen years, earned $125 a year as an operator. His wife
conducted an employment bureau, netting $200 a year. A son of twenty-one earned
$350 as a shipping clerk, a daughter of nineteen $250, working at children's
jackets, another daughter of fifteen $200, as an office clerk. There were three
other children between five and thirteen years of age. We have, therefore, a
family of eight, with a total annual income of $1,125.
We thus see poor and well-to-do living side by side, the former
feeling unable to move from a crowded district, because they must be within
walking distance of their work, the latter often unwilling because they have an
established trade as shop keepers. However, from these latter there is a
constant shifting to other districts.
There is a growing diversity of occupations. It has been indicated
that the raw immigrant when he first arrives here often becomes either a worker
in the needle industries, or a peddler, and the new arrivals constantly fill
the gaps left open as the more energetic and better equipped rise to
superintending or employing positions.
The sons do not follow in the footsteps of the fathers. They
become clerks, salesmen and professional men. They add to the ranks of the
teachers, lawyers, physicians and dentists. They are becoming prosperous
business men.
The daughters, too, go to work, in many instances, to eke out the
family income. The immigrant girls enter the shops and factories, the girls
born on American soil go into offices as clerks, bookkeepers and stenographers,
or they enter stores as saleswomen, buyers and the like, or they become
milliners and dressmakers.
Tthe Jewish immigrant did not become a street laborer, a railroad
worker, or a miner, as is the case with the Italian or Slav immigrant, but
commercial activity and the garment business seemed to fit in wit the needs and opportunities of the Jewish immigrant..
Industrial Removal Office
The Baron de Hirsch Fund created Industrial Removal Office to place Jewish
immigrants, particularly from New York City, in other sections of the country. In
1907 has a detailed account as to occupation for 4,500 wage earners, out of a
total of 7,586 persons sent out during that year. There were 546 wood-workers,
such as carpenters, cabinetmakers and wheelwrights; 350 metal workers, such as
iron, brass and copper workers, tinsmiths and blacksmiths; 372 in the building
trades, such as painters, plumbers, locksmiths and brick
layers; 48 in the
printing trade; 888 in the needle industries; 265 in the leather trade; 45
tobacco workers. There were also 87 in manufacturing skilled trades of various
sorts; 68 in non-manufacturing skilled trades; 32 farmers; 157 dealers; 101
office and professional help; 5o peddlers, and 1,523 unskilled laborers.
|
The Jewish Immigrant as an Industrial Worker 18i
|
The Industrial Removal Office
established a chain of agencies in a large number of towns and cities
throughout the Union, and year by year it helps to place men in occupations
where their chances of economic success seem to be better than in the seaboard
cities.
Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid Society
Another movement towards distribution and diversification is
represented by the Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid Society, with
headquarters in New York City, and the Jewish Agriculturists' Aid Society of
America, with headquarters in Chicago, the one helping men to become farmers
east and the other west of the Mississippi. The former organization has
ascertained the existence of 2,409 Jewish farmers occupying 2,161 farms in the
United States. Of these, the largest numbers are distributed as follows: 684
farmers in New York State, 500 in New Jersey, 461 in Connecticut, 204 in North
Dakota and 126 in Massachusetts. Mr. L. G. Robinson, manager of the first-named
society, is of the opinion that there are considerably more Jewish farmers than
his records show and would not be surprised if the number were twice as great.
It should be explained that some of the farmers must depend upon some other
occupation to make up their incomes.
The Baron de Hirsch Fund stimulates and supports various
activities for trade and technical development, and local Jewish organizations
in several cities are likewise engaged. As a result, schools for skilled trades
have been established, and agricultural and industrial enterprises have been
furthered, all making for a greater diversity of occupation among the Jewish
population.
Hundreds of thousands of the Jewish immigrant population, then,
are molding themselves into the American nation, the first generation working
in clothing, cloak and cap factories, others as peddlers and mechanics, the
more sophisticated portion going into real estate and manufacturing and
employing on a large scale; a younger generation entering into a variety of
businesses and professions. We see them as teachers in schools and colleges,
as merchants and manufacturers, as civil service employees, as workers in
|
182 The Annals of the American
Academy
|
The growth of the American economy during the 1890-1914 period,
reflected in the growth of internal trade and consumption, nevertheless
provided immigrants with opportunities for self-employment in trade.
Most of the Jewish immigrants who entered the commercial sector
were engaged in the trade of consumer perishables (manufactured and non-manufactured
foods, cigars, stationery) and consumer semi-durables (clothing, dry goods).
The only areas of consumer durables they entered (toward the end of the period)
were furniture and jewelry.
The Jewish immigrants engaged in a broad spectrum of commercial
activities; those self-employed ranged all the way from peddlers and rag
pickers to established merchants, and the employees included salesmen,
saleswomen and clerical workers. See Arcadius Kahan
What was truly remarkable about
first and second-generation Jewish immigrants in the West was just how many
were entrepreneurs. Between 15 and 20 per cent of Jewish male workers were
entrepreneurs in the 1880's, rising to between 40 and 45 per cent in the US
during the 1920's to 1940's, compared with almost 30 per cent in Britain by the
1920's, which then rose to 40 per cent by the 1950's.
Jews
in other societies had even higher rates of self-employment, but these were
typically the by-product of anti-Semitic restrictions on occupational choice,
and self-employment under these conditions almost never led to material
success. Despite suffering sometimes appalling racial abuse, the Jews could and
did work wherever they wanted, and they could and did enjoy the fruits of their
economic success.
And
such economic success across an entire population is without precedent.
It
is no surprise that Jewish immigrant entrepreneurial success has become the
classic stereotype that lies behind so much academic and policy focus on
entrepreneurship as a vehicle for social mobility among ethnic minorities.
But
the East European Jewish immigrants possessed no obvious advantage on arrival
in the years before 1914. Many contemporaries saw how they had been forced out
of "useful" trades and barred from owning land in anti-Semitic
Eastern Europe and concluded that they were the most unlikely of all immigrant
arrivals to succeed in their new homes in New York, London and elsewhere. With
no major advantage in income or education, the Jews don't fit the model.
How
can we explain their success? Some people have cited the importance of Jewish
culture, or religion, or anti-Semitism, or any apparently unique attribute of
Western Jewry that might possibly explain such exceptional success. One vitally
important factor that emerges from any serious study of Jewish economic history
is almost always overlooked, however. Luck.
As
is well known, the Jewish immigrants more or less took over the garment
industries in the US and the UK. But historians of sweatshops have missed a
major point; for while it was true that Jewish entrepreneurs were largely
dominant in the clothing industry of the 1900's, especially women's clothing,
their very good fortune was that the demand for women's wear changed. From the
beginning of the 20th century, fashion became ever more important, and as the
fashion content rose, so did the profit margins.
Until
the 1960's, Jewish entrepreneurs ran the most profitable segment of the
garment
trade in Britain and America, enjoying industry returns seen neither before nor
since. The coincidence of arrival and entry into the garment trade just at the
moment of fashion-related structural change presented those early immigrant
entrepreneurs with something close to windfall gains.
These
gains were locked in after August 1914, when war in Europe closed the borders
and restricted the possibility of any future immigrants bidding their profits
down. And these gains were reinvested in second and third-generation education
to secure middle-class status and income later in the century.
So
policy-makers take note: the story of Jewish entrepreneurial success is not
quite what it first seems. Drawing conclusions for overcoming ethnic-minority
exclusion today might lead to some very different solutions. See
Andrew Godley
BOBLIGRAPHY
Charles
S. Bernheimer, The Jewish Immigrant As An Industrial Worker, Compiler of
"The Russian Jew in the United States ;" Assistant Head Worker,
University Settlement, New York City.
Charles S. Bernheimer,
The Jewish Immigrant as
an Industrial Worker: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science, Vol. 33, No. 2, Labor and Wages (Mar., 1909), pp. 175-182
D.
Bezworodka, The Economic Life, Jews in Industry. Translated by Gloria
Berkenstat Freund, Chicago, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0004_0_04235.html
Crafts,
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0005_0_04693.html. Accessed: 08/03/2013
20:36
Gardner,
Andrew
Godley’s article draws on his forthcoming book, The Emergence of Ethnic
Entrepreneurship , to be published by Princeton University Press. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/189826.article. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1011575
Arcadius Kahan ,The Journal of Economic History,
Vol. 38, No. 1, The Tasks of Economic History (Mar., 1978), Cambridge
University Press on behalf of the Economic History Association, pp. 235-251.Published
by: Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2119326
Kanfer, Yedida Sharona, Lodz: Industry,
Religion, and Nationalism in Russian Poland, 1880—1914.
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses; 2011; ProQuest Dissertations
Ashley
L. Koch, Jewish Immigrant Communities In Ohio: A Microcosm of Early 20th
Century America, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 3/25/11
Lodz,
Poland, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Lodz.html
New
York City, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0015_0_14806.html
Zelig
Spierer, Livelihood and Production
Textile
Industry in New Jersey, http://www.textilehistory.org/NewJersey.html
http://tinyurl.com/bepw6x3
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