As a last try, my lunch and apron and I tore for the Subway and Park Place, down by the Woolworth Building. By the time I reached that bindery there were only two girls ahead of me. A man interviewed the younger. She had had a good bit of bindery experience. The man was noncommittal. The very refined middle-aged woman had had years of experience. She no sooner spoke of it than the man squinted his eyes at her and said: “You belong to the union then, don't you?” “Yes,” the woman admitted, with no hesitation, “I do, but that makes no difference. I'm perfectly willing to work with nonunion girls. I'm a good worker and I don't see what difference it should make.” The man turned abruptly to me. “What bindery experience have you had?” I had to admit I had had no bindery experience, but I made it clear I was a very experienced person in many other fields—oh, many other—and so willing I was, and quick to learn.
“Yes, but why should I use learners when I turned away over seventy experienced girls this morning, ready to do any work for any old price?”
I was hoping to hear what else he might say to the union member, but the man left me no excuse for standing around.
When the next Sunday morning came, again the future looked bright. I red-penciled eleven “ads”—jobs in three different dress factories, sewing buttons on shoes. You see, I have to pick only such “ads” as allow for no previous experience—it is only unskilled workers I am eligible to be among as yet; girls to pack tea and coffee, to work for an envelope company, in tobacco, on sample cards; girls to pack hair nets, learners on fancy feathers, and learners to operate book-sewing machines.
The rest of the newspaper told much of trouble in the garment trades. I decided to try the likeliest dress factory first. I was hopeful, but not enough so to take my lunch and apron.
At the first dress factory address before eight o'clock there were about nine girls ahead of me. We waited downstairs by the elevator, as the boss had not yet arrived. The “ad” I was answering read: “WANTED—Bright girls to make themselves useful around dress factory.”
Some of us looked brighter than others of us.
Upstairs in the hall we assembled to wait upon the pleasure of the boss. The woodwork was white, the floor pale blue—it was all very impressive.
