Work >> Jews
The population of Jews that I will be focusing on comes from Eastern Europe, a region including for example such nations as Russia, Poland and Romania. Jews in these nations were socially and politically oppressed. They were forced to live in a certain barren strip of land, called the Pale of Settlement, and were prohibited from owning any land. Later on, I will delve into some things that resulted from this specific restriction. In Russia, Jews suffered forced conscription into the army under Nicholas the First's Edict of 1827. On top of these political laws, Jews were socially ostracized from the peasant community, and often there were harsh waves of persecution against the Jews, known as Pogroms. As a result of all of these pressures, Jews condensed their society into impoverished towns, which were known as Shtetls.
Picture by Endre Farkas
Poverty in the Shtetl was perpetuated by the towns' stagnancy. Social changes and new political ideas that occurred in Western Europe were slow to reach Eastern Europe, and even slower to penetrate through the peasantry and contact the Jews. On top of that, Jews were restricted to doing the same types of business from generation to generation. Within the community, the same religious apparel and kosher foodstuffs were traded year after year by merchants, for the Jewish culture and religion of those in the Shtetl did not leave room for commercial change. Shtetl Jews' abstract social position where they were not peasants or nobility, as well as their exclusion from gentile society, prevented them from venturing into non-Jewish markets. There were also several factors that restrained Eastern European Jews by keeping them from leaving the Shtetl.
Religion
Religion ruled the Shtetl, and the combination of tradition and the leadership of the rabbis caused Jews to prioritize heavenly matters over earthly matters. To leave the Shtetl to pursue capital gain or a new life meant to leave God, an unacceptable concept to an Eastern European Jew. The intensity of religion in the Shtetl led to other concepts that limited the work done by Jews. Ideally, study of the sacred texts was a way to become closer to God. It was considered honorable for a man to spend all of his time studying instead of working, even to bring home the bread. As a result of the focus on study and spirituality, two things happened. First, women financially supported the family so their husbands could spend their time learning. The second effect was that manual labor became disgraceful simply because it is the opposite of the sedentary work of studying.
*See page www.macaulay.cuny.edu/seminars/friedlander09/ for more on Religion*
Social Differences
It has already been stated that social differences led to the separation of Jews from the peasantry, but what were these differences? First off was the challenging barrier of a language gap. Eastern European Jews generally spoke Yiddish, where the peasants spoke the languages of the nation, such as Polish or Russian. Jews also had a different way of life from the peasants, which was controlled by a very specific set of traditions and religious laws. For example, Jews ate differently because they had to eat Kosher, and their Sabbath was Saturday as opposed to the Christian’s being Sunday. These differences may seem small independently, but they are just examples of the elements that added up to create the great disparity between two cultures that were so geographically close to one another.
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These pictures show the gap between the Jews and the peasantry. Peasants mostly worked the land in manual labor and lived in agriculturally based towns, but Jews lived in poor, crowded Shtetl.
Political Restrictions
Some of the political restraints placed on Jews have already been mentioned on this page and more of them will be delved into on other parts of this website. In the time leading up to the mass emigration from Russia, Jews were put under more and more restrictive laws. Most affecting their work habits was the restriction that Jews could not own land. This pushed them even further away from both manual labor and settling down.
Result
These three factors cut away many opportunities for Jews in the Shtetl, so what jobs were left for them? Many Jews made their living in commerce and trade. Peddlers would move from marketplace to marketplace buying low and selling high. One of the advantages for the Jews in this trade was that Jewish merchants always had buyers to sell to in the form of other Jews, and this occured for two reasons. First was that Jewish people preferred to buy from other Jews rather than from gentiles, no matter what goods were being purchased. The second was that peasant merchants did not offer many goods offered by Jewish peddlers who knew what the community needed. Historically, some Jews also took on the role of tax collectors or others that dealt with both peasants and the wealthy, positions made near perfect by their lack of allegiance to either the peasantry or nobility. Some of the most important things to take note of at this point are that Jews did not take part in manual labor because it was looked down upon and because they were not allowed to own land, and that Jews stuck together in where they lived, who they socialized with, and where they worked. This tendency to stick together remains and carries over even into the Lower East side in New York City.
This picture is of the shop of a meat merchant in the Shtetl town of Lida, Poland. It was a post card from the early 20th century and captures the sort of work that Jews were doing in the Shtetl even until that late a time.
Time Passed (As it Always Does)
| As time passed and Eastern Europe became more industrialized, the peasantry became the proletariat and moved from the fields into the factories. At this point in time, Western ideas reached many Jews, who in turn, left the Shtetl for larger, now industrializing cities like Kiev or Warsaw. Although they left the impoverished towns that had held their people for generations, these Jews who left held onto many tendencies developed in the Shtetl. For one, they still looked down on manual labor, which was now present in the form of factory work. To get work in the cities then, many Jews went into artisan trades or crafts, one specifically notable one being tailoring or needlework. The second tendency that they took along was the propensity to stick together, so when some people moved into the needle trade, other Jews who moved into these cities followed their lead and did the same. | .png) |
At this point in time Jews also began to emigrate to the United States en masse with their wits, skills in artisan crafts, and knowledge of commerce.
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The journey to New York City from Eastern Europe was not an easy one, as it required dealing with thieves and the authorities alike. Jews had to pass through some borders illegally, and until immigrant assistance organizations grew, felt (rightfully so) that they could not trust anyone they met. The trip did not become any easier once the immigrants reached the ships to cross the Atlantic; the conditions in steerage were horribly cramped, the crew would sometimes neglect the passengers, and the voyage lasted days.
The Work They Did Here: Garment Trade
Once in New York, a vast number of Eastern European Jews moved directly into the city's bustling garment industry. This work sector was ripe for these immigrants for several reasons. First, the needle trade had already been "settled" by German Jews who came to New York in the 1840's, so by the late 19th century German Jews had gained power in the garment trade. The reason this influenced the work of the new, Eastern European wave of immigrants has to do with the Jewish tendency to consolidate. Newly arrived Jews felt more comfortable working with other Jews with whom they shared some common ground than if they were to work with non-Jewish American employers. The garment industry was also a prime source of work because many of the arriving immigrants had experience in tailoring from their days in Eastern European cities. Jewish solidarity in the workplace was perpetuated still by the fact that newly arrived Jews worked with people they knew from the “old world.”
Needle Work Worked for Generations, but Why?
The garment trade was the source of work for many waves of Jewish immigrants, and it remained pertinent because it was always growing. There were always jobs to be had. Each wave of immigrants had room made for it by the advancement of the previous wave to the next tier of jobs. The size of the industry also almost doubled with each new large group of immigrants' arrival due to the increased availability of workers. New York was also the perfect location for Jews to arrive and have work in this trade because it was the largest contributor to the entire nation's output in apparel. For example, in one yea,r New York City accounted for 67% of the United States' product value of women’s clothing.
Division of Labor
The garment industry was also supported by the fact that the work was easy to learn due to a method of dividing different types of labor among several workers. Each laborer would simply repeat a routine task all day, then pass the product along to the next worker, who would perform their task on each piece of clothing until the product was finished in this assembly line fashion. This type of work is captured by a quote from Irving Howe's World of Our Fathers, “No fewer than 39 tasks were carried out by the same number of people…” showing that an astronomical amount of laborers were used to create one single article of clothing.
There were many roles that needed to be filled in any given business, and the quantity of and types of workers involved in production depended on what was being made. There were a few key players in any turn of the century garment shop who really drove the industry forward. The most important of these was the contractor; he employed the other workers and owned the shop. Often times a contractor's shop was in the tenement he lived in or in another he rented. Either way, the quarters were too small to house the number of laborers present, and these crowded workplaces became known as sweatshops. The contractor was in charge of obtaining the material and coming to the arranged price at which he would sell the clothes produced, and both of these were done with a manufacturer. These manufacturers were often German Jews, who moved up out of the more hands-on part of the garment industry as their Eastern European counterparts came to take their place.
Explaining “the task system,” one of the evils that sprang forth from the garment trade, can show both the dynamics between the manufacturer and contractor and the contractor and his employees. The task system was a technique used by contractors to increase the labor output of workers without increasing their pay. The contractor would offer coats to manufacturers for cheaper in order to gain an edge on the market, and as a result each worker would have to cover the profit difference by making more coats. Over time, the number of “extra” coats the workers had to make would increase until it was sometimes double the initial. One thing that can be said for contractors, though, is that they too participated in any sort of harsh working conditions placed on their employees because their shop was their livelihood.
What Were the Conditions Like?
The conditions in a turn of the century sweat shop were unpleasant if you want to dramatically understate, and horrifying if you want to tell the truth. While the task system to increase workers' output and hours was bad enough, even worse was the fact that a laborer had to do all of this in the grisly environment of the sweatshop.
Comparison Between Work in NYC and the Shtetl
