Shirtwaists are button down, collared shirts similar to
men’s shirts that women wore with skirts starting in the late 1800s and early
1900s. Before shirtwaists, many American and European women
wore corsets and hoop skirts and such. Shirtwaists, or “waists,” became very
popular and were sold all over the U.S. in a variety of colors and with
embroidery or lace for fancier occasions. The shirtwaist was a working woman’s
shirt, a symbol of freedom from domestic responsibilities as more women began
to join the workforce in the early 1900s.
Also in the early 1900s, New York attracted millions of
immigrants from Italy and Eastern Europe. Many of them, mainly young women,
took jobs as garment workers. In the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in 1911 Manhattan,
the youngest known workers who lost their lives were fourteen. The bosses
locked the doors to prevent the workers from stealing and taking too many
breaks, since they did not provide restrooms in the building. The women were
expected to work 12-13 hour shifts with one break, and they weren’t paid for
overtime, only about six bucks a week. More than 100 people died daily in
textile and garment factories in the U.S. When a fire broke out in the Triangle Factory, they couldn’t
get ladders to the top floors, and because the secondary exit doors were
locked, about 150 people jumped to their deaths from windows or died from smoke
inhalation or burning to death. Sound familiar? It was only a couple of years ago that over a
thousand people died in Bangladesh in the Rana Plaza building collapse.
A year before the fire at the Triangle factory, a strike had
just ended and the bosses agreed to higher pay and shorter hours in exchange
for the strikers agreeing to settle all future grievances through arbitration. During
the strike, many men and women were beaten brutally and the large factory
owners paid the police to look the other way, or to arrest the strikers. But,
when it was all over, the garment workers had a voice, be it a very small
voice, but it was a start. The strikers’ concerns about fire safety, however,
were obviously not addressed.
After the fire, changes were finally realized. The state of
New York did a large-scale investigation of factory safety and created a state
Department of Labor, and the federal government finally passed the Fair Labor
Standards Act in 1938 that sets a minimum wage, a 40-hour work week, overtime
pay, and prohibits child labor. It wasn’t long after that until clothing
manufacturing began to shift overseas.
What did people do before they could go to a store and buy shirtwaists, before mass produced clothing? Wealthy people had clothes
made by a tailor or dressmaker according to the latest fashion trends, which changed much more slowly than they do today. Less wealthy people
adapted their clothing by changing the collar or sleeve according to the style.
Poor people couldn’t afford to follow fashion, and would either buy clothing
second-hand or dress their children in sacks and rags, or if they could afford
fabric, make their own clothes. Though there is some evidence that clothing was
produced on a larger scale even in ancient Rome, the popular styles in 19th
century Europe and America were corsets and fitted garments with boning, which
would have been difficult to mass produce, and the sewing machine had not been
invented yet. The freedom of the shirtwaist was not only that it eliminated the
need for boning and corsets, (some still used them for some crazy reason), but also that it was simpler to make, could be bought and worn immediately, and could be
dressed up or down, linen for office work or sturdy cotton for labor, and could be adapted easily to the latest fashion.
Even before ready to wear fashion and factory clothing
production came on the scene with men’s suits and shirtwaists for women, women
were doing the grunt work, and at very low wages. When people still depended on
tailors to make their clothes, they were generally men. The tailor would create
the pattern, cut the fabric, adjust the sizing, and send it to a woman in her
home to do the hand-sewing for a very cheap rate. Historically, labor was
cheaper than fabric, and that really hasn’t changed. When I think about making
any kind of profit off of my sewing endeavors, I realize that if I had to pay
someone a living wage to sew for me, I would make little to no profit unless I
raised my prices significantly.
The irony is that this new method of mass producing fashion
is marketed as a socioeconomically equalizing force by allowing women at all
income levels to afford fashionable clothing in developed countries, yet it is
so integral to the oppression of poor young women in the countries we depend on
for clothing manufacturing.
I can’t help but think about what I’ve heard the guys (and it’s
always men, it seems) high up in the fashion biz say, that it is
providing economic opportunity for the people in developing countries. I would
like to think that is true, and I could certainly see the potential there. I also realize that in the early 1900s, when mass production of clothing in the
U.S. began, our country was accepting millions of
immigrants, and the clothing and textile industries provided work for
them. But because there were so many of
them and many of them were already poor, it was easy to devalue their lives,
just like it is easy to devalue the lives of people we can’t see every day,
working long hours, missing their families, missing out on an education, in
unsafe conditions, with no promise of a future. Why can’t making clothes be a
respectable, well-paying career? Even U.S. clothing manufacturers have recently
been found in violation of the Fair Labor Standard Act, and American Apparel has
repeatedly been targeted by Immigration Enforcement because they openly hire illegal
immigrants. In some other manufacturing sectors, people get paid for labor, and
overtime, and regular breaks, and they have opportunity to move up and become
supervisors. Is that why Americans don’t want to sew, because those
opportunities aren’t there in clothing manufacturing, or is it something else?
There are good clothing manufacturing jobs here, and some manufacturers in the U.S. have embraced automation, but there aren’t
enough Americans interested in the jobs. Airtex, a textile company in
Minneapolis that supplies to Pottery Barn, among others, decided to bring its
manufacturing back to the U.S. for various reasons. They had been manufacturing
in China, but the Chinese wages became comparable to American wages and their clients' demand for American made products made domestic
production more appealing. They are trying to get young people interested in
careers in textile manufacturing, but they are having more success with…wait
for it…immigrants. They are building a workforce in Minnesota, training
employees and paying them fair wages, and they have been able to bring back 70%
of their production to the U.S. For more about Airtex, NY Times published this
article in 2013 and Minnesota Business Magazine published this
one in 2014. But, Airtex does not make apparel. Airtex makes a lot of stuff
that doesn’t sell or change as fast as cheap clothes, and for that reason I imagine would be much easier to automate production and provide more specialized jobs that are perhaps more rewarding than sewing the same sleeve on shirts all day.
I keep coming back to the conclusion that mass production of
clothing on the scale we are doing it is just not sustainable. It doesn’t
matter if you made all the clothes out of recycled tires, it still wouldn’t be
sustainable. After Bangladeshis get fair wages, and then another group of
people die in another building collapse or fire when they move manufacturing to another country, and then
they get fair wages, and then on and on, until what? And I haven’t even
mentioned the environmental health impacts of growing cotton or processing
leather and synthetic fabrics.
What if we all seriously limited the amount of clothing we
have, and only replaced one or two things a year? The fashion industry
certainly wouldn’t be so damn profitable (the communist in me comes out!) But
more importantly, we might think a lot more about how those tee shirts were
made and how long they’re going to last. I agree with Sarah
Gilbert, that we need to buy less clothing, and be willing to pay more for
good quality.
That brings me to my last bit about factory production of
clothing…who were these bosses? Who were the people willing to lock doors to
keep women trapped inside a building for twelve hours a day? Further, who are the people ballsy enough to say it is good for them because at least they have a job? Are the modern day
bosses in Bangladesh and India the same way? The guys who ran the Triangle
Factory were Jewish immigrants who had tailoring skills, so when they came to
America they went to work in the garment industry. They quickly realized the
potential and started their own small factory that grew until they were quite
wealthy. They lived lavish lives, and could afford to hire people to beat or kill union
organizers and strikers. They were arrested for manslaughter after the fire for the deaths of the people who could have escaped had the doors been unlocked,
but they hired a celebrity lawyer and were acquitted. Even after they rebuilt their business, they were
repeatedly cited for violating fire code, and were caught sewing on fake labels
that ensured products were made in safe working conditions.
In recent years, people
who have tried to organize unions in Bangladesh have been intimidated and beaten
as well, even after the Rana Plaza building collapse. The day of the collapse, bosses
threatened workers who didn’t want to go into a building that had cracked
severely the previous day. Of Bangladesh’s over 5,000 factories, fewer than
half are regularly monitored by the companies they supply to or Bangladesh’s
inspectors. And now that more inspections are underway because of pressure from retailers, many factory owners are
threatening legal action for profits lost while necessary repairs are
made, or just refusing to cooperate outright. It took the Bangladeshi police two
years to file murder charges against 41 people involved in the Rana Plaza
collapse, including Sohel Rana, and many of them are fugitives. The clothing
industry executives have huge influence in Bangladesh because it is one of the
most profitable industries in the country, so just like in the U.S., politics
is going to slow down progress.
Well, it comes down to greed it seems, which appears to come more naturally to
some people. I don't understand how Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, the "shirtwaist kings" from the Triangle Factory, or Sohel Rana could/can live with themselves. There are good people, though, and there are good things going on,
so my next post will be a bit more uplifting, I hope. I want to know what the
major U.S. retailers are doing to protect the basic human rights of the people
making the clothes for them, and who else is in the worker’s corner. I’ll let
you know what I find out…until next time!
Georgia
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