Part 19

"Eighth floor."

"My Gawd!" And up seven flights we puffed in single file, conversation impossible for lack of wind.

The bright one opened the door and our group of nine surged in. There stood as many girls and men as were down on the first floor and out on the sidewalk.

"My Gawd!" There was nothing else to say.

We edged our way through till we stood by the time clock. The bright one was right,--that was the strategic point. For at 8.30 a forelady appeared at that very spot, just suddenly was--and in a pleasant tone of voice announced, "We don't need any more help, male or female, this morning!" Two scared-looking girls just in front of me screwed up their courage and said, pleadingly, "But you told us Saturday we should come back this morning and you promised us work!"

"Oh, all right! Then you two go to the coat room."

Everyone looked a bit dazed. At least one hundred girls and over that many men had hopes of landing a job at that bindery--and they took on two girls from Saturday.

We said a few things we thought, and dashed for the iron stairs. We rushed down pell-mell, calling all the way. By this time a steady procession was filing up. "No use. Save your breath." Some kept on, regardless.

From the bindery I rushed to a factory making muslin underwear. By the time I got there--only six blocks uptown--the boss looked incredulous that I should even be applying at such an advanced hour, although it was not yet 9. No, he needed no more. From there to the address of an "ad" for "light factory work," whatever it might turn out to be. A steady stream of girls coming and going. Upstairs a young woman, without turning her head, her finger tracing down a column of figures, called out, "No more help wanted!"

A rush to a wholesale millinery just off Fifth Avenue--the only millinery advertising for learners. The elevator was packed going up, the hallway was packed where we got out. The girls already there told us newcomers we must write our names on certain cards. Also we must state our last position, what sort of millinery jobs we expected to get, and what salary. The girl ahead of me wrote twenty-eight dollars. I wrote fourteen dollars. She must have been experienced in some branch of the trade. All the rest of us at our crowded end of the entry hall were learners. The "ad" here had read "apply after 9.30." It was not yet 9.30. A few moments after I got there, my card just filled out, the boss called from a little window: "No more learners. All I want is one experienced copyist." There was apparently but one experienced copyist in the whole lot. Everyone was indignant. Several girls spoke up: "What made you advertise learners if you don't want none?" "I did want some, but I got all I want." We stuffed the elevator and went on down.

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.

"Nothing doing for you."

But he had advertised for learners.

"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.

I ate my lunch at home.

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.

Finally, second try, the boss glued his eye on me.

"Come in here." A white door closed behind us, and we stood in a little room which looked as if a small boy of twelve had knocked it together out of old scraps and odds and ends, unpainted.

"What experience you have had?"

He was a nice-looking, fairly young Jew, who spoke with a considerable German accent.

"None in a dress factory, but ..." and I regaled him with the vast amount of experience in other lines that was mine, adding that I had done a good deal of "private dressmaking" off and on, and also assuring him, almost tremblingly, I did so want to land a job--that I was the most willing of workers.

"What you expect to get?"

"What will you pay me?"