nmah sweatshop exhibition -- workers in poland 1905

Tailors, seamstresses, and apprentices in a sewing workshop,
Tarnow, Galicia (in present-day Poland), 1905
Courtesy YIVO Archives

Although many garment workers came to the United States with some tailoring experience, most entered the industry unskilled or with only the sewing skills they had learned at home.

Eastern Europeans introduced the task system. Men and women worked as teams of sewing-machine operators, basters, and finishers, often augmented by pressers and helpers. Payment was for completion of a certain number of garments per day. Price cutting often led to the number of garments increasing over time and workdays extending far into the night. It was not uncommon for a team to work 15 to 18 hours a day for six days but be paid for four days' work.

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