This pencil was grouped with a number of pencils found in the pocket of a tool belt used by Jillian Gross while working for Habitat for Humanity, a not-for-profit, non-government organization advocating affordable housing around the world. Carpenter pencils have two wide, flat sides to keep them from rolling. The graphite core is generally wide and flat, making it easy to mark course materials when using the flat side while using the thinner side for precision marks.
When Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in August 2005, Jillian Gross had worked with Habitat for Humanity for three years learning woodworking and house-building skills. Groups such as Habitat for Humanity marshaled volunteers, tools and lumber to step in when it became clear that normal avenues of housing assistance were overwhelmed.
In November 2005, Habitat for Humanity launched “America Builds on the National Mall,” a demonstration house-building marathon in Washington, D.C. in which the basic components of 51 homes were assembled within a week and shipped to the Gulf Coast. Upon completion of the project Ms. Gross, one of the house building leaders during this event, donated her tool belt, tools and protective wear to the Smithsonian Institution.
In a house being torn apart by hurricane winds, this clock stopped at 9:27. The eye of Katrina passed over the Gulf Coast at approximately 9:45 on the morning of Sunday, August 29, 2005. At 9:27, the eye wall's ferocious eastern wind bands were just reaching out for the seaside residential community of Waveland, Mississippi. Smithsonian collectors found the clock in a field. Nearby uprooted trees and leveled houses told the tale of what happened before and after this timepiece left the kitchen wall on which it once ticked.
The glazier knife has multiple uses: scraping, roller squeegee, spackle spreader, crack or crevice cleaner and can opener. Made by Warner Manufacturing Company, Plymouth, Minnesota, makers of hand and edge tools and light equipment. It was used by Jillian Gross while working for Habitat for Humanity, a not-for-profit, non-government organization advocating affordable housing around the world.
When Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in August 2005, Jillian Gross had worked with Habitat for Humanity for three years learning woodworking and house-building skills. Groups such as Habitat for Humanity marshaled volunteers, tools and lumber to step in when it became clear that normal avenues of housing assistance were overwhelmed.
In November 2005, Habitat for Humanity launched “America Builds on the National Mall,” a demonstration house-building marathon in Washington, D.C. in which the basic components of 51 homes were assembled within a week and shipped to the Gulf Coast. Upon completion of the project Ms. Gross, one of the house building leaders during this event, donated her tool belt, tools and protective wear to the Smithsonian Institution. The glazier knife was kept in the pocket of a tool belt.
This pencil was grouped with a number of pencils found in the pocket of a tool belt used by Jillian Gross while working for Habitat for Humanity, a not-for-profit, non-government organization advocating affordable housing around the world. Carpenter pencils have an two wide flat sides to keep them from rolling. The graphite core is generally wide and flat, making it easy to mark course materials when using the flat side while using the thinner side for precision marks.
When Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in August 2005, Jillian Gross had worked with Habitat for Humanity for three years learning woodworking and house-building skills. Groups such as Habitat for Humanity marshaled volunteers, tools and lumber to step in when it became clear that normal avenues of housing assistance were overwhelmed.
In November 2005, Habitat for Humanity launched “America Builds on the National Mall,” a demonstration house-building marathon in Washington, D.C. in which the basic components of 51 homes were assembled within a week and shipped to the Gulf Coast. Upon completion of the project Ms. Gross, one of the house building leaders during this event, donated her tool belt, tools and protective wear to the Smithsonian Institution.
Levi Strauss & Co. pioneered supplier workplace codes of conduct with its Terms of Engagement in 1991. This pamphlet was published in Portugese. Levi’s commitment to workplace responsibility was tested in 1992 when a news report revealed that a supplier in Saipan was abusing its workforce. Mostly immigrants, the workers were working as much as 11 hours a day, seven days a week, for as little as $1.65 an hour with no overtime pay (the minimum wage in Saipan was $2.15 an hour). The story was especially embarrassing because the Northern Mariana Islands, a protectorate of the U.S., was allowed to label the goods Made in the USA. Levi’s canceled their contract. In the late 1990s the practice of workplace codes of conduct became relatively common in the garment industry.
The trend towards offshore production provided the opportunity for large cost savings but at the same time presented new problems of control. Manufacturers and retailers who worried about poor conditions in subcontractors’ factories issued codes of conduct. Enforcement of the codes of conduct was uneven.
This bottle of Mucosolvan was sold at the El Monte company store. Shop operators forced workers to buy food and personal items from them at inflated prices. The respiratory medicine was seized during a well-publicized 1995 sweatshop raid and is part of a larger Smithsonian collection of artifacts documenting apparel industry sweatshops, focusing on the El Monte operation.
On August 2, 1995, police officers raided a fenced seven-unit apartment complex in El Monte, California. They arrested eight operators of a clandestine garment sweatshop and freed 72 workers who were being forced to sew garments in virtual captivity. Smuggled from Thailand into the United States, the laborers’ plight brought a national spotlight to domestic sweatshop production and resulted in increased enforcement by federal and state labor agencies. The publicity of the El Monte raid also put added pressure on the apparel industry to reform its labor and business practices domestically and internationally.
Levi Strauss & Co. pioneered supplier workplace codes of conduct with its Terms of Engagement in 1991. This pamphlet was published in Korean. Levi’s commitment to workplace responsibility was tested in 1992 when a news report revealed that a supplier in Saipan was abusing its workforce. Mostly immigrants, the workers were working as much as 11 hours a day, seven days a week, for as little as $1.65 an hour with no overtime pay (the minimum wage in Saipan was $2.15 an hour). The story was especially embarrassing because the Northern Mariana Islands, a protectorate of the U.S., was allowed to label the goods Made in the USA. Levi’s canceled their contract. In the late 1990s the practice of workplace codes of conduct became relatively common in the garment industry.
The trend towards offshore production provided the opportunity for large cost savings but at the same time presented new problems of control. Manufacturers and retailers who worried about poor conditions in subcontractors’ factories issued codes of conduct. Enforcement of the codes of conduct was uneven.