Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/358

 344 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

should be found in the industry which employed the largest pro- portion of skilled men. That both the men and women, how- ever, formed a superior class of workpeople, native-born of good stock, intelligent, and reliable, there can be no question. Amasa Walker in an address before the "Convention of Manu- facturers in the Shoe and Leather Business," in 1842, said, em- phatically, that no villages "stood higher than the shoe villages of New England in the moral, social, and intellectual condition of their inhabitants. The population engaged in the trade was," he thought, "distinguished for general intelligence. The busi- ness was a social business, the people were not crowded together in factory buildings ; their conversation was not drowned by the noise of machinery; they had many and great opportunities for reading and instruction, and mutual improvement." ^"^

The women binders unfortunately did not have the advan- tages that came from working in groups as the men did. Every shoemaker's shop at that time was said to be a center of instruc- tion and a place where political questions were threshed out.^* A statement frequently quoted at the time that "every shoe- maker in Lynn was fit to be a United States senator^® illus- trates contemporary opinion of the craft.

Both shoemakers and shoebinders suffered in common with most of the working people of the time from the truck system.^® Some "bosses" paid their binders exclusively in orders on dry- goods stores where they were mercilessly overcharged for what they bought, and a man who could advertise to "pay cash" had no difficulty in getting workpeople at any season. In general, however, higher rates were paid when orders were given. ^^

In striking contrast to these New England women and the conditions under which they were employed were the poor shoe- binders of the larger cities who worked in wretched tenement homes, and who were really the victims of an early sweating

" Ibid., President's Address, p. 30.

"Johnson, op. cit,, p. 198.


 * • Quoted in Reports of the Industrial Commission, VII, 363.


 * See p. 342 for an account of this system in the cotton industry.


 * Johnson, op. cit., p. 87.