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Working Women
TAKING IN PIECEWORK
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Courtesy of Dover Publications
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Some sailors' wives, especially in large port towns, earned money
by sewing. In 1837, the ladies' branch of the New Bedford Port Society
for the Moral Improvement of Seamen opened a nonprofit clothing store
for sailors, and hired wives and daughters of sailors to do the sewing
at a higher-than-average wage.
For many women, it was a hardscrabble life. After
marrying seaman John Gardner, Mary Elizabeth
Stewart of Providence, Rhode Island, began
doing laundry for the steamboats and taking in sewing and washing
from other African-American residents in the area. Her industry was
not enough to keep the family out of debt, however, so her husband
was summoned to return to care for his family in 1835.
Section 3 of 4 |
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