Prisoners of Poverty: Women Wage-Workers, Their Trades and Their Lives by Campbell
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28245he chapters making up the present volume were prepared originally as a series of papers for the Sunday edition of “The New York Tribune,” and were based upon minutest personal research into the conditions described. Sketchy as the record may seem at points, it is a photograph from life; and the various characters, whether employers or employed, were all registered in case corroboration were needed. While research was limited to New York, the facts given are much the same for any large city, and thus have a value beyond their immediate application. No attempt at an understanding of the labor question as it faces us to-day can be successful till knowledge of its underlying conditions is assured.
It is such knowledge that the writer has aimed to present; and it takes more permanent form, not only for the many readers whose steady interest has been an added demand for faithful work,[Pg ii] but, it is hoped, for a circle yet unreached, who, whether agreeing or disagreeing with the conclusions, still know that to learn the struggle and sorrow of the workers is the first step toward any genuine help.
Orange, New Jersey, March, 1887.
Prisoners of Poverty Abroad by Helen Campbell
The studies which follow, the result of fifteen months' observation abroad, deal directly with the workers in all trades open to women, though, from causes explained in the opening chapter, less from the side of actual figures than the preceding volume, the material for which was gathered in New York. But as months have gone on, it has become plain that many minds are also at work, the majority on the statistical side of the question, and that the ethical one is that which demands no less attention. Both are essential to understanding and to effort in any practical direction, and this is recognized more and more as organization brings together for consultation the women who, having [Pg iv]long felt deeply, are now learning to think and act effectually. These pages are for them, and mean simply another side-light on the labor question,—the question in which all other modern problems are tangled, and whose solving waits only the larger light whose first gleams are already plain to see.
HELEN CAMPBELL.
Heidelberg, Germany,
October, 1888.
We should launch it one of these days.