in going to live and work among the American factory hands? It
was not to gratify simple curiosity; it was not to get material for a
novel; it was not to pave the way for new philanthropic associations; it
was not to obtain crude data, such as fill the reports of labour
commissioners. My purpose was to _help_ the working girl--to help her
mentally, morally, physically. I considered this purpose visionary and
unpractical, I considered it pretentious even, and I cannot say that I
had any hope of accomplishing it. What did I mean by _help_? Did I mean
a superficial remedy, a palliative? A variety of such remedies occurred
to me as I worked, and I have offered them gladly for the possible aid
of charitable people who have time and money to carry temporary relief
to the poor. It was not relief of this kind that I meant by _help_. I
meant an _amelioration in natural conditions_. I was not hopeful of
discovering any plan to bring about this amelioration, because I
believed that the conditions, deplorable as they appear to us, of the
working poor, were natural, the outcome of laws which it is useless to
resist. I adopted the only method possible for putting my belief to the
test. I did what had never been done. I was a skeptic and something of a
sentimentalist when I started. I have become convinced, as I worked,
that certain of the most unfortunate conditions are not natural, and
that they can therefore be corrected. It is with hope for the material
betterment of the breadwinning woman, for the moral advancement of the
semi-breadwinner and the esthetic improvement of the country, that I
submit what seems a rational plan.

For the first three weeks of my life as a factory girl I saw among my
companions only one vast class of slaves, miserable drudges, doomed to
dirt, ugliness and overwork from birth until death. My own physical
sufferings were acute. My heart was torn with pity. I revolted against a
society whose material demands were satisfied at the cost of minds and
bodies. Labour appeared in the guise of a monster feeding itself on
human lives. To every new impression I responded with indiscriminate
compassion. It is impossible for the imagination to sustain for more
than a moment at a time the terrible fatigue which a new hand like
myself is obliged to endure day after day; the disgust at foul smells,
the revulsion at miserable food soaked in grease, the misery of a straw
mattress, a sheetless bed with blankets whose acrid