by men.
Theresa used to complete two gross of belts a day. She and other
Americans in the factory were hard-pressed by some Russian girls, who
could finish in a day four gross of very badly sewed belts with enormous
stitches and loose threads. When the forewoman blamed Theresa for
finishing less work than these girls, she freely expressed her contempt
for their slovenly belts. She had a strong handicraft pride, and it was
pleasant to see her instinctive scorn in quoting the forewoman's reply
that "None of them (the badly made belts) ever came back"--as though
their selling quality were the one test of their workmanship.

She had left the factory because of a complete breakdown from long hours
of overwork. In one winter she had been at the machine seventy-one hours
a week for ten weeks. After this severe experience, she had a long
prostration and was depleted, exhausted, in a sort of physical torpor in
which she was unable to do anything for months.

On her recovery she entered another factory, where the hours are not so
excessive, the treatment is fair, and she has now an excellent position
as forewoman at $18 a week.

Theresa was a very earnest, clear-minded girl, with strong convictions
concerning the bad effect of excessive hours for working women. At the
time when the hearing on the New York State Labor Law was held at Albany
last spring, she had been active in obtaining a petition, signed by a
body of New York working girls and placed in the hands of Labor
Commissioner Williams, to aid in securing a shortening of their present
legal hours. Theresa had advanced beyond the drudgery of her trade to one
of its better positions by extraordinary ability. Some of the skilled
machine operatives, like some of the unskilled factory workers, were
buoyed through the monotony of their present calling by the hope of
leaving it for another occupation.

Alta Semenova, a Polish glove maker, twenty years old, worked nine hours
a day at a machine for $7 a week, and studied five evenings a week in a
private evening school, for which she paid $4 a month tuition.

She lived in a small hall bedroom with an admired girl friend. Each paid
$4.25 a month rent. Her food amounted to $2.90 a week. Saturday evening
she spent in doing her washing. She lived near enough to the factory to
walk to work in five or ten minutes. She paid 25 cents a month for Union
dues.

Alta was working for "counts" toward entering college or Cooper Union. In
s