board and lodging with a married sister had cost her $2.50 a week, less
in one way than with strangers. But she slept with part of her sister's
family, did her own washing and her sister's, scrubbed the floor, and
rose every day at half past five to help with the work and prepare her
luncheon before starting for the factory at seven.

Marta could earn so little that she had never been able to save enough to
make her deeply desired journey back to Austria to see her mother and
father. Although both their children were in the new country, her mother
and father would not be admitted under the immigration law, because her
father was blind.

The lack of opportunity to rise, among older unskilled factory workers,
may be illustrated by the experience of Mrs. Hallett, an American woman
of forty, a slight, gentle-voiced little widow, who had been packing
candies and tying and labelling boxes for sixteen years. In this time she
had advanced from a wage of $4 a week to a wage of $6, earned by a week
of nine-hour days, with a Saturday half-holiday.

However, as with Marta, this had represented payment from the company for
length of service, and not an advance to more skilled or responsible
labor with more outlook. In Mrs. Hallett's case this was partly because
the next step would have been to become a clerk in one of the company's
retail stores, and she was not strong enough to endure the all-day
standing which this would require. Mrs. Hallett liked this company. The
foreman was considerate, and a week's vacation with pay was given to the
employees.

Mrs. Hallett lived in an excessively small, unheated hall bedroom, on the
fourth floor of an enormous old house filled with the clatter of the