Craft: An American History

by Glenn Adamson

1903. A massive strike of 75,000 workers, about equally divided by gender, was under way in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, then a center for the American textile industry. Among their grievances were the use of underage labor and extraordinarily dangerous working conditions—a horrific combination. “Every day,” Jones said, “little children came into Union Headquarters, some with their hands off, some with the thumb missing, some with their fingers off at the knuckle.” She assembled a group of them to parade together through industrial districts. Everywhere they went, massive crowds turned out in support. Jones brought the young factory workers up on platforms to display their mutilated limbs: “Philadelphia’s mansions,” she cried, “were built on the broken bones, the quivering hearts and drooping heads of these children.” She marched them up to New York City, and in Coney Island, she went so far as to display them in animal cages as a metaphor for their treatment at the hands of their employers. Then she pressed on to Long Island, to the summer home of Theodore Roosevelt. She would show him what the “strenuous life” really looked like.40