Chapter Eleven Q & A

Question One:  What Caused Jewish people from Russia and Germany to migrate to America?

People immigrated from Russia and Germany in hopes of a better life.  They heard from relatives and friends the riches that are available to the average worker in American and drew them to come.  The Jewish people in these countries at that time were forced into merchant working and suffered from such high amounts of competition that they struggled to survive.  So when they heard about the wages that they could receive in America, they rushed to get jobs.  Another driving factor was fear of survival in their homelands.  There were groups of people who would hunt down the Jewish people and hurt or even kill whoever crossed their path.  America was a source of hope and gave them something to strive for.  In this chapter there is an account of a little girl who knew of the ‘raids’ against Jews but didn’t understand why.  She also knew that they lived in fear and closed their windows and remained indoors on those nights. 

 

Question Two:  Since so many who came to America were skilled craftsmen what jobs, and working conditions did they endure upon arrival?

Many of the immigrants were highly skilled workers when they arrived in their new homeland.  Most of the women who came over, came to work as tailors like they had in their homeland.  Conveniently, New York City was at the heart of a garment industry boom and needed these highly skilled Jewish seamstresses to create the mass produced garments.  This eventually led to more and more workers cramming into the workshops to be able to produce greater quantities of goods.  Different companies employed different types of workforces, like for example using the section system of workers which assigned one task to each employee, for example one worker would make the hole for the button and then next would sew on the button.  This caused the workers abilities to actually decline.  Those who used to be able to create a whole dress were reduced to only knowing how to sew on buttons.  The working conditions eventually got reduced to being considered sweatshops.  People sewed elbow to elbow for up to fifteen hour days.  Those who didn’t work in the sweatshops rented carts and sold what they could, which could have been fruits or secondhand clothing.  These people endured great hardship in an effort to better their families’ condition and gain status in the new land. 

 

Question Three:  How did the value of education change among the immigrants who came to America?

In their homelands, it was more valuable to be highly educated than to have money.  It was said that fathers would be happy to have their daughters marry scholars than to marry a worker.  While in their homeland education was valuable, these matters changed upon arrival to America.  The wives who came over with their scholarly husbands refused to work to allow their spouse to sit and read books and attend lectures.  Many of the scholars turned workers rented out carts because they had no other skill than their education.  In America the value of being a hard worker was the most valuable thing a person possessed.