Byline: Nell Nelson; 1888-08-16; Chicago Times; pages 1-2
Report: "City Slave Girls" - Nell Nelson - Chicago Times [aka "White Slave Girls" - New York World]
Tags: Chicago, factories, manufacturing, mattresses, posed as, undercover, women, worked as
If you want to see a snowstorm in summer, or its counterpart in appearence, go to the "separating room" of the mattress and pillow manufactory of Perren & Menzie, 353 to 261 Twentieth street. If you have any curiosity to know how it feels to be featherlined on the inside go to the same room. One minute will do the work satisfactorily. The above suggestions are for people of poetic temperment or who think they are. But the practical masses msut enter the "picking" and "dusting" rooms to get an intelligent idea of what a factory of that kind is. We will go through the matterss department first. The materials for filling are hair, fine and coarse shavings knows as "exelsior," palm-leave, corn husks, woolen and cotton rags, and grass.
Description:Nell Nelson reports on the working conditions for women in a mattress factory in Chicago as part of her undercover series.
Rights: public domain
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