"'Paper Bag Brigade' Learns How to Deal with Gypping Employers" - Marvel Cooke - New York Compass

Part three in Marvel Cooke's five-part series for the New York Compass in 1950 on the domestic day labor market in the Bronx

Byline: Marvel Cooke; 1950-01-10; New York Compass; pages 4, 21

Report: "I Was Part of the Bronx Slave Market" - Marvel Cooke - New York Compass Marvel Cooke

Tags: Bronx, Ella Baker, Marvel Cooke, posed as, slave, slave mart, The New York Compass

"You shouldn't-a-agreed to work by the hour. That's the best way to get gypped. Some of them only want you for an hour or so to clean the worst dirt out of their houses. Then they tell you you're through. It's too late by that time to get another job. . . . You just don't work by the hour," she repeated laconically. "Work by the day. Ask six bucks and carfare for a three-room apartment."

Description:Part three of Marvel Cooke's five-part series on the Bronx "slave mart," where she posed as a day laborer seeking domestic work and learned about the ways employers had to cheat the workers out of already paltry full pay promised.

Rights: public domain

Additional Media

Image of Marvel Cooke.

Additional Media

New York Compass article titled, "'Paper Bag Brigade' Learns How to Deal with Gypping Employers." Written by Marvel Cooke as part of her series on domestic day labor.