12,832. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1063

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1063

(issues of idea and concept)

There were any number of interesting

things about these 'department store'

developments in those years beginning

just after the Civil War. By the 1880's

they were already firmly in place as

the sort of urban Americana that's

worshipped and seen in old, tawdry

movies. That old 'conflict' theme

between the innocent rural dweller

and the big, mean city to which,

usually she, has come  -  as a rube,

ingenue, or otherwise passive

character to be acted upon. Mostly

it was all just that crazy sort of

Gimbel's and Macy's hijinks seen

in such films as 'Miracle on 34th

Street,' etc.  The combining of a

few interesting factors made it

all interesting. Here are a few:

First, the entire idea of 'ready-to-

wear' was new and exciting. Previous

to that, no one ever bought clothing

off the shelf, to fit by now standardized

sizing systems, nearly everyone.

That was all the work of Elias Howe

and Isaac Merritt Singer; the two

fellows credited with the invention

of the sewing machine. They  sued

each other, and went head to head

over their 'inventions'  - what we now

call 'intellectual property,' but they

did eventually work it all out. In
fact, if you look for info on all this
'sewing machine' stuff, there were
some major info-wars and many
sorts of social and political conflict
over this one, strange, and new, 
contraption. I found that engaging,
and a lot of change came from it.

One interesting sidebar  -  Once a

'sewing machine' for shoes and

shoemakers was developed, the

idea of 'ready-made' shoes had

consisted of what were called

'straights.' That is, there was no

difference between rights and

lefts. Then, with sewing potentials

so improved, American shoe

manufacturers began to turn out

'crooked shoes,' specially cut to

fit the right or the left foot. The

increase, then too, of mass production

of shoes brought a 'silent revolution'

in footwear. In 1862, one Gordon

McKay, in Massachusetts, had

perfected a machine that sewed the

soles to the uppers, just in time to

help supply the Union demand for

army shoes by the thousands. (Yes,

war works). After the war the working

class was buying factory-made shoes,

and, in a decade or two, the 'middle

class' was provided and buying

'factory shoes' made to their taste,

style, and fit. The same thing

occurred with the sewing machine,

for household (and sweatshop) use,

turning out shirtwaists, trousers,

and other clothing by the bundle.

A problem, of course, stemming

from that, was when it became a

useful tool for shop managers to

employ in-house, at-home piece

workers  -  in fact entire families

of tenement laborers, from age

10 probably to age 80, for

pennies a day, doing their sewing

work in their own hovels. If and

when it was done outside of the

home, for instance at the 'Brown

Building,' wherein was situated

the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory,

more troubled ensued : exploitative

work-environments utilizing young

immigrant (most often Jewish)

ghetto girls from the lower east

side tenement quarters, locking 

them in, to hot, poorly-aired,

poorly-lit workrooms under

extreme and tedious conditions,

with few bathrooms, if plural at

all, and no means of escape;

locked exits, no fire doors, etc.

The result, of course, and only

one example, being the many

deaths at the Triangle Shirtwaist

fire, where girls with no other

recourse were forced to jump  -

only to be impaled, often enough,

on the iron fenceposts outside

the building. It was brutal, living

and dead. Bodies piled up, and

identification had to be made by

grieving relatives. Before the later

1990's, when this all became a

popular subject, and made-for-TV

dramatizations, the Brown Building,

and that fire was little known in

the common world. I remember

being outside that building, about 

1980, and suddenly realizing that

the March date of that day coincided

with the anniversary of the fire  -

little known and unmarked. Now 

there's a plaque on the building, 

and it's been all worked over and

dolled up twice that I know of since.
-
The even funnier thing was how,
over the ensuing years, sweatshop
formats and Triangle Company type
settings spelled their own doom by
eventually infuriating people so much 
that even the meekest, immigrant
laborer, and even the fire departments
stepped in to get involved by means
or organizing, going on strikes, and
implementing the mobilization for
unioning for better conditions and
payment (no more piecework set-ups,
which were essentially slave-labor 
for 6 cents an hour, for one, not the 
household and the kids). The fire
departments began savaging the
managements for escape doors,
ventilation, safety procedures,
over-seers and on-site supervision,
and, eventually, New York's own
laws for external fire-escapes.
No more would mass deaths
for profit be allowed to occur.
The famed International Ladies
Garment Workers Union grew out
of that. If you're old enough, you
may remember their televised
commercials and song : 'Look for 
the union label...'
-

That sewing machine enigma sure 

was something. Isaac Singer at one 

time, right near City Hall, once had

one of NY's most landmark and

sensational buildings. Right near

the Woolworth Building. I was never

able to believe the destruction that

NYC was undergoing, but that Singer

Building too, just like the neighboring

old Post Office Building, was torn

down in the 1960's, which is a decade

in which a lot of New York City was

simply shredded. One of Singer's

innovations, financing anyway  - he

also had lock-stich, and thread-stitch

and walking-stitch innovations  -  

was the way he enticed home-laborers

to 'possess' the machine he gave them,

for something like 7-dollars a month

payment plans, until they (eventually)

owned it.

-

For myself, to be honest, I didn't see

much of that destruction as it was going

on. I'm not sure what was the matter with

me, but in so many way I was an oblivious

idiot, NOT in my surroundings. I was

always elsewhere. If that's fantasy, or

drift, or stupidity, then that's what it

is. I was always getting all caught up

in issues of idea and concept. It was

a difficult operative-pose to work 

from. The more interested I got, the

deeper that isolation hole kept getting.

I found I was better off just walking

uptown to the Central Park Zoo and

watching the seal-pond and the seals

for hours. That was real fascination.