Morris Rosenfeld was born in Bashka, Poland in 1862. He immigrated to America in 1886. He worked most of his life in America as a tailor. He was considered the most gifted out of all of the sweatshop poets and he touched the most closely on immigrant life. His topics really focused the most on his audience, which were the Jewish immigrant population of New York. His work described the everyday struggles of these people. Through his writing you could get a day-to-day account of the life of these people who just moved into this new country. He died in 1923.
Poem By Morris Rosenfeld
An Excerpt From His Poem Entitled “My Little Son”
The time clock drags me off at dawn;
at night it lets me go.
I hardly know my flesh and blood;
his eyes I hardly know…
I climb the staircase wearily:
a figure wrapped in shade.
each night my haggard wife describes
how well the youngster played;
how sweetly he’s begun to talk;
how clearly he said,
“when will my daddy com and leave a penny near my bed?”
(Howe, 79-80)
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