In response to Eden’s question, despite the lower wages women received for their work, I think that the status of women began to change from the Victorian era. For example, certain parts of the readings shared a common theme of how women, who worked for really low wages, still felt a feeling of independence and liberation from the gender roles of society. During the time of the Five Points reading, work was only available for widows and daughters and it was reading about these group of women that allowed me to see how independent they needed to be in their circumstances. Specifically, reading about the widows really struck me as to how much they went through just to provide for their family; they allowed people to stay in their homes to have some sort of extra money rent. It was sad to see that these borders brought more and had more furniture than the widows had themselves. While borders had their furniture, widows and their children had to sleep on the floor because of the widows’ poor salary in the garment shops.
It was hard to read about how exploited the immigrants were and how insecure most of their job opportunities were. Readings from Anbinder and Chin discuss that if a new worker was introduced to a certain business and willingly worked for less wages, their current worker was easily disposed of. I could not stand how some employers really did not care about the fate of the workers they fired. They did not care if workers needed to pay rent or if their children needed food,workers were fired if there was a better replacement. Employers only had profit and success as number one priority. Some immigrants could not support their families and husbands needed to travel from place to place in hopes of having a job. According to the Anbinder readings, husbands either abandoned their families or ended up dead because of disease and in constant search of work.
Despite all the adversities immigrants had faced during the times of their work, most worked as a family just to accumulate a sort of household income. They did all they could to sustain their household and life in America. What surprised me also was that those who had sustained households did not even choose to move from the Five Points or other areas; one example are the Lansdowne immigrants who had a decent amount in their savings to move to other areas but chose to remain in the Five Points. I wonder what made them not want to leave; maybe they realized that if they moved somewhere else, they would not have their frugal behavior as they did in the Five Points. I think that they were so accustomed and realized how far they came and succeeded in the Five Points that they wanted to move further in this neighborhood. Nevertheless, immigrants worked together to sustain a household and foundation for future generations; I am so glad that all their suffering was not in vain as generations of these immigrants succeed and thrive in the United States today.
