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| 27 1 “When I Went Home I Was Aflame” (memoir; c. 1925) Abraham Bisno Born in Russia, Abraham Bisno (1866–1929) immigrated to Chicago in 1881. He worked as a cloak maker and joined the local labor movement in 1886 amid the massive, nationwide strike wave known as the Great Upheaval. Bisno later worked as a factory inspector for the state of Illinois and as an official in the Chicago Cloakmakers’ Union, among other unions. His autobiography appeared posthumously in 1967. One fine day—it must have been in the month of April [1886]— Mother came from the butcher shop and informed us all at the shop that there was going to be a meeting in De Koven Street Hall. I asked her what the meeting was and she said she didn’t know but it was her understanding that everybody would come together in that hall on Saturday afternoon. I asked her who told her and she said she didn’t know except the women in the butcher shop spoke about it. On the next Saturday afternoon I went over along with other people from our shop and a few other shops to that meeting. When I came there I found that there were a great many people assembled around the hall, that the hall was closed and the Bohemian who owned the saloon and the hall was at the door explaining to everybody that nobody rented a hall and that he knew nothing about the meeting. Some of us assembled thought that we had better make up a purse of a few dollars to rent the hall. He said he wouldn’t open the door for less than three dollars, that that was cheap but that he figured that we were going to patronize the saloon downstairs in addition to that. We chipped in a nickel apiece and had three dollars and even more on short notice. The man opened the hall and within fifteen or twenty minutes we packed the hall to capacity, standing room, mainly. The hall was ordinarily used for a Bohemian dance-hall so there was only standing room. 28 | Awakenings There was a great tumult; everybody was talking and nobody knew quite what this whole thing was about until one of our men asked everybody to be quiet and began to speak. He thought that the price for labor was very low; that the treatment we were receiving in the shops was very undignified; that the examiners were exacting very fine work and were sending the work back over and over again; and that the operators wanted too much money for their work and since he was a contractor, he couldn’t pay it because the employers downtown wouldn’t pay him enough to pay it; that he didn’t know who called this meeting together and intimated that even if he did know, he wouldn’t say, because he believed that somebody would carry the message to the employers. But anyway he didn’t know, but no matter who called it, it is good that we are here to jointly talk matters over and see if we can’t find any way to remedy conditions as they are. Next to him another man got up, said that he was a sewing-machine operator , that all he was able to earn was seven dollars a week, that it was hard to support his family on that income, that he didn’t have steady work, that in between seasons there was a great deal of slack,1 that he hardly earned enough in busy seasons to be able to live during the slack seasons. He assaulted vigorously the conduct of the contractors. “Who tells you to bring work home when it don’t pay enough?” he asked. “Why do you bring work home without knowing how much you are going to be paid for it; don’t take that kind of work; never mind about the independence of the employers; if they don’t need you, they’ll give you no work anyway. Since they are giving you work, they evidently need that work and if they need it, you can be independent too. Tell them just how much you want for the work, don’t take it unless you get your price; then you will not kick if we want a decent wage for our work.” An old presser got up to talk. He described how hard he worked; he made motions with...

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