Family doing Piece Work in Tenement

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Family doing Piece Work in Tenement

The women and girls in this family are making paper garlands. Piecework was a common form of low wage employment for women and children and an essential source of income. Traditional women’s work, such as sewing or embroidery, and finely detailed tasks that women and children were assumed to do well, were often farmed out by manufacturers as piece work.

Hartley House records, Social Welfare History Archives

University of Minnesota Libraries



"Proper" Employment
Family doing Piece Work in Tenement