How did immigration affect immigrants and other Americans in the late 19th and early 20th century?
Read the following document:
Document E: Excerpt from Working in a Sweatshop
Introduction
Sadie Frowne was a Polish immigrant who came to New York City with her mother when she was thirteen. They left Poland after her father died and the grocery store that had supported them failed. Soon after arriving, her mother died, leaving Sadie to take care of herself. In the excerpt below, she describes her experience and how she found a job in a factory to help support herself.
Primary Source
“...I got a room in the house of some friends who lived near the factory. I pay $1 a week for the room and am allowed to do light housekeeping - that is, cook my meals in it. I...My food for a week costs a dollar, just as it did in Allen Street, and I have the rest of my money to do as I like with. I am earning $5.50 a week now, and will probably get another increase soon. It isn't piecework in our factory, but one is paid by the amount of work done just the same. So it is like piecework. All the hands get different amounts, some as low as $3.50 and some of the men as high as $16 a week. The factory is in the third story of a brick building. It is in a room twenty feet long and fourteen broad. There are fourteen machines in it. I and the daughter of the people with whom I live work two of these machines....At seven o'clock we all sit down to our machines and the boss brings to each one the pile of work that he or she is to finish during the day. Sometimes the work is not all finished by six o'clock and then the one who is behind must work overtime.…The machines go like mad all day, because the faster you work the more money you get. Sometimes in my haste I get my finger caught and the needle goes right through it….We all have accidents like that…All the time we are working the boss walks about examining the finished garments and making us do them over again if they are not just right. But I am getting so good at the work that within a year I will be making $7 a week, and then I can save at least $3.50 a week. I have over $200 saved now. The machines are all run by foot-power, and at the end of the day one feels so weak that there is a great temptation to lie right down and sleep. But you must go out and get air, and have some pleasure. So instead of lying down I go out, generally with Henry. Sometimes we go to Coney Island, where there are good dancing places, and sometimes we go to Ulmer Park to picnics…For the last two winters I have been going to night school. I have learned reading, writing and arithmetic. I can read quite well in English now and I look at the newspapers every day. I read English books, too, sometimes.”
Reply with by citing evidence and placing in quotations exact from the above document that shows What were the PUSH and PULL FACTORS that brought Sadie and her family to America?