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1876 Chinese impact report

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Duke View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Duke Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2019 at 12:50pm
And yet the company themselves say

“When Levi Strauss & Co. began manufacturing the world’s first blue jeans, the company’s celebrated copper riveted clothing was such a hit that demand for female operators to sew the garments exploded. They needed sewing machine operators, which they advertised for in local newspaper the San Francisco Chronicle:

Wanted—Fifty First-Class Female sewing machine operators, who can bring their own machines with them; either Singer’s No. 2 or Grover & Baker’s No. 1, for sewing heavy work. Steady and remunerative employment, at 415 Market Street, upstairs. — July 19, 1873.

Noted one 1898 flyer, “Our goods are turned out in our own factory where we employ over 700 girls.”
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Duke Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2019 at 12:54pm
There’s very little mention of Chinese labour - and in any event Chinese U.S. population at that time amounted to around 100k which was nearly entirely male

Something doesn’t stack up
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Foxy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2019 at 1:26pm
Originally posted by Sansome Sansome wrote:

Maybe it’s me- when I zoom in on the text, it’s fuzzy and hard to read.
Looks like some real useful information, it would seem, that you might need to take pictures of the pages
In better light?

Thanks for posting


Not sure why the pics are further compressed and displayed that small - please go to original folder. They are towards the end. The sequence of the pages got mixed up during uploading, just check the page numbers.

http://s1176.photobucket.com/user/KPFoxy/library/Books%20and%20Magazines
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Sansome Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2019 at 1:47pm
Originally posted by Duke Duke wrote:

There’s very little mention of Chinese labour - and in any event Chinese U.S. population at that time amounted to around 100k which was nearly entirely male

Something doesn’t stack up


It’s one of the problems you run into, when company people, write a book about company history
More often than not, it’s spun in favor of the company.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Foxy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2019 at 2:22pm
I used to work for a German menswear manufacturer originating in manufacturing uniforms and a not so pleasant chapter of forced labor in the company’s history - they didn’t like to talk about it...
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Duke Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2019 at 2:37pm
Fairly reliable data says, at that time, the Chinese female population was around 7% of the total Chinese population - that’s only 7000 women/girls in the whole of the U.S. (albeit the majority were centred in California or New York)

I have serious doubts that many industries used large percentages of female Chinese labour.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Duke Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2019 at 2:49pm
Also I don’t know where your 30 women and half a million garments annually comes from (I agree it’s not possible)

But if the 700 girls were true, working around a 60h week (typical for the time) then you have a 42000h week which is easily 20000 garments - more than 1 million/year
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Duke Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2019 at 3:00pm
What is it you want to achieve from this thread? To somehow prove Levi’s (especially) and other businesses used ‘slave’ labour?

I don’t think there’s an awful lot more to say about this unless the discussion is about the entire American economy of shady business practice, racial persecution and corruption throughout government ... then you’d need to identify a decade and a century starting from today and choosing literally anytime right back to when Americans were British (or German, Swedish, Russian et al)

... and for that you’ll need a bigger internet 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sansome Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2019 at 9:38pm
Originally posted by Duke Duke wrote:

Fairly reliable data says, at that time, the Chinese female population was around 7% of the total Chinese population - that’s only 7000 women/girls in the whole of the U.S. (albeit the majority were centred in California or New York)

I have serious doubts that many industries used large percentages of female Chinese labour.


Your doubts, at least in San Francisco, would be confirmed in this report.
If this report is anything to go by. (And I think it is) The Chinese women/girls were property.

When I can tear myself away, from a 10 girl birthday/ sleepover, I’ll answer your other 2 posts
I was pleasantly surprised when the girls sang happy birthday, in both English and French
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sansome Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2019 at 11:21pm
Originally posted by Duke Duke wrote:

Also I don’t know where your 30 women and half a million garments annually comes from (I agree it’s not possible)

But if the 700 girls were true, working around a 60h week (typical for the time) then you have a 42000h week which is easily 20000 garments - more than 1 million/year


The 700 women at the Fremont street factory is true, but that was in the late 1890’s.
When the factory first started up, sometime in 1887, it was something like 400 women
The figures I gave, came from a 1877 report, this is where the 180 Chinese figure came from.
I’m sure we have the Number of people working at the New York factory ( but I don’t have those numbers in front of me)
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