1. Quick Write: Write for 45 seconds about how you would see this school if you were a new student starting today. What are some things that you might notice as a new student that you aren’t normally aware of? What might you like? What might cause you anxiety? How would you be treated by staff and students?

2. There was a rush season and a “slack” season; this nature of the shirtwaist trade. During rush season workers put in eighty-hour weeks, but at the same rate of pay. A bakery in the garment district made little apple turnovers, and these were what the workers got instead of overtime pay. At other times business was slow and there was no work at all, meaning no pay, but everyone still had to report each morning to the eighth floor of the factory.

3. In the course of the day one worker or another would have to leave her machine to go to the restroom; the supervisor would follow, rapping on the door to make her hurry. If she took too long she’d be fined, so she did hurry – out of the dark and tiny restroom, whose single toilet stank and sometimes overflowed, and back to the machine. A factory worker named Pauline Newman recalled the time when noiseless rubber heels appeared. “Our employers were the first to use them; you never knew when they would sneak up on you, spying to be sure you did not talk to each other during work hours.”