WOMEN AT WORK

THE WORKING GIRLS OF NEW YORK

• Riis wrote this chapter to touch on how women of Industrial New York suffered economically. He includes their wages, working conditions, and place in the new society in order to put the reader in the perspective of a woman with these struggles.

RHETORICAL DEVICES

• Use of Anecdotes
• Appeal to Pathos
• Use of a Euphemism
• Appeal to Logos

"An old woman had just fallen on the doorstep, stricken with paralysis. The doctor said she would never again move her right hand or foot… There was before them starvation, or the poor-house. And the proud spirits of the sisters, helpless now, quailed at the outlook” (7).

“...story of a gentle and refined woman who, left in direst poverty to earn her own living alone among strangers threw herself from her attic window, preferring death to dishonor” (1).

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• “since the paths of shame are always open to her” (1).
• “It is inevitable that they must in many instances resort to evil” (1)
• “and the only living wages that were offered her were the wages of sin” (1)

“Calico wrappers at a dollar and a half a dozen… neckties at from 25 to 75 cents a dozen, with a dozen as a good day's work, are specimens of women's wages” (6).

“To the everlasting credit of New York's working-girl let it be said that, rough though her road be, all but hopeless her battle with life, only in the rarest instances does she go astray. As a class she is brave, virtuous, and true” (8).

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