Matthew Carey | Appeal to the Wealthy of the Land, 1833
Let us now turn to the appalling case of seamstresses,…[who are] Beset…by poverty and wretchedness, with scanty and poor fare, miserable lodgings, clothing inferior in quality…, without the most distant hope of amelioration of condition, by a course of unrelenting and unremitting industry….
IT is frequently asked—what remedy can be found for the enormous and cruel oppression experienced by females employed as seamstresses…?…[A] complete remedy for the evil is…impracticable. I venture, to suggest a few palliatives.
Public opinion, a powerful instrument, ought to be brought to bear on the subject. All honourable members of society, male and female, ought to unite in denouncing those who “grind the faces of the poor.”…
Let the employments of females be multiplied as much as possible…especially in shop-keeping in retail stores….
Let the Provident Societies, intended to furnish employment for women in winter, be munificently supported; and let those Societies give fair and liberal wages….
Let schools be opened for instructing poor women in cooking. Good cooks are always scarce….
Ladies who can afford it, ought to give out their sewing and washing, and pay fair prices….
In the towns in the interior of the state, and in those in western states, there is generally a want of females as domestics, seamstresses, etc…. [The rich should] provide for sending some of the superabundant poor females of our cities to those places.
Source: Matthew Carey, Appeal to the Wealthy of the Land, Ladies as well as Gentlemen (Philadelphia: L. Johnson, 1833), 13, 15, 33–34.