Summary

This section begins on New Year’s Eve of 1908. Clara begins the year by lying about her resume to become a draper at a quality modern garment shop, a higher paid and less supervised position. Between her classes, work schedule, and union meetings, Pauline teaches Clara about supply and demand patterns in the “chain of exalted commerce” that prevents workers from having humane treatment or safe conditions (249). Her and Pauline both start conversations with their coworkers, aiming to align every female factory-workers’ concepts of deserved rights “until the entire city is alight with small fierce-burning flames” (255). Clara continues to explain the conditions of her workplace, describing her boss changing the time on the clock to force longer work hours with impossibly fast-paced production expectations called “speedups” (261). One small success of the union is that Italian and Yiddish translators are brought in upon voting...