Working Class Immigrant
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I am a thirty-five-year-old Italian immigrant living in the Italian quarter on the Hill in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1910. I live with my wife and five children in Basin Alley, an area that is heavily concentrated with immigrant Italian laborers. Life in Basin Alley revolves around the steel mills, owned by Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie was also an immigrant from Scotland and now he practically owns the country “Before he was 30 years old he had made shrewd and farsighted investments, which by 1865 were concentrated in iron. With a few years, he had organized or had stock in companies making iron bridges, rails and locomotives. Ten years later, the steel mill he built on the Monongahela River in Pennsylvania was the largest in the country” (An Outline 1). I arrived in America with my wife and two of our five children in 1900. We came to this country because my cousin had come here in 1895 and was doing well for himself as a steel mill worker. The industrial age is coming to full power in America, and its cities continue to grow and become more populated because of it. I make $12.98 a week for working sixty hours (American 1). My eldest son is twelve and he left school two years ago to work in the steel mill with me. My wife does laundry and house cleaning for the rich folks on Residence Street in Pitcairn. She does not speak English much. In this document, I will try to demonstrate the typical lifestyle my fam
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baseball game and watch the Pittsburgh Pirates—it is quite the luxury for us to do so “Long hours on the job and the necessity of walking to and from work left workers little free time. Family budgets could include at best, only small amounts for recreation. Even a baseball game ticket was a luxury” (Nash and Jeffrey 641). On Saturday night my wife and I sometimes go to watch the barbershop quartet as they sing real nice. Her favorite song is Sweet Adeline. I don’t tell my wife about it, but sometimes I sneak off to those newfangled penny and nickel arcades and watch the girlies and movies before I go home from work “Nickelodeon was the hottest rage beginning in 1905. The films were often naughty and men frequented these penny arcades. Nickel arcades came along soon where you paid a nickel to enjoy a short moving picture projected onto a screen” (American 9). My wife keeps after me because she wants a radio. She heard ragtime at one of the houses where she cleans and she has wanted me to get one ever since. Sometimes my boy and I go fishing on the Monongahela River. It helps us put some food on the table and is free, plus we both like doing it.
When it comes to working in the steel mills, me and the other guys comp
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Basin Alley, Pullman Strike, LIFE CONDITIONS, Labor AFL, Sweet Adeline, River Pennsylvania, Davidson Gienap, Fourth July, Monongahela River, House Roosevelt, basin alley, steel mill, steel mills, white house, june 20, 1865 york, june 20 2000, 20 2000, life basin alley, american people, semi-skilled labor, wife sometimes, wife five children,
Approximate Word count = 2193
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
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