Chapter 8 8

After going to talk for a week, I came into contact with Oedipus. Who built Barrett Hall, the magnificent building in Harvard Garden? "It was built by our ancestors, in order to buy a good reputation." "Why?" asked the London doctor. "Because the money our family earns is not clean. Because our ancestors were the first to set up sweatshops. Although our family seems to be very enthusiastic about charity, it is just a pastime that we only learned in recent years." Strange to say, I didn't read this history from some book on the history of the Barrett family, but I heard about it at... Harvard.

That was the year when I was in my fourth year of undergraduate study. Because I didn’t have enough credits, I had to find a few credits that were easy to get to make up for it.So I took Social Science 108, "History of American Industrial Development," in addition to many other courses.The lecturer was a so-called radical economist named Donald Vogel.This gentleman has long been famous in the history of Harvard because of the profanity in his lectures.Moreover, the courses he taught are very famous, that is: these few credits are simply given away. ("I don't believe in exams. Exams are bastards. They're bastards. They're bastards!" Vogel's famous words always elicited cheers from the students.)

Saying that the classroom is full of seats is still not telling the grand occasion.It should be said that it was overcrowded. Those athletes who did not work hard, those pre-med students who worked too hard, all came to the class, and everyone had the same idea: this class can be attended without homework. Despite Mr. Vogel's "provocative" language in his lectures, most of us usually took the opportunity to take a little trip to Dreamland, or grab a copy of The Scarlet.I was unlucky, but one day I listened with my ears.The topic of his speech that day was the early American textile industry, which was just right to listen to as a lullaby.

"Damn it! And when it comes to the textile industry, there are quite a few 'well-known' bastards from Harvard who play a very disgraceful part in it. Amos Brewster Barrett, for example, is Harvard Class of 1794..." Good guy - isn't this about our family!Did Vogel know I was sitting in class listening to the lectures?Or does he have to tell his students like this every year? I squeezed in my seat and shrunk my body down, but he still kept talking. "In 1814, Amos and some old friends from Harvard teamed up and brought the Industrial Revolution to Fall River, Massachusetts. They built the first large textile factories. Even the workers in the factories were all This is the so-called 'paternalistic management'. In the name of maintaining morality, they gather all the female workers recruited from remote farms to live in dormitories. Of course, the company deducts money for food and shelter. Half of the meager salary was deducted in this way.

"These little girls work eighty hours a week. Barrett and the others don't forget to teach them to live economically. 'Save your money and put it in the bank, girls.' But you know the bank And who opened it?" I really wish I could become a mosquito so I can escape quietly. Don Vogel described the history of the success of the Barrett family business group paragraph by paragraph. The words he described were like a string of cannons, and the firepower was several times stronger than usual.He talked all the way down, and he talked for more than half an hour, which was really more than half an hour of sitting on pins and needles.

In the early nineteenth century, half of the workers in Fall River City were child laborers.As small as five years old.Child workers can only net two yuan a week, adult female workers three yuan, and men seven and a half yuan, which is considered as high as the sky. But if they don't give them all the cash, wouldn't it be a disadvantage to give them all the cash?Part of the wages is paid in vouchers.It goes without saying that the coupons are only available in the store opened by the Barrett family. Vogel gave some examples of how poor working conditions were at the time.For example, if the humidity in the weaving workshop is high, the quality of the woven fabric will be high.Therefore, the boss often sprays some water vapor into the workshop.Even in the hottest summer months, in order to keep the warp and weft yarns moist, all windows in the workshop are closed.So how can the workers have a good impression of Barrett?

"There's one more unreasonable fact that calls your attention," Don Vogel said almost out of breath. "It's not just that the workers' working conditions are so bad and the living environment is so bad - it's not just that there are so many industrial accidents and they don't get any compensation - the most terrible thing is that the workers' wages are so shameful. It's decreasing! Barrett's profits are soaring, but the pitiful wages for workers are decreasing! Because the waves of immigrants are constantly coming in, newcomers will compete to work no matter how low their wages are.

"It's really unreasonable! It's unreasonable! It's unreasonable!" It was that semester, and then one day I went to Radcliffe's library to study.There I met a girl.It's Gianni Cavilelli in the '64 class.Her father was a master pastry chef in Cranston.Her late mother, Teresa Forna Cavilelli, was a girl from a Sicilian family of immigrants who came to America and settled in... Fall River, Massachusetts. "You should understand, right? That's why I hate my family." There was silence for a while. "Let's talk to-morrow at five o'clock," was the London doctor's words.