The Anonymous Letter Writer

She knew she didn’t have a choice. Her father, of course, was right. They needed the money and could not afford to send her to school past the sixth grade. Not to mention the fact that he did not believe girls needed an education to raise babies, which, in his opinion, was all women were good for.

After finishing sixth grade in the year 1910, Breanna joined her mother working in a textile factory in the lower East side of New York City where they lived in a crowded tenement apartment, along with many other Irish immigrants. They moved to America when she was two years old, and her brother was on the way.

The first day in the textile mill, her mother tried to help her, but she had a quota to complete and could not spend much time with Breanna. She learned by making mistakes, which they could not tolerate for long. She went back the next day and made sure not to make the same mistakes.

The foremen walked the aisles watching women and girls at sewing machines all day long. There were no breaks except to go to the bathroom, but the doors to the hallway were often locked so people could not leave. They worked twelve-to-fourteen-hour shifts and they were not paid very well. The only people who would put up with the conditions were desperate immigrants who could not get anything else.

Breanna was just getting used to going to work with her mother. They had started playing games to see who could produce the most garments, until everything changed in moment. Time is a funny thing. One moment everything can be perfect, and the next your whole world can turn upside down. It only takes one moment to change your entire life. For Breanna, that moment was July 16th, 1910, at precisely 7:00 PM.

It was a sweltering day in the 7th floor factory which had very little ventilation. The women begged the foremen to open the windows, and one even tried, but the windows had not been opened since they painted them and appeared to be glued shut by the paint. Breanna’s mother, who was sitting toward the back of the room, noticed the smell first. When she looked behind her, she could see smoke coming from the bins of scrap material. Quickly, she looked to Breanna in the middle of the room as another women screamed, “Fire!” Panic ensued as the women charged the locked doors. Breanna’s mother motioned to another woman to watch after Breanna.

“Breanna!” called the other woman as Breanna was looking for her mother through the chaos.

“Come with me,” the woman cried.

“But, my mother,” said Breanna, looking toward the back.

“Breanna, go with her,” shouted her mother from behind. “I am right behind you.”

Breanna followed the woman to a side door where there was a crowd of people pushing at the door. Suddenly it was released and a flood of people pushed through. It was the staircase leading to the roof. As Breanna stepped up the stairs, she looked back searching for her mother. She didn’t see her. Then she saw a glimpse of her just as the door slammed between them.

“No,” shouted Breanna. She pushed through the crowd to descend the stairs and tried to open the door. She couldn’t.

“Mama!” she exclaimed.

Her mother’s friend came to her aid.

“Come dear, you must come to the roof. The door is getting hot,” she said.

And it was. The whole floor was engulfed in flames, and it was getting harder to breathe. Reluctantly, and in tears, Breanna left the door and climbed the steps to the roof.

“Don’t worry. They will put the fire out. She’ll make it,” the woman said with little confidence.

She didn’t make it. Breanna’s mother never left the factory, forcing Breanna to go on without her, but how could she do that? Breanna laid in bed for a week while her father pressured her to get back to work.

“We all miss her, but the sooner we get back to normal the easier it will be,” said her father.

What did he know, she thought. There was no normal without her, but she couldn’t lay in bed forever. Finally, she started to look for another job. As she walked the streets looking for work something was different. People handing out pamphlets, standing on soap boxes lined the streets surrounding the factories. Breanna stopped to listen to one woman.

“I know the conditions you’re working under, and they are not acceptable. Dogs are treated better than the workers in New York’s factories. The owners only care about their own profit with not a care in the world for the people responsible for their profit. Is that fair?”

The things she said were completely true and Breanna knew her mother died for someone else’s profit, but to speak it aloud was suicide. Who were these women who could afford to take on the powerful factory owners? Breanna agreed with the woman, but she was looking for a job and could not be associated with them. She turned to go home when the woman stepped off her soap box.

“Join the International Ladies Garment Workers Union if you want to find out more,” said the woman, handing Breanna a pamphlet. “I’m Abagail. What’s your name?”

“Breanna. Thank you,” said Breana, quickly stashing the pamphlet in her satchel and briskly walking away.

Breanna found a new job and over the next few months the protesters gathered bigger crowds. It seemed like they were on every street corner. Things were changing. People were willing to risk their jobs to create change. One day after work, as Breanna was walking by a protester on a soap box, a book fell out of her satchel.

“Excuse me, Miss,” said protester, picking up the book. Breanna kept walking. She did not want to be seen with a unionizer.

“You dropped your book,” said the protester. Breanna turned around.

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Breanna as she reached for the book.

“You can read and write?” asked the woman.

“Yes ma’am,” I love reading.

Why don’t you stop by this address. We could use a writer.” The woman wrote down an address on the back of a pamphlet and handed it to Breanna.

While Breanna did not want any trouble, she was curious about how writing could help them, so she went to the address a couple of days later, just to get more information.

When she arrived, she was greeted by Abagail, the first protester she met when she was looking for work. Breanna told her about her encounter days before.

“Yes. We can use a good letter writer. Many of our member have very little education or do not speak English very well, but they want to write letters to Congress. We are looking for someone they can dictate letters to. Would you be interested? All the letters will be anonymous. No one’s name will ever appear."

Over the next few months, Breanna heard atrocious stories about deplorable working conditions. She wrote hundreds of letters.

Finally, a new law was passed to ensure the safety of factory workers and require fire escapes installed in all factories. Breanna felt her mother would be proud.

Meanwhile, her father was dating a teacher in Brooklyn. One day he announced,

“We are moving to Brooklyn where you can go back to school.”

It was like a dream come true. Breanna was thrilled.