POLISH-AMERICANS IN THE CIGAR INDUSTRY
Detroit in the industrial age: more than automobiles. In addition to automobile production, the city was a center for stove manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and tobacco and cigar company growth. The tobacco industry grew simultaneously with the rise of Polish immigration to the United States. When Polish-Americans became the city’s largest ethnic group by the time of the 1920 U.S. Census, the cigar industry had also become the city’s third largest industry by number of people employed. Though some Jews owned cigar companies, most were owned by Polish men, who secured positions for relatives and friends from Poland, who then immigrated to the United States to begin working, as well as for those within the Detroit area. (5.) This is most likely due to the ease of speaking their native Polish language in the workplace, and not having to be fluent in English -- one of the reasons discussed in the previous page.The relationship between tobacco production and Polish women became so strong that some cigar factories even relocated to Detroit’s east side. This area was home to the city’s concentration of Poles, and included the Chene Street neighborhood. Polish became the common language of conversation on the factory floor. By 1937, six cigar factories occupied a four square mile area around the streets Milwaukee, Grandy, St. Aubin and Warren Avenue. The 10 largest cigar companies employed 3,896 women in 1913. (6.)


WOMEN VS. MEN 
According to HistoricDetroit.org, the ten largest cigar producers employed 302 men in 1913. In contrast, these same companies employed a total of 3,896 women, making tobacco production the largest employer of women in the city. 
Who were these women? The vast majority of workers were single, Polish women under 20 years of age who lived in very close proximity to the factories. Their income often supported their families. Women cigar rollers were able to earn $25-40 a week, a respectable wage for the time. However, they earned much less than men of the same job. This wage gap can be explained by the unionization of men, since women had no unions at this time and were not permitted to become members of men's labor unions. (6.)

WORKPLACE GRIEVANCES AND CONDITIONS
In addition to unfair compensation between the sexes, there was also no formal training period for new tobacco employees. New workers learned on the job, and it was standard practice for companies to withhold all wages for the first six months until an employee was performing to par. If an employee quit for any reason before this period was over, all income earned was forfeited. 

Securing a job was the first of their worries. Workplace conditions of the cigar industry were almost unbearable. Workers.org describes these circumstances: "Toxic tobacco dust was always in the air, with ventilation poor to nonexistent. The few available toilets were of a primitive type or, if modern, dirty and often broken. The factory owners provided no soap or hot water. Sexual harassment from foremen was routine." (6.)

In the "Detroit Monthly," an article written by Richard Bak further elaborates on the working conditions of cigar factories: "workers couldn't open windows because air would dry the stock," which "produced many head and throat colds due to humidifiers that made a damp environment."

A conservation with Josephine Bielawski, a Polish cigar worker says that her employment was a way to contribute to family income. She says,

 

"You can always tell the cigar workers that are the feeders because their faces are marked from the tobacco dust. You don't stay pretty for long if you work one of those machines." (1.)

Further aggravating factory conditions was the economic disaster of the Great Depression. Following the 1929 stock market crash, cigar worker's wages were cut from 35-50%. The salary of women in the cigar industry was among among the lowest in all of Detroit. (6.) 

 

THE CULTURE BEHIND UNEQUAL PAY
Men in business leadership positions hired women because they worked for less compensation than their male counterparts. But some men found the presence in any woman in industry to be a double-edged sword. Kessler-Harris also cites examples of men's fear of losing their jobs to women. Newspapers had a role in rationalizing and spreading this fear. A Newark Star Eagle 1925 reads, "AWAY GOES ANOTHER MAN'S JOB," in response to a woman becoming the secretarial assistant to a senator.  This internalized fear justified management's decision to pay women less--it disincentivized them from permanently staying in the workforce. 

Why was it acceptable, legally, culturally, and historically, to pay a woman less than a man in the same occupation? Women were not expected to have long-term careers in production industry. Many single woman workers quit their jobs within 2-4 years in order to get married, maintain a household, and raise a family. In turn, these short-term female workers never qualified for a pension, paid vacation, or other job benefits that come with seniority and experience. 

In "Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States," Alice Kessler-Harris explains cultural expectations for women that continued to be the norm, even when women were entering the workforce in larger numbers than ever before. She says, "[these women] were expected to find their rewards not in high pay and promotion, but in glamour, paternalistic amenities, and the opportunity to serve." However, Kessler-Harris goes on to say that the working women of the 20th century were not easily satisfied with these assumptions, and often took up their own measures in labor activism. I believe that the same rationale described by Kessler-Harris may be applied to the women who led and particpated in the cigar industry strike in Detroit in 1937. (7.)

 

 

​RESEARCH QUESTION: WHAT WAS BEHIND THE MOTIVATIONS OF CIGAR WORKERS TO STRIKE? THE CULTURAL VALUE OF HOME OWNERSHIP.

 

Why was it important to Polish women to challenge the status quo? Why was unfair and uneqal pay something these women were willing to strike for? I believe that part of this reason lies in cultural roots. A further article in the "Polish Eaglet" elaborates the importance of a woman's contribution to family income because of the goal of home ownership. 

 

One feature of 20th century Polish immigrant culture is the significance they placed on home ownership. Polish home ownerships rates were consistently high, especially when compared to other ethnicities in Detroit, like Jews, who were more mobile and place significantly less importantance on owning a home. In fact, it is estimated that about 44% of the Polish community owned a home in 1900. Surely, many not included in this percentage were also working toward this goal as well.

 

So, many Polish women worked in order to contribute to a family's goal of home ownership. Single Polish women donated their income to a family goal. But not all cigar workers were single. Married Polish women combined their income with their husband's in order to purchase a home. The cultural value of home ownership in the Polish community created a working structure around the obtainable jobs at a cigar plant that were close to home and required no English. (5.)

 

 

 

 

REFERENCES:

 

(6.) Historic Detroit. "San Telmo Cigar Manufacturing Company Plant No. 2." Accessed November 0, 2014. San Telmo Cigar Manufacturing Company Plant No. 2.

 

(7.) Kessler-Harris, Alice. Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Accessed November 10, 2014. http://books.google.com/books?id=fzIgv1DxZG0C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.