by Marguerite Stanley
Submitted by Matt Verona [mtverona@flash.net]
on Saturday 25 september 1999 05:01 CET
To BELGIUM-ROOTS-L@rootsweb.com and this site
Before her marriage Mrs. Marguerite Stanley Corl (1889 to 1939) was a student at the University of Michigan. This was in the early 20th century. She wrote these papers as part of her work in Sociology. Copies were made available to us for the QUARTERLY through the courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Corl of Maumee. Mr. Corl is the son of the author of these essays. A picture of Marguerite is also available. 1. THE BELGIANS IN MAUMEE, OHIO
Maumee is a town of two thousand inhabitants, about ten miles from Toledo, Ohio.
The only manufacturing industry there now is a glass factory, at present in the hands of the Case and Merry Company. It has been there for a number of years, has burned down once and been rebuilt, and was partially destroyed at one time by a small cyclone. It has gone through vicissitudes of other sorts too. It was originally run by a Toledo company, but the men became dissatisfied, and, under the leadership of old Amos Lefevre, formed a cooperative company which soon proved a failure. Case and Merry then bought the plant, and have run it ever since.
There are perhaps two hundred Belgians employed in the factory, and they, with their families, form quite an important part of the town. I have worked in the bank where they were paid off, and naturally have talked quite a good deal with them. They are very polite - they never failed to remove their hats when they came in the door, and above all, they never forgot the "please" and "thank you" which so many American men neglect in their business dealings. Then I taught in the public schools for almost two years, and came in touch with the foreign children there. I also, at one time, went twice a week to the home of a Madam Fontaine to give her lessons in English in return for practice in French conversation. Through her, I saw and heard a great deal about the home life of the foreign element in Maumee. Another source of information was my doctor-father's practice - many of his patients are Belgians, and, as his office is right in the house, we quite often came in contact with them there.
The factory itself is on the edge of town, on the Miami and Erie Canal, and between the Clover Leaf and Wabash railroads. It is not a very well-built structure -it is of wood, covered with sheets of corrugated tin or some metal. The principal part of the building is the big rectangular room which contains the "Tank" - in immense stone and cement affair in which the silica, soda and broken glass are melted. The furnace is underneath, and the men who work there are as grimy and disreputable in appearance as the stokers on an ocean liner. At one end of the tank is a crane with an automatic arrangement which dumps the proper proportion of the components of the glass into the tank. The only admittance allowed the public is on the second floor, where the process of keeping the fire going and the tank filled may be watched from a little above where the actual work is going on. The place is quite open and airy - it is kept as cool as it can be with all the heat radiating from the white-hot mass in the tank, and good ventilation is necessary to carry off the gasses which issue from it.
Over the pit at one end of which the coal heavers work, are many narrow platforms, three or four planks wide, perhaps, with a somewhat greater distance between them, and on each platform is stationed a man. At the end, near an iron "cooler," stands another, slightly younger, sometimes not much more than a boy. He takes the blow-pipe from the hands of the blower, cools it in the running water, and goes up to the tank, opens a small door, and sticks the pipe in, turning it gently all the while. He then brings it out, puts it in a mould, and turns it until the mass is about evenly distributed at the end of the pipe. He repeats his first operation and again moulds the soft mass to the proper shape.
This process is called gathering, and the men, gatherers. They are learning the trade, and for a good many years the good old Belgian blowers refused to teach anyone but their own sons or boys of their own nationality, trying to keep the knowledge of the craft from the Americans. As soon as the gatherer has collected and moulded a suitable amount of the soft, taffylike glass, he hands the pipe over to the blower.
He, in his turn, stands on the narrow platform, and swings the pipe with its burden at the end, down through the opening between the platforms, and begins to blow. A tiny bubble in the center of the glass begins to swell, the pipe is swung gently from side to side like the pendulum of a clock, and gradually there appears a hollow glass cylinder, with one end slightly rounded and the other shaped like this, /\ the neck being where it starts at the end of the blowpipe. Now the blower may either dexterously swing the cylinder into a position over a shutter-like arrangement near the furnace door, and touch it to the iron, or he may employ the services of the "snapper", but some substance must be brought in contact with the cylinder at the center of the rounded end, and a hole punctured in it. The edges expand, until the cylinder is straight at that end - it is then swung onto a wooden tray on wheels, which has grooves enough to hold six or eight cylinders.
There, a man who is employed specially for this purpose, marks them, then takes a thin iron bar, dips it in the molten glass, and girds the neck of the cylinder with a thin strip of the soft stuff. He then taps the end with the rod, and it breaks off as neatly as can be. He then takes another rod, heated red hot at the end, runs it along the length of the cylinder as it lies in the wooden trough or groove, then he spits on his finger, touches one end of the line heated by the bar, and the glass cracks along the entire length, in a clean cut, straight line. The cylinder is then taken to the flattening room, where it is put into an oven, on smooth stones, and gently heated and rubbed with a mop-like affair, until it is absolutely flat and smooth. From here, a mechanical device takes it, and dips it into several acid baths, where it loses its begrimed, opaque appearance, and becomes clear as we see it when we buy it in the store. From the acid baths, it goes to the cutting room in huge sheets. Here a cutter lifts a big piece, balances it in a groove in the edge of the cutting table, and then simply lets it fall. You expect to see it shiver into a thousand pieces, but the even air pressure lets it down gently, and it is very seldom that a piece is broken.
The cutter then, by means of a diamond or emery wheel, divides it into pieces of prescribed size, cutting so that as little as possible is wasted. The tables themselves are lined, just as kindergarten tables are measured off into inch squares, to facilitate exactness. The last place is the shipping room, where the boxes are made, and the glass packed and stored until it is shipped.
Ten years ago, the wages earned by the glass men were very good - now they are scarcely enough to support them. The old system was to pay the men "market money" each week for current expenses, and "settlement money" at the end of each month. The market money of an ordinary blower was twenty dollars a week, a cutter's was fifteen, a clapper's twelve, while the gatherers ranged from seven and a half to ten. The two men who blew double strength glass got forty dollars a week. Then at the end of the month, the amounts due the men were reckoned up, and the settlement made. The largest amount I remember paying was to Jean Botte, who blew double strength glass - it was three hundred and twelve dollars, and that with his one hundred and sixty dollars market money, made his month's work bring him four hundred and seventy-two dollars. Checks for the ordinary blower's settlements ranged from one hundred to one hundred and eighty dollars, while the cutters were only a little less.
The settlement was calculated on the piece work done - each cylinder was chalk-marked into the blower's number, and careful record was kept by the talesman. If the blower was slow or careless, his gatherer suffered with him, for a broken cylinder didn't count, of course, for either of them. The system developed a great deal of rivalry - there resulted several accidents, where men were seriously burned with hot glass, which rumor said were unnecessary and malicious - but I presume some spur is really an incentive to better work. They are merely paid by the week now, and the owners say the results are not so good, but they require a certain amount, and so are enabled to regulate their out-put, which was quite erratic before.
About four years ago, the wages were terribly cut - glass blowing machines had been invented, which do the work as well, and much more cheaply it is claimed. Using these machines as a threat, the manufacturers reduced the wages to the minimum. The Amalgamated Window Glass Workers of America (to which all these men belong and pay their monthly dues) stood out as long as they could, but it soon became a question of accepting the pittance, or starving, so they went to work.
A great many of them who had saved a little, tried other branches of business - one disposed of his government bonds, and started a billiard room and tobacco shop in Toledo - it ultimately failed, and he and his three sons had to go back to the factory because they knew nothing else. Another man bought a farm, and is doing fairly well. One case has always seemed so pitiful to me - that of an old man and his four sons, who lived quite near us. Three sons worked, and all made good money, so the father took care of his garden and his pigeons, with no thought of care. The youngest boy was in high school, and was not only bright, but very ambitious. He talked confidently of college, and, had things kept on as they were, he would have gone. But the slump came - two of the brothers were married, and the one remaining one couldn't earn enough for the three, so the poor boy had to go to work. He got a job in the broom factory, and has started a postal savings account to enable him to finish high school some day in the future, when he's saved enough, if he ever can.
The Belgians, in relation to their money, can be divided into two pretty distinct classes - those who save their money and those who don't. There are many of them who are sober and industrious, who save all they can. The most usual method was a bank account which they used to buy a government bond as soon as enough accrued. They have great faith in the government, and the freedom from taxation appeals to them also. It is probably the best way for them to invest their money ~ otherwise, they'd be the constant prey of sharpers of all sorts. There used to be many inquiries for a postal savings bank such as they were accustomed to put their funds in, in Belgium, but there was no such institution when they had money to save. They do have accounts now, but rather small ones - not at all in proportion to the large amounts they used to send to relatives in Belgium to deposit for them there. A great deal of money used to be sent over to "the old country" at the end of every month - much more was sent away than was deposited in the town. The banks they regarded rather with suspicion, though only a few of them had their checks cashed in gold, so that they might hoard it easily.
A great many of the lower class used to ask to have a check of anywhere from ten to eighty dollars paid to them in silver dollars, so that it became necessary to get a special supply of these heavy, cumbersome pieces of silver from Toledo, each pay day. We began to ask the reason why, and found that those men used the dollars as chips in some sort of a gambling game! The spenders, as distinct from the savers, seemed to have no object in life but to squander their money as soon as they could, but they were most of them the young, wild, unmarried men, whose actions didn't affect a family. The saloons were in full blast each Saturday night, and all day Sunday. Imagine a town of two thousand supporting eleven saloons, each paying a thousand dollar license tax!
The Belgians, however, are not the sole patrons - they probably form only a small percentage - but Maumee is the first "wet" spot north of three big "dry" counties, and there are three interurban lines running through the town. which bring literally hundreds of men into town every Saturday and Sunday. There is no Sunday closing law - that is, they are allowed to keep open until six in the evening. Most of the Belgians drink beer with their meals, and between them, but the percentage of "drunks" is smaller than that among the native American population, and these few are from the riff-raff almost without exception. They are inveterate patrons of the nickel shows - the bills change three times a week, and I'm sure not many of them miss a one. The Pattie Freres pictures appeal to them particularly - often they are situated in "Brux Elles," which most of them seem to know, and not a few of them recognize the various streets and buildings of Paris, on the screen
They are surprisingly well educated - almost all of them read French and write in a copper-plate hand that would put most Americans to shame. The children that I had in school were very intelligent, and learned the language in a remarkably short time. One boy, Franz Aigrisse, had come over when he was seven, and he talked without a sign of an accent, though he occasionally slipped on some English idiom. I had him in the eighth grade and he was only thirteen when he graduated from it, so he evidently had not wasted much time with the difficulties of the language. He was quick and appreciative, but he had constantly to be repressed. He was an only child - his mother and father did not speak English, and he acted as interpreter for them, and for a great many of the other people, and his idea of his own importance had come to be quite enlarged. It was quite a problem to keep his head at its normal size, without ducking his initiative, and spoiling his ever- present interest in everything and everybody.
The one I liked best of all my foreign pupils was Fernand Lefevre - he had absolutely the best head for arithmetic of any child in school. He practically never failed to solve a problem, and used to beg me to look up "stumpers," as he called them. He was in the seventh grade, which shared the room with the eighth, and he often used to call me to his seat, and show me the correct answer to some problem that was puzzling the eighth grade in their work at the board. I had to reduce grammar and diagramming to a mathematical basis before it interested him in the least - history he liked immensely - but I think France and Belgium were the only parts of geography that he ever really studied.
It was actually fun to teach that class about Belgium, for they'd bring numerous postal cards from home, and ask their mothers and fathers about the things the book said, and bring back some startling and apparently contradictory answers. The Battle of Waterloo, its monument, and Napoleon's whole life and history formed the basis for innumerable papers and talks, merely because the battle was fought in Belgium. It was very easy to arouse and keep their interest, and I really enjoyed their hesitating talk, and twisted English immensely.
The way they transformed their names into English quite distressed me - the Guillaume family became plain Williams, the Vironets called it "Vironette" instead of the old French "Veronay," the St. Aubin's became Santibands, while the Lambilliottes dropped the soft liquid 11's and became "Lam-bill-ettes." I also used to try to impress upon the youngsters, the desirability of knowing two languages -how I'd gone to college to learn how to read and speak French, and was proud to know what they seemed ashamed of and anxious to forget. Fernand's father taught him each night to read and write in French - most of the others could only speak, not read or write it. I remember in spelling one time, we had "cafe noir" as one of the words. I always pronounced the list for them before they began studying, and when I pronounced this, one of the Belgian boys piped up "My, that's what we call coffee without milk." The mere printed form had meant nothing to him, because he couldn't read even the commonest words of the language he spoke every day. Fernand read a number of books I'd had in college, and we used to attempt conversations after school, quite often, but on very simple subjects, so that I need not display my wide ignorance.
For almost a year, I went twice a week to see a little Belgian woman by the name of Lydia Lefevre Fontaine. She had lived in Rausart, in the province of Hainault in Belgium, and had married Armand Fontaine, a glass cutter, and come with him to America on their honeymoon. They'd landed and gone directly to Niagara Falls, as all true American honey mooners do, then to Charleston, West Virginia, where he had worked for a while, and then they came to Maumee, through the influence of some friends already there. Lydia had been a teacher in Belgium, and was well educated. The Belgian schools are conducted in French, not in the patois which is known as Belgian, so we could talk easily. Of course, her accent wasn't pure Parisian, but it enabled me to talk a little to the foreigners in their own tongue, and helped quite a little in my work in the bank.
The men always greeted me with a hearty "Bo' jou', Mam'selle," and if any difficulty of payment came up, I'd always try at least to help them out. I met Lydia through the medium of the Presbyterian church. Most of the Belgians don't go to church at all, though a few are devout Catholics, but Lydia was a Presbyterian. She and Armand used to come every Sunday and sit through the service, not understanding a word, but occasionally singing softly the French words to some familiar hymn tune. She, through Franz, asked the minister to get some one to teach her English, and I volunteered.
This began our friendship, for it really developed into that. and through her, I learned almost all I know of their home life. She was greatly pleased when I left the bank and began to teach, for she also had been an "instructrice", and she often came to visit my school. The system here is widely different from that of Belgium. There the teachers live in the school, much as they do in private schools, or in institutions here. They likewise teach only one or two subjects instead of the whole curriculum - a plan which is being tried in the city schools of America now. She has gone back to Belgium now, and is teaching again. Armand could not earn as much here as at home, and not enough there to please her, it seemed.
The home life of the Belgians in Maumee is not at all bad - the housing conditions are excellent - there is a great number of small frame cottages erected specially for them, and they are kept in pretty fair repair. Most of the foreigners merely rent, for they are transients. They go from one "glass town" to another - not that the wages are better, for they are uniform, but because that is their disposition. There are many glass towns - Charleston, West Virginia, Mt. Vernon, Ohio, CoffeeviUe, Kansas, Dunkirk, Indiana - that form a regular itinerary for these people - they are here one year, and there the next. Many of them used to go back to Belgium in the summer - a great many of them took advantage of the special rates at the time of the Brussels Exposition, and an exceptionally large number went that year.
Their vacation is necessarily long, for the intense heat in the factory makes it impossible for them to work after it gets hot. They spend the summer in various ways - some work on the farms roundabout - some of them visit -often whole families descend upon their relatives to spend weeks at a time. All the men fish, I think - you see continual processions going riverward at almost any hour of the day, and on their return, they usually seem to have had pretty good luck. Fish lessen the meat bill, of course. But to return to the homes. The sittingroom is usually the dining-room, too, unless they eat in the kitchen. The stove is always bright and shining, and everything is neat. I've been in perhaps a dozen Belgian homes, and have found them, as a whole, much better cared for than those of the lower middle class Americans.
They always have dogs about - most of them are beagle hounds - and many of them keep pigeons, which they fly on Sunday. The birds are expressed in wire cages to some town where a friend liberates them, and on Sunday anxious groups of men stand around, and watch for the homecoming. It really is quite thrilling - scan the sky as you will, you can't see the bird as it comes - suddenly the "trap" gives a click, and in the cot you see the palpitating bunch of feathers that has come back straight as a die to its home. Occasionally the bird stays outside - then there is much commotion among the on-lookers, for it don't count until the bird actually enters the cot - several times prizes have been lost because the bird loitered outside. The pigeon race is an old world sport - quite an innocent diversion - the prize is merely a purse made up by subscription, and is only large enough to add zest to the contest. The women are treated pretty well by the men - much more respectfully than by some other races of foreigners.
Their chief detestation is putting up lunches for the men - an every day necessity. The men work on eight-hour shifts that are changed each week, so that one week, a man works from twelve to eight, from eight to four the next and four to twelve the week after - but always he must have a meal put up, and it must be a good substantial one, too. If it is to be hot, it must be carried to him during the shift - so many small boys and devoted wives go to the factory each day at meal-times.
The child labor laws are not violated to any extent there - some boys under sixteen help in the packing and shipping rooms, but the other work is too heavy. In the Libbey Cut Glass Company's factory, in Toledo, however, one department blows the tiny bulbs for the smaller sized electric lights, furnished by them to the General Electric Company, and I know positively that they employ boys of eleven and twelve, in direct violation of the law. I once saw them, after swearing to an employee that I was not an inspector, and had no connection with any child labor agitation. The man was a designer in the factory -1 knew him quit well - and he took me in, under a "Positively No Admittance" sign. In my capacity a teacher, I once had to certify to Femand Lefevre's age, in order that he might get work in a wheel factory during vacation. That was the only time I've ever come in direct touch with the child labor laws. The women do not learn the language as readily as the men and children, because they have less opportunity to mingle with the people who speak English. My French lady as I called her, took the initiative in order that she might learn. I remember one funny remark she once made that illustrates more than one point in the struggle to learn language. She asked me what kind of butter garony butter was. I couldn't imagine what she meant, puzzled my brains, and finally asked where she'd heard it. She screwed up her mouth, and in a mimicking, imitative way, said, "Oh, a man come in and say to Steve (the grocer) 'Garony butter?' " As she said it, in her guttural tones, it was perfectly evident he'd said, "Got any butter?", and she'd heard it wrong. As a class, then, I should say the Belgians are sober, law abiding citizens - though the recent introduction of glass blowing machines, and the consequent slump in wages has reduced the number who have applied for naturalization papers. They are honest and industrious, and do not differ greatly from the Americans in appearance, except that the girls mature and fade somewhat earlier. They admire Americans greatly, and are willing and anxious to learn their customs. Altogether they seem to me to be easy and excellent material for assimilation. I'm sure they'll make better citizens than a great many of our native born Americans.
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