12. Juni 1889

 

Today is Wednesday. Halfway through the week I believe, only a few more days till it starts all over again. I got relocated from the filter house to the pan house yesterday at the sugar refinery. Boss said it would be good, that I would get paid more and be in a better place. My first step into the hot room said otherwise; I was instantly covered in sweat, almost screaming at the contact of the hot steam with my skin, feeling like I was being boiled alive like a sack of potatoes to make dampfkartoffeln. James told me we boil the sugar mixtures at 112°F. Only four years in the states and I still have yet to manage the odd conversions between metric and U.S. customary units, although my training in math back home in Wiesbaden, Germany tells me it is around 44°C. I met James yesterday, along with Alexander, John, and Thomas. Alexander is the only one who understands my name, coming from Munich a few months ago. Since my arrival in New York, I go by “Stan,” as “Stanislaus” has proven to be too difficult for my American friends to pronounce. James and Thomas have been working in the pan house for a few weeks now and Alexander and John transferred from the packaging house last week. James has been the nicest to me, talking about the weather, how our days are going, and slowly teaching me English. His dad was German, so he knows a bit. So far, my English consists of a few words strung together to make basic conversation and all the words in the world about making sugar. I think I like it here. Williamsburg reminds me of home with busy streets and new automobiles. It is time to go, the sugar won’t make itself.

 

 

19 Juni. 1889

 

It’s been a few days since I last wrote. James was nice enough to gift me a small journal, wrapped in leather with some paper inside, a big change from the narrow book margins I was using to write on. Alexander fell off the catwalk four days ago. I heard him fall but haven’t seen him since. He has been replaced by Anton, who arrived from Poland on a boat just two days ago. Alexander is gone for good. While I have not heard of his condition, any logical man would understand a fall from the catwalks is a fall to your death, just like George Havemeyer. We drop like flies here, never knowing when we will be crushed, burned, impaled, or overcome by the dust from the sugar. Sometimes I stop and wonder why I do this job. Why did I leave my family and come on the long journey across the Atlantic to work here? “The work is good,” they said. “Life in America is better,” they told me. I begged mutter and vater to let me come, seeking a life away from the Austro-Prussian War. I would be ashamed to show my parents how I live now, sleeping practically in a box with no running water, lying awake at night due to the cries of my neighbors stricken with cholera. I have been lucky to avoid cholera and tuberculosis, but I am counting down the days till I fall ill. Every penny of the $1.75 I make every week at the refinery goes towards saving for a place separate from the tenements, like the place James lives in, small, but clean and quiet.

 

 

20 Juni. 1889

 

There have been talks of another strike, just like the one we had three years ago for higher wages and union recognition, whatever that means. James says we work too much, going in early and leaving late at night, exhausted and worn out from a twelve-hour day of boiling mixtures and roasting sugar grains. We do not have the means to strike again. The bosses never listen to our demands, sitting by while we throw rocks at the police and get into fights. They are smart; they know we are too poor to not work for days. They sit in piles of money as we labor in the pan house, breathing the hot, thick air combined with the scalding steam from the tanks, coughing, suffocating, and fainting from the heat. Instead of allowing us to work in better conditions, we are given beer. The cold beer helps with the dehydration, as James calls it, but I find myself purchasing it every day. Anton told me he heard of some guys from the filter house who were unable to pay their rents last month, spending all their money on beer at work, not being able to afford food and shelter for their families. I will not become like them. I must not become like them

 

 

21 Juni. 1889

 

Pierre joined our group today. Thomas fainted at work yesterday from the heat and was brought away to the hospital. Pierre has spent the day telling us about his travels. He spoke about watching the Eiffel Tower open for the first time in Paris, the last place he visited before traveling and arriving in the Lower East Side where he took a ferry over to Williamsburg. He came for work, he said, hearing of job opportunities his Irish friends were getting at some sugar company called Havemeyers & Elder, our company. I wish I had more light in my room. I have one light that barely works, struggling to illuminate my paper as I write this entry. There has been talk of newer houses being built, only available to me if I become rich by tomorrow. Maybe I will try to get some sleep today, I must rest up to prepare for tomorrow. It is supposed to be extra hot outside, meaning the pan house will be one step further away from being comfortable and one step closer to feeling like hell.

 

 

26 Juni. 1889

 

I started today like any other day; wake up, eat a small breakfast, and dreadfully walk through the bustling streets on my way to the refinery. I recite the Lord’s Prayer on my way, reminding myself I am living how God wants me to.

 

Vater unser im Himmel,

Geheiligt werde dein Name;

Dein Reich komme;

Dein Wille geschehe,

Wie im Himmel so auf Erden.

Unser tägliches Brot gib uns heute.

Und vergib uns unsere Schuld,

Wie auch wir vergeben unsern Schuldigern;

Und führe uns nicht in Versuchung,

Sondern erlöse uns von dem Bösen.

 

Denn dein ist das Reich und die Kraft

Und die Herrlichkeit in Ewigkeit.

Amen.

 

Today was the day I finally fainted, standing next to the towering vats of raw sugar and water like I always do, observing the temperatures and making sure not to mess everything up. I cannot be the cause of another fire like the one that happened three years before I came. Some of the men on the floor recount the horror watching the buildings go up in flames. I cannot mess up. One minute I was whistling the catchy tune of “Frère Jacques,” a nursery rhyme Pierre taught me the other day, the next I felt myself leaning backwards before the world became black. It is a weird feeling; I feel as if I am floating. Possibly floating in a pool of molasses, floating in the Atlantic, floating in the sky. I am transported back and forth, from my small room in the tenement to the vineyards I would run through as a child back in Wiesbaden, then to a strange world with weird buildings and odd-looking automobiles crowding the streets. The buildings are covered in glass, people walking in the streets free of wrinkles and pale, leathered skin that has slowly covered my body. They hold small devices in their hands, something made of glass and metal that lights up brighter than my lamp at home. In the distance, the finishing house stands tall with the tower overlooking the East River. As I travel closer, I notice the packaging house is gone, along with many of the other buildings. Gone, lost forever, I realize I am no longer in the place I work every day. I am in a strange world where the sugar refinery is not the main focus of society. Am I alive? Is this a dream? I am lost, not sure of where I am or what I am doing, only wishing to be brought back to the place I know with the men I work with and the sugar I refine every day.  

 

 

Works Cited

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Cobb, Geoff. “Horrific History Lesson: Working Conditions at the Domino Sugar Refinery.” Greenpointers, 6 Nov. 2017, https://greenpointers.com/2017/11/06/working-domino-sugar-refinery/. 

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Cobb, Geoffrey Owen. “The Domino Sugar Plant.” Historicgreenpoint, 2 June 2014, https://historicgreenpoint.wordpress.com/2014/06/02/the-domino-sugar-plant/.

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“Local Manufacturers. The Interesting Process of Sugar Making.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 17 Aug. 1884, p. 10, https://bklyn.newspapers.com/clip/3460469/brooklyn-eagle-17-aug-1884/. 

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“Notes on New York's Housing History.” The Architectural League NY, https://archleague.org/article/new-york-housing/.

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Raiford, Leigh, and Robin J. Hayes. “Remembering the Workers of the Domino Sugar Factory.” The Atlantic, The Atlantic Monthly Group, 3 July 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/07/remembering-the-workers-of-the-domino-sugar-factory/373930/. 

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“Still Defiant. The Sugar House Men Will Not Return to Work.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 4 May 1886, p. 6, https://www.newspapers.com/clip/7575621/1886maystrike-still-on/. 

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 “The Lord's Prayer (German).” Lords-Prayer-Words.com, https://www.lords-prayer-words.com/lord_german_translation.html.