By the 1970s, many Spanish-speaking immigrants had found work in the textile industry in the U.S. They still make up a large part of the workforce in what remains of the garment industry here today.
On loan from the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives
Plate 4 of “A Harlot’s Progress,” a series of six engravings made by Hogarth showing the rise and eventual fall of a woman named Polly (or Molly). Although she arrives in London seeking employment as a seamstress, she is misled into a life of prostitution by Elizabeth Needham, a well-known Madam of the time. Polly eventually dies of syphilis. In the scene in this engraving, Polly has been sent to Bridewell prison and is beating hemp. Like Flora Montgomerie, these stories were used to warn women against the fate that awaited them if they wandered too far astray.
On loan from the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives
