Four or five miles to the eastward lay the lake, and over this the bitter winds came raging. Sometimes the thermometer would fall to ten or twenty degrees below zero at night, and in the morning the streets would be piled with snowdrifts up to the first-floor windows. The streets through which our friends had to go to their work were all unpaved and full of deep holes and gullies; in summer, when it rained hard, a man might have to wade to his waist to get to his house; and now in winter it was no joke getting through these places, before light in the morning and after dark at night. They would wrap up in all they owned, but they could not wrap up against exhaustion; and many a man gave out in these battles with the snowdrifts, and lay down and fell asleep.
And if it was bad for the men, one may imagine how the women and children fared. Some would ride in the cars, if the cars were running; but when you are making only five cents an hour, as was little Stanislovas, you do not like to spend that much to ride two miles. The children would come to the yards with great shawls about their ears, and so tied up that you could hardly find them–and still there would be accidents. One bitter morning in February the little boy who worked at the lard machine with Stanislovas came about an hour late, and screaming with pain. They unwrapped him, and a man began vigorously rubbing his ears; and as they were frozen stiff.
From “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair
We are about to get over a frigid season in Chicago. Most of us have gone through the freezing weather without any significant hardship. Heating, air conditioning, lovely homes, and decent cars can be taken for granted. Yet, we should pay tribute to those who built Chicago from the bare ground. In this paragraph, Upton Sinclair describes the deplorable living conditions of the working class in our town in the early twenty century: “In summer, when it rained hard, a man might have to wade to his waist to get to his house; and now in winter … they would wrap up in all they owned, but they could not wrap up against exhaustion; and many a man gave out in these battles with the snowdrifts, and lay down and fell asleep.”
I salute these heroes and heroines, who built a spectacular city and lost their lives in the process. Their sacrifice made our comfortable lifestyle possible. Does anyone wish to complain about this winter in Chicago?
