donors
The Ellen M. Violett & Mary P. R. Thomas Foundation, Inc Jill Tran Litsa Tsitsera anonymous First Priority Club Marilyn & Meyer Ackerman Eleanor Aitken Laura Altschuler Carmen Anthony Earl Bailey Judith Barlow Larry Beers Robert & Ellie Berlin Lori & Rick Berman Mary & Jeffrey Bijur Evelyn Bishop Steven Blier Allan & Joan Blumenthal Barbara & Ronald Blumenthal Constance Boardman Rose-Marie Boller & Webb Turner Lori & Rick Borman Len & Barbara Bornstein Lynn Brenner Leslie Bryant Ann Butera Elaine B. Bye Richard Carroll Andrew H. Chapman Robert Chlebowski Herbert & Phyllis Cohen Grover Connell Kathleen H. Corcoran Samuel Costello Penelope & Peter Costigan Bruce Deal Patricia & Charles Debrovner Anthony & Ruth Demarco Gennaro A. DeVito Bernard & Katherine Dick M. Burton Drexler Martin & Mina Ellenberg Monte Engler Rachel & Mel Epstein Don & Grace Eremin Sharon Esakoff Judith Eschweiler H. Read Evans
When The Madras House was written in 1909, there was little security in the life of an Edwardian shop-assistant. There were no set meal breaks, no holidays or days off, no health or unemployment insurance. As Mint audiences saw in Cicely Hamilton’s Diana of Dobson’s (1908; produced here in 2001), shopworkers not only lived in, but could work 80 hours a week on starvation wages. Low pay and management fines for a bewildering list of transgressions made saving for the future difficult, and even better-paid senior employees could be terminated at a moment’s notice. Among the reasons for job-loss given were: carrying matches in one’s pocket; asking two days’ leave to arrange and attend a funeral; going through the wrong door to dinner; being ill one day; becoming engaged to someone employed by the same firm. A worker could simply be replaced by someone younger and cheaper, or an employer’s relation, at any time. With a reference, they might hope for comparable employment elsewhere; without one, their chances were slim. For a female shopworker that generally left, if she was lucky, descent from the lower middle class to the working class via unskilled or sweatshop labor; if unlucky, the Workhouse or prostitution. If a worker had family relying on any portion of their earnings, they too were vulnerable. The specter of the Workhouse, known to most of us nowadays through Oliver Twist, was terrifying. Nineteenth-century Poor Law assistance was organized on the local level, purposely designed to be so meager and humiliating as to discourage voluntary application for aid. As the Victorian era gave way to the Edwardian, some of the burden on local authority was lightened by the advent of “friendly societies,” trade union insurance plans, and religious and other charitable organizations. But without help from one of these, or from family, a dismissed worker’s prospects were bleak. In 1891, a national union for retail workers was formed. They did much to publicize the plight of shop assistants, fighting against the living-in system, and for reduced working hours. Still, there was no old-age pension scheme until 1908; no minimum wage or labor exchange until 1909. Finally, in 1911, the Shops Act succeeded in establishing limited working hours, a weekly half-day off, and regular meal breaks. That same year, the National Insurance Act created health and unemployment insurance in Great Britain for the first time. The British Welfare State would not be formed until after WWII, but its foundation had been laid. — Amy Stoller
Program notes
Linda Irenegreen & Martin Kesselman James & Jacqueline Johnson Joseph Family Charitable Trust Peter Judd Joan Kedziora, MD Rose Klimovich Anna Kramarsky & Jeanne Bergman Mildred C. Kuner Eugene M. Lang Foundation Kent Lawson & Carol Tambor Levenstein Family Foundation Samuel & Gabrielle Lurie Daniel Loos Macken Robert & Marcia Marafioti The Memorial Foundation for the Arts John D. Metcalfe Eleanor S. Meyerhoff Joel & Susan Mindel Joseph Morello The New York Times Company Foundation Peter & Marilyn Oswald Naomi & Gerald Patlis Pfizer Foundation Stephen Porter Jeffrey & Judith Prussin Susan & Peter Ralston The Tony Randall Theatrical Fund Inc. Joe Regan, Jr. Eleanor Reissa & Roman Dworecki Richard Frankel Productions Irven Rinard George Robb Rubin Foundation Judy & Sirgay Sanger The Martin E Segal Revocable Trust Carole M. Shaffer-Koros & Robert M. Koros Stephen Siderow Rob Sinacore Bob & Sherry Steinberg David Stenn Dennis & Katherine Swanson