Factory conditions for women, at the time this song was written, were horrendous. Women’s minds were tortured by the monotonous job of sewing shirts. Singing helped relieve their boredom, their loneliness, their suffering and communicated their shared plight. Sewing from sun-up to sun-down, women were only set free by their death; a perfectly sewn “shroud” would be their only legacy. The religious rationalization of this drudgery as “Christian” work gave these women no right to complain. Their souls were going to heaven.
These factory conditions still exist in many countries today where government organizations, such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and worker’s unions, such as the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union are not available for worker protection. That cheap shirt, imported from another country, may be sewn by a woman singing this song.
