Object Details
Description
This bottle of Mucosolvan was sold at the El Monte company store. Shop operators forced workers to buy food and personal items from them at inflated prices. The respiratory medicine was seized during a well-publicized 1995 sweatshop raid and is part of a larger Smithsonian collection of artifacts documenting apparel industry sweatshops, focusing on the El Monte operation.
On August 2, 1995, police officers raided a fenced seven-unit apartment complex in El Monte, California. They arrested eight operators of a clandestine garment sweatshop and freed 72 workers who were being forced to sew garments in virtual captivity. Smuggled from Thailand into the United States, the laborers’ plight brought a national spotlight to domestic sweatshop production and resulted in increased enforcement by federal and state labor agencies. The publicity of the El Monte raid also put added pressure on the apparel industry to reform its labor and business practices domestically and internationally.
Location
Currently not on view
Credit Line
U.S. Department of Justice. Immigration and Naturalization Service
date made
Late 20th Century
1990s
ID Number
1997.0268.20
accession number
1997.0268
catalog number
1997.0268.20
Object Name
Bottle
Physical Description
cardboard (wrapper material)
glass (overall material)
Measurements
overall-bottle: 4 in x 1 1/2 in; 10.16 cm x 3.81 cm
overall-box: 4 3/8 in x 1 3/4 in x 1 5/8 in; 11.1125 cm x 4.445 cm x 4.1275 cm
place made
Germany
place used
United States
Associated Place
United States: California, Los Angeles
United States: California, Los Angeles
See more items in
Work and Industry: Mechanical and Civil Engineering
El Monte
Work
Sweatshops
Data Source
National Museum of American History
Link to Original Record
Record ID
nmah_880956