Al Smith spent his youth in brutal manual labor before entering politics

Evidence

Al Smith rolled heavy barrels of fish in and out of the market, put the fish on ice, cleaned them and wrapped them. He worked from four o’clock in the morning until five in the afternoon, except on Friday. On Friday, he started work at three. Returning home at night tired and dirty and reeking of fish, he scrubbed off the odor and went downstairs to the store. But in the 1890’s twelve dollars a week was almost enough to support a mother and a sister. He stayed at the market for four years. Then, to increase his pay to fifteen dollars, he became a laborer, carrying heavy pipes at a pump works. It wasn’t until 1896, when he was twenty-two years old, that he got his first political job. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 503

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Personal lived poverty, not ideology, drove Al Smith’s political passion — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 545

Broader Connections

• Personal lived poverty, not ideology, drove Al Smith’s political passion #corroborates (0.72) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 545