Object Details
- Description
- This toothpaste was sold at the El Monte company store. Shop operators forced workers to buy food and personal items from them at inflated prices. The toothpaste 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
- Late 20th Century
- 1990s
- ID Number
- 1997.0268.17
- accession number
- 1997.0268
- catalog number
- 1997.0268.17
- Object Name
- Toothpaste
- Measurements
- overall: 1 3/4 in x 9 in x 2 in; 4.445 cm x 22.86 cm x 5.08 cm
- place made
- 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
- National Museum of American History
- Record ID
- nmah_880953
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746b4-756b-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
