310 THE UTOPIAN COMMUNIST
perimentation in fields that yielded no return, and tortured by the
thought that he had a hungry family to feed and might die before
he had completed the work that he regarded so important for
humanity, he was condemned to struggle on, his restless spirit
chained to the tailor's table, his hands occupied with shears, needle
and thread, but his mind lost in fancy and churning with ideas
about new inventions and discoveries. Unable to break the
economic fetters that held him in bondage, he was forced to labor
day in and day out at the mundane task of producing food and
shelter and clothing for a sizable family to whom he was deeply
devoted.
With the two women of his household and with the occasional
help of a servant girl who did some of the housework and the
sewing, Weitling manufactured fancy white vests and did custom
tailoring for well-known New Yorkers such as the Astors, Fisks,
and Vanderbilts, who often attended the social functions of their
class in neatly starched vests from a home which is remembered
today only because its senior member occupies a prominent place
in the history of Utopian communism. Weitling's own specialty
was ladies' tailoring. For a "dress costume," he received the
standard pay of ten dollars. With his wife he belonged to the
Journeyman Tailors' Protective and Benevolent Union, founded
in 1863, and the records show that his widow continued to pay
her dues at least until 1879, eight years after her husband's death.
After her family began to prosper, however, she and her sister
stopped working and enjoyed comfortable homes with the chil
dren to the end of their lives.
Thanks to the careful entries in Weitling's notebooks, we can
obtain a fairly accurate picture of the family income and of his
financial status during the half-dozen years preceding his death.
In 1866, the Weitlings were living on an income derived entirely
from the manufacture of vests by the three adult members of the
household. The pay for a man's vest was a dollar, for boys' vests
seventy-five cents, and for vests of a somewhat inferior grade,
sixty-two cents. The total income of the three producers