Date:  Wed, 12 Nov 1997 20:27:34 -0500
From:  "Barry A. Popik" <Bapopik[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM>
Subject: Sweatshops

   David Barnhart and Allan Metcalf's AMERICA IN SO MANY WORDS (1997) use
the DICTIONARY OF AMERICANISMS citation and list "sweatshop" for 1892.
   This is from the National Police Gazette, 31 October 1846, pg. 60, col.
2:

   POLICY AND "SWEAT" SHOPS.--We call the attention of the members of the
grand jury, who will be summoned next week to attend the November term of the
Sessions of this city, to the "Sweat" shops in Courtland street, near
Broadway, recently opened by policy dealers, who have left their swindling
business through our expositions, and also to the operations of James T.
Bache's policy shop, under Howard's Hotel, two doors from Maiden Lane. The
gentlemen who called upon us relative to their clerks who have dealt with
Bache, will find the necessary papers ready on Monday morning.