- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; First Edition edition (Sep 3 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0312301839
- ISBN-13: 978-0312301835
- Product Dimensions: 24.2 x 16.2 x 2.9 cm
- Shipping Weight: 603 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,394,810 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
The huge, largely abandoned mill buildings of northern New England towns are the remnants of an industry that dominated the region and transformed the lives of its inhabitants, especially the women, for slightly more than a hundred years, beginning in the early 19th century. In broad, descriptive strokes, Moran, formerly a writer and producer for CBS News, recounts the rise and fall of the New England textile industry, from Francis Cabot Lowell's first 1814 mill in Waltham, Mass., to the flight South in the decades after WWI of mill owners seeking a haven from labor unions and the reasonable working conditions the unions had won. The enormous social changes wrought by the textile industry are the subject here, especially in the lives of women, whom it freed from servitude on the small farm only to bind them to the looms. Later, the mills' voracious appetite for workers attracted a vast influx of immigrants from Ireland, Quebec and eastern Europe, while generating enormous wealth for owners like the Cabots and the Lowells, who became the aristocracy of New England. The story of the mills as evoked here, with all its ironies, energy and tragedies, reflects the larger America these factories helped to shape. 16 pages of photos unseen by PW.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This is a history of the textile mills of New England, the women who worked them, the owners who ran them, and the environment both physical and social in which they operated. A popular history written in a folksy style, it leaves out the analysis a scholarly treatment would provide but offers citations and a bibliography to give it authenticity. Moran tells the stories of many of the largest mills (in Lowell, Lawrence, and Waltham, MA), from their founding by Boston Brahmins to their ultimate demise in the 20th century. The longest section of the book deals with Irish and French Canadian immigration to these mill towns and the desperate attempts by these immigrants to make a life in their new surroundings. Difficult relations with the Yankees, isolation and discrimination, anti-Catholic violence, and monstrous health and safety conditions prevailed, making for engaged yet troubling reading. Moran's narrative of the workers' attempts to improve their lot through labor organizing and strikes is especially good. Moran is not a historian but a CBS News producer and journalist, and this is distinctly not a book of professional history. The author makes unnecessary comments about modern social issues and tangents that lead well beyond the scope of the topic. But his book is an excellent read, both gripping and informative. Recommended for all public libraries. Bonnie Collier, Yale Law Lib.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
The young women who lived in northern New England in the early nineteenth century seemed destined to play a passive role in American history. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The young women who lived in northern New England in the early nineteenth century seemed destined to play a passive role in American history. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Before you complain about YOUR job, read this book!,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Belles of New England: The Women of the Textile Mills and the Families Whose Wealth They Wove (Hardcover)
The next time I complain about MY job, I'll try and spend a moment thinking about what it was like to work in the mills described in this excellent book. Deafness, arthritis caused by repetitive hand motion, young children put to work because their families were desperate for money, fires in the mill, job-related injuries, long hours of work, poor ventiliation and light - you name it. I heard about this book while watching C-Span and today I'm ordering a copy for a friend in New England whose long-ago relatives came from Canada to work in the mills. It has strengthened my resolve to visit Lowell, Mass. and see what has been preserved. It's fascinating and enjoyable to read - I'm just glad I didn't have to live through the experience myself. Highly recommended.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Long Before Rosie the Riveter- Franco-American Women Worked,
By
This review is from: The Belles of New England: The Women of the Textile Mills and the Families Whose Wealth They Wove (Hardcover)
Very few books give enough credit, in my opinion, to the important role women played in the development of American society. French Canadian women are probably at the very end of a long line of feminist ethnic groups frequently overlooked for the formidable standard they set, later a prototype characterized by Rosie the Riveter during America's darkest days during the middle of the last century. The Belles of New England is a well researched history about the development of New England's dinosaur textile and shoe industries and how hard working immigrant women made moguls of their owners. Although the Franco-American woman were a large workforce in these now largely empty brick buildings, hopelessly stuck on the landscape of New England towns, they weren't the only ones to contribute to the industrial age success of these mega-industries. Still, Franco-American women were unusual. Largely from Quebec, they raised extraordinarily large families while working labor jobs to raise money for their extended families. Franco-Americans are different than other American ethnic melting pot varieties in that they could always go home again, to Canada, by train or by foot. But, they stayed, raised their families and contributed to the wealth of a few industrialists who probably never said thank you. So, author Bill Moran has said in "Belles" what the moguls couldn't even conceptualize if their lives depended on it to do so. Nice selection of historic photos, too. Moran gives long overdue credit to the women who helped make New England prosperous.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.1 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews) 8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Before you complain about YOUR job, read this book!,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Belles of New England: The Women of the Textile Mills and the Families Whose Wealth They Wove (Hardcover)
The next time I complain about MY job, I'll try and spend a moment thinking about what it was like to work in the mills described in this excellent book. Deafness, arthritis caused by repetitive hand motion, young children put to work because their families were desperate for money, fires in the mill, job-related injuries, long hours of work, poor ventiliation and light - you name it. I heard about this book while watching C-Span and today I'm ordering a copy for a friend in New England whose long-ago relatives came from Canada to work in the mills. It has strengthened my resolve to visit Lowell, Mass. and see what has been preserved. It's fascinating and enjoyable to read - I'm just glad I didn't have to live through the experience myself. Highly recommended. 10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Long Before Rosie the Riveter- Franco-American Women Worked,
By Juliana LHeureux "Maine Writer" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Belles of New England: The Women of the Textile Mills and the Families Whose Wealth They Wove (Hardcover)
Very few books give enough credit, in my opinion, to the important role women played in the development of American society. French Canadian women are probably at the very end of a long line of feminist ethnic groups frequently overlooked for the formidable standard they set, later a prototype characterized by Rosie the Riveter during America's darkest days during the middle of the last century. The Belles of New England is a well researched history about the development of New England's dinosaur textile and shoe industries and how hard working immigrant women made moguls of their owners. Although the Franco-American woman were a large workforce in these now largely empty brick buildings, hopelessly stuck on the landscape of New England towns, they weren't the only ones to contribute to the industrial age success of these mega-industries. Still, Franco-American women were unusual. Largely from Quebec, they raised extraordinarily large families while working labor jobs to raise money for their extended families. Franco-Americans are different than other American ethnic melting pot varieties in that they could always go home again, to Canada, by train or by foot. But, they stayed, raised their families and contributed to the wealth of a few industrialists who probably never said thank you. So, author Bill Moran has said in "Belles" what the moguls couldn't even conceptualize if their lives depended on it to do so. Nice selection of historic photos, too. Moran gives long overdue credit to the women who helped make New England prosperous.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Readable History,
By R. Crowley - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Belles of New England: The Women of the Textile Mills and the Families Whose Wealth They Wove (Hardcover)
A fascinating topic with many parallels to today's influx of immigrants and the goal of gender-equality in the work place. This book is written the way history books should be written: readable and entertaining, and therefore informative and thought-provoking. Pay no attention to pedantic criticisms that author Moran is not a "historian" but rather a journalists; that is nonsense. Just read, learn, and enjoy.
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