The Belles of New England
The Women of the Textile Mills and the Families Whose Wealth They Wove
Download image
ISBN10: 0312326009
ISBN13: 9780312326005
Trade Paperback
320 Pages
$23.99
CA$26.99
The Belles of New England is the story of one group of pioneers in the American labor movement—the thousands of women who left New England farm towns to work in the textile cities that sprang up in the region in the early nineteenth century. Their goal was to achieve personal independence, their mission social justice. At a time when women had no political influence, they battled powerful mill owners for fair pay and decent working conditions.
Generations of immigrants followed these women into the mills and changed Yankee New England forever. They came from famine-stricken Ireland and the impoverished farms of Quebec, then from the war-weary countries of Europe. The immigrants, too, found that fighting for justice was part of realizing the promise of America.
The Belles of New England fills the American stage with historical figures—from the blue-blooded Cabots and Lowells of Boston to the Southern slaves who first supplied cotton to the mills. Also playing their parts are the famous poets and politicians who hated slavery, as well as the radical labor agitators, and finally, the mill workers themselves, who after World War II stood by helplessly as their looms, and their jobs, vanished. In part a microcosm of America's social development during the period, The Belles of New England casts a new and finer light on this rich tapestry of vast wealth, greed, discrimination, and courage.
Reviews
Praise for The Belles of New England
"Moran focuses more on the social aspects of the textile workers' story than on the economic and political. By devoting a chapter to each of the waves of mill workers—from Yankee girls, to young Irish women, then to migrants from French Canada, followed by Eastern and Southern European immigrants—he documents their successive impacts on New England society."—Michael Kenney, The Boston Globe
"This is a compelling narrative of America's first industrial revolution. Moran has written a comprehensive, passionate tribute to the textile workers and the world that they made."—Michael Kazin
"This is a deeply moving and revelatory book about the belles of New England who never made the society page. They were the downstairs girls who worked in the textile mills of the upstairs Brahmins so many years ago. I was knocked out by their courage and scrappiness in fighting for a living wage, not only for themselves, but for the women of tomorrow, as well as for the men. 'Bread and Roses' is what it's all about."—Studs Terkel
"Mr. Moran has written a fascinating book—a genuine contribution to our understanding of America's past. He brings to vivid life a forgotten chapter in the history of American women and connects it to the larger history of the nation and the world."—Thomas Fleming, author of Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Future of America
"Belles of New England is particularly compelling, thanks to its fascinating exposition of the lives of the early, mostly female, mill workers . . . Belles provides a wealth of anecdotes from these early years along with analysis of what happened to the world of mill work (for both men and women) as competition grew more fierce, mill owners more heartless, and labor more ethnically diverse. Moran clearly has a feel for his subjects and the region."—Alan R. Earls, Connection: The Journal of the New England Board of Higher Education
"Belles of New England is the bleak back-story of America's Industrial Revolution . . . Herein lies the harsh reality of human suffering and exploitation in New England's factory mills and factories . . . Even a cursory read may alter forever your experience of factories and mills now transformed into art museums, lavish artist's lofts and condos, trendy restaurants, cinematiques and gift shops. Maybe it's time for a replica of the charnel houses where the belles toiled."—Meme Black, The Berkshire Eagle
"Moran traces the demographic evolution of mill workers, from young New England women when the mills started in the 1820s to Irish on the run from the 1845–49 potato famine, French Canadians whose land gave out after that, and Eastern and Southern European laborers by the end of the 19th century. He charts their ethnic warfare and moments of solidarity, the growth of labor unions (and the vital importance of women in this development), and the great Lawrence strike of 1912. He also follows the mill owners' subsequent flight to the South, cheap labor, and a union-free environment, a process all but complete by 1950. Gimlet-eyed, ethically poised history: readers will have plenty to think about the next time they visit one of those prettily restored mill museums."—Kirkus Reviews
"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 . . . 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 . . . His book is an excellent read, both gripping and informative."—Bonnie Collier, Yale Law Library, Library Journal
"In broad, descriptive strokes, Moran 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 World War I 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."—Publishers Weekly
Reviews from Goodreads
BOOK EXCERPTS
Read an Excerpt
1
A Place in the Universe
The young women who lived in northern New England in the early nineteenth century seemed destined to play a passive role in American history. They spent confining lives on isolated family farms and in tranquil rural...