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Mind Amongst the Spindles

Gelesen von MaryAnn

(4,85 Sterne; 10 Bewertungen)

Lowell Massachusetts was founded in the 1820s as a planned manufacturing center for textiles and is located along the rapids of the Merrimack River, 25 miles northwest of Boston. By the 1850s Lowell had the largest industrial complex in the United States. The textile industry wove cotton produced in the South. In 1860, there were more cotton spindles in Lowell than in all eleven states combined that would form the Confederacy. Mind Amongst the Spindles is a selection of works from the Lowell Offering, a monthly periodical collecting contributed works of poetry and fiction by the female workers of the textile mills. The Lowell Mill Girls, as the workers were known, were young women aged 15-35. The Offering began in 1840 and lasted until 1845. As its popularity grew, workers contributed poems, ballads, essays and fiction. The authors often used their characters to report on conditions and situations in their lives and their works alternated between serious and farcical. (Introduction adapted from Wikipedia by MaryAnn) (8 hr 15 min)

Chapters

Preface

25:30

Read by MaryAnn

Abbey's Year in Lowell

17:56

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The First Wedding in Salmagundi; "Bless, and curse not"; Ancient Poetry

17:04

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The Spirit of Discontent; The Whortleberry Excursion; The Western Antiquities

21:05

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The Fig Tree

11:01

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The Village Pastors

29:59

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The Sugar-Making Excursion

9:57

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Prejudice Against Labor

20:29

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Joan of Arc

19:54

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Susan Miller

25:46

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Scenes on the Merrimac

18:06

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The First Bells

19:32

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Evening Before Payday

23:42

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The Indian Pledge; The First Dish of Tea

9:34

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Liesure Hours of the Mill Girls

35:09

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The Tomb of Washington; Life among Farmers

25:22

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A Weaver's Reverie; Our Duty to Strangers; Elder Isaac Townsend

14:55

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Harriet Greenough

18:00

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Fancy; The Widow's Son; Witchcraft

20:28

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Cleaning Up; Visits to the Shakers

20:11

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The Lock of Grey Hair; Lament of the little Hunchback; This World is not our Ho…

23:07

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The Village Chronicle; Ambition and Contentment

28:13

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A Conversation on Physiology

40:06

Read by MaryAnn

Bewertungen

(5 Sterne)

Some of these stories are very moving. A good source material to better understand the people of that time and place. I find source materials much more credible than looking to modern “scholars” to interpret history for me.

I hope there are still some...

(0 Sterne)

unedited writings saved in archives of the mill girls who were "not educated", who told stories to those who could write and those written in the vernacular. And I hope there is something in here about the Lawrence Mill Girls strikes of 1934 and 1936. Charles Dickens pollyana beliefs in top down reform did little for the "operative classes"(working classes). It was bottom up chartist and socialist movements in early 20th century America and Great Britain that forced better conditions for them. FDR nor did Sir William Beveridge in the UK did not have a new deal or create the welfare state because they were sympathetic to workers, they followed the warnings of labour union leaders and the tumult occuring in the US that a revolution would occur if he did not have a new deal, NRA, public jobs programs, higher taxes on the rich, etc and similar programs in the UK,Sir William Beveridge. to save capitalism. As always MaryAnn has a pleasant voice.

Amazing minds and a wonderful peek into history.

(5 Sterne)