Farm to Factory: Women's Letters, 1830-1860
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Book Overview
Between 1820 and 1860, tens of thousands of single women streamed from rural New England to find work in the burgeoning factory towns of the region. In "Farm to Factory" Thomas Dublin has selected five sets of letters in order to provide a personal view of the first generation of American women employed for wages outside their own homes. The letters he has selected provide a unique perspective on early industrial capitalism and its effects on women.
The second edition of what has become a classic work contains a new introduction, placing the women's correspondence in the context of broader economic developments in early-nineteenth-century New England, and a new set of letters written by Emeline Larcom from Lowell, Massachusetts. Like thos in the first edition, these letters will lure you back in time, offering a broadened view of women's lives in the nineteenth century.Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:023108157X
ISBN13:9780231081573
Release Date:April 1993
Publisher:Columbia University Press
Length:217 Pages
Weight:0.75 lbs.
Dimensions:0.6" x 6.0" x 8.9"
Age Range:22 years and up
Grade Range:Postsecondary and higher
Related Subjects
Americas Business Business & Finance Business & Investing China Economics Gender Studies General Guides History Job Hunting & Careers Modern (16th-21st Centuries) Politics & Social Sciences Popular Economics Rural Social Science Social Sciences Sociology Textbooks Travel Women in History Women's StudiesCustomer Reviews
2 ratings
Letters Tell the Story
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 17 years ago
Farm to Factory is a collection of letters written between young girls and their family and friends while they lived at factory run mills. The letters are insightful and give a new meaning to the place of young women in the early workforce of America. The girls selected talk of how they spend the little extra money they have, what their living conditions are like, what they do with their little free time, if they help support their family, how they help other family members find work, how they mother younger siblings when they come to work, and many other aspects of their daily life. This book is excellent.
Good, but it can be boring at times
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 25 years ago
Dublin's Farm to Factory contains real, unedited letters about 19th century factory girls in Massachusets and New Hampshire. The book provides great insight on the daily lives of these women, and how many were torn on becoming independent and working for themselves and staying home with their families. Lowell, Mass. becaming a largely industraial city because of these women. The book also shows how women were just one source of cheap labor at the time and how they were not always treated fairly by the mill owners, and how their lives were sometimes dictated by these people. The book is a very good historical source, as it provides quite a few letters, some from the same women (this helps the reader identify with the worker as a person and not just a historical figure), and some pictures of the town are included throughout the book. My only complaint is the lenght of the book, it can become rather tiring towards the end. My suggestion would be to read it in small doses so you can absorb everything and come out with a better understanding of it at the end.
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