Synopses & Reviews
This is a masterful, definitive, and eloquent look at the enormous cultural and economic impact on America of New England's textile mills. The author, an award-winning CBS producer, traces the history of American textile manufacturing back to the ingenuity of Francis Cabot Lodge. The early mills were an experiment in benevolent enlightened social responsibility on the part of the wealthy owners, who belonged to many of Boston's finest families. But the fledgling industry's ever-increasing profits were inextricably bound to the issues of slavery, immigration, and workers' rights.
William Moran brings a newsman's eye for the telling detail to this fascinating saga that is equally compelling when dealing with rags and when dealing with riches. 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.
William Moran was a writer, editor, and producer at CBS News for twenty-five years. From 1974 to 1977 he was principal writer for The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. He was producer on the program for two years before joining CBS News Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt, where he served as producer and senior producer for sixteen years. His work at CBS News brought him awards from the Writers Guild of America and an Emmy. Prior to joining CBS News, Moran was a reporter for the Associated Press, covering events in New England, New York, and Washington. He was also a producer and writer at Vermont Public Television. While in Vermont, he was a stringer correspondent for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Time magazine. Moran is a graduate of Boston University, where he majored in journalism. He is a native of Portland, Maine, and now resides in Scarborough, Maine and Sarasota, Florida.
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.
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
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 demogr
Synopsis
The Belles of New England is a masterful, definitive, and eloquent look at the enormous cultural and economic impact on America of New England's textile mills. The author, an award-winning CBS producer, traces the history of American textile manufacturing back to the ingenuity of Francis Cabot Lodge. The early mills were an experiment in benevolent enlightened social responsibility on the part of the wealthy owners, who belonged to many of Boston's finest families. But the fledgling industry's ever-increasing profits were inextricably bound to the issues of slavery, immigration, and workers' rights.
William Moran brings a newsman's eye for the telling detail to this fascinating saga that is equally compelling when dealing with rags and when dealing with riches. 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.
Synopsis
The Belles of New England is a brilliant work of social history that revolves around the rise and fall of the 19th Century textile mills and the famous and finest families who owned them.
Synopsis
The Belles of New England is a masterful, definitive, and eloquent look at the enormous cultural and economic impact on America of New England's textile mills. The author, an award-winning CBS producer, traces the history of American textile manufacturing back to the ingenuity of Francis Cabot Lodge. The early mills were an experiment in benevolent enlightened social responsibility on the part of the wealthy owners, who belonged to many of Boston's finest families. But the fledgling industry's ever-increasing profits were inextricably bound to the issues of slavery, immigration, and workers' rights.
William Moran brings a newsman's eye for the telling detail to this fascinating saga that is equally compelling when dealing with rags and when dealing with riches. 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.
About the Author
William Moran was a writer, editor, and producer at CBS News for twenty-five years. From 1974 to 1977 he was principal writer for
The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. He was producer on the program for two years before joining
CBS News Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt, where he served as producer and senior producer for sixteen years. His work at CBS News brought him awards from the Writers Guild of America and an Emmy. Prior to joining CBS News, Moran was a reporter for the Associated Press, covering events in New England, New York, and Washington. He was also a producer and writer at Vermont Public Television. While in Vermont, he was a stringer correspondent for
The New York Times, The Washington Post, and
Time magazine. Moran is a graduate of Boston University, where he majored in journalism. He is a native of Portland, Maine, and now resides in Scarborough, Maine and Sarasota, Florida.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
1. A Place in the Universe
The ingenuity of Francis Cabot Lowell brings large-scale textile manufacturing to New England. Generations of native-born Americans and immigrants find jobs in the mills.
2. Glory of the Nation
From the rocky farmland and tranquil villages of New England, women migrate to the mill towns to take their place in the history of the American labor movement.
3. The Lords of the Loom
Business leaders in Boston expand the textile industry, accumulate great wealth, and ignite a fierce debate over the morality of using Southern slaves to provide the cotton that feeds the mills.
4. From Across the Irish Sea
Irish laborers build the mills, the Irish famine victims of the mid-nineteenth century replace the Yankee women at the looms.
5. Voyagers South
The ethnic character of New England is changed forever as the French Canadians of Quebec cross the border to seek opportunity in America.
6. Wretched Refuse
Poles, Italians, Russians, Jews, and many others weary of Europe's nineteenth-century wars and poverty join the workforce in the New England mills.
7. Fighting for Roses
Immigrant women lead the great 1912 textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and the women win.
8. Last Bells
The shift of textile manufacturing to the South destroys the industry in New England.
Notes
Bibliography
Index