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...

A mill-owner, Robert Moore, is determined to introduce new machinery despite fierce opposition from his workers. He sees marriage to the wealthy Shirley Keeldar as the solution to his difficulties, but he loves his cousin Caroline who suffers misery and frustration.

"The story of humanity is the story of textiles-as old as civilization itself. Textiles created empires and powered invention. They established trade routes and drew nations' borders. Since the first thread was spun, fabric has driven technology, business, politics, and culture. In The Fabric of Civilization, Virginia Postrel traces this surprising history, exposing the hidden ways textiles have made our world. The origins of chemistry lie in the...

On June 23, 1911-a summer day so magnificent it seems as if God himself has smiled on the town-Fall River, Massachusetts, is reveling in its success. The Cotton Centennial is in full swing as Joseph Bartlett takes his place among the local elite in the parade grandstand. The meticulously planned carnival has brought the thriving textile town to an unprecedented halt; rich and poor alike crowd the streets, welcoming President Taft to America's "Spindle...

Geraldine, a goat, describes each step as she and her Navajo friend make a rug, from the hair clipping and carding to the dyeing and actual weaving.

Americans don't think of Canada as a source of potential terrorists-speaking a foreign tongue, serving a foreign religion, and invading their country. But when a million French-Canadians crossed the border between 1840 and 1930, many seeking work in New England's burgeoning textile industry, they were cast as foot soldiers in an alleged Roman Catholic plot. A Distinct Alien Race places these Franco-Americans in the context of contemporary issues:...

Set in the gloomy depths of the granite-block textile mills of the industrial Northeast, Warp & Weft illuminates the lives of three generations of men who toil together. Carey, the leader of the small crew who load and unload the endless procession of trucks at the Chace Mill, worries about his wife's illness and tries to distract himself by pouring all his hopes into the fortunes of the mill's ragtag softball team; his wife, Joyce, finds herself...

"On January 12, 1912, an army of textile workers stormed out of the mills in Lawrence, Massachusetts, commencing what has since become known as the "Bread and Roses" strike. Based on newspaper accounts, magazine reportage, and oral histories, Watson reconstructs a Dickensian drama involving thousands of parading strikers from fifty-one nations, unforgettable acts of cruelty, and even a protracted murder trial that tested the boundaries of free speech."--pub....

Book 2 of The Bells of Lowell. The mill town of Lowell, Massachusetts, beckons Arabella Newberry when she decides to flee the life of the Shakers. There she finds the independence she seeks and a greater purpose as she works for educational reform. But Lowell, plagued by ethnic strife, seems no longer a safe haven but rather a danger when several girls go missing. As rumors and conflict invade the industry of the mill, Arabella struggles with her...

A powerful first novel about a family that slips from fortune's favor and a town broken by the forces of modernity. Across a bend of Ontario's Attawan River lies the Island, a working-class neighborhood of whitewashed houses and vine-freighted fences, black willows and decaying sheds. Here, for generations, the Walkers have lived among the other mill workers. The family's troubles begin in the summer of 1965, when a union organizer comes to town...