Farm to Factory - 2nd Edition by Thomas Dublin (Paperback)

About the Book

Letters by five 19th-century New England women, among the tens of thousands who formed the first generation of American women employed for wages outside their own homes.

Book Synopsis

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.

From the Back Cover

This volume contains a chronological table of Chinese history beginning with 2852 B.C. up to A.D. 1849. In addition to presenting the major schools of classical philosophy, this volume discusses yin-yang theories of cosmology and geomancy and the rationale of monarchy and dynastic rule.

Review Quotes

"Farm to Factory" is an attractive addition to the literature. Dublin has collected a series of respresentative letters, not published before. The letters...are often very touching."-- "Boston Globe"

"Farm to Factory" will attract students to the lives of the women of the past, not only because it contains revealing documents, but because the documents are introduced and displayed with extraordinary sensitivity and intelligence."-- "International Labor and Working Class History"

Adds an important human dimension to our understanding of early American industrialization.-- "Library Journal"

Thomas Dublin has mad a valuable contribution to the history of American women with this engrossing collection of letters of New England millworkers of the antebellum era... [The letters] put flesh and blood on the era's quantitative data, balance the male-dominated picture of early industrial capitalism, and show that mill employment encouraged the social, cultural, and economic independence of women."-- "Radcliffe Quarterly"

About the Author

Thomas Dublin is Professor of History at the State University of New York at Binghamton. He is also the author of Women at Work (Columbia University Press) which won the Bancroft Prize.