The Belles of New England: The Women of the Textile Mills and the Families Whose Wealth They Wove Paperback – March 4, 2004

I learned more about the a founding fathers of Lawrence and the textile companies up and down the Merrimack River tha was taught in our schools. I learned more about the how Lawrence and all the New England mills impacted slavery in the South and the Industrial Revolution than I learned in school. and I learned how the textile mills influenced the labor Movement ins the early 20th century. Great book!

Very interesting account of the history of textile mills in New England and of the workers, mostly women, whose skill and hard work powered production. Early photos were very intriguing.

Excellent, extremely readable and has a moral and political vision which isn't rigidly ideological. Although it strays far, all the background is necessary to get a feel of the mill towns in New England, though maybe more could be written about the factories and the work there.

Reads like it was written for 6th-graders. Kind of wanders around events without digging too deeply into analysis. If not for the names of my ancestors on the pages (Lowell, Appleton), I'd chalk it up to experience and move on to another book. A good book for someone beginning to study this particular segment of the history of America during the industrial revolution, but if you want to delve into the culture and history, find another book.

This book is filled with vital information that is not available through typical mainstream sources. It is one of the best books I have ever read. It clearly offers the perspective of the labor class and early corporate American, leading to where we are today.

This is a very well written and interesting book about New England Textile industry and the role of women during that period of time. It also addresses the role of immigrants as they merge into our society. I really enjoyed this book for the history and the excellent writing skills.

Although there are some very interesting tidbits to learn about the New England cotton mills written in Moran's Belles of New England, there was very little about the GIRLS themselves. The author takes you way beyond the life of the girls and digresses heavily into the realms of the mill owners, and of the many immigrants who traveled from Europe for various reasons, coming to America to gain jobs in the textile industry. Briefly mentioning why the immigrants were important would have been plenty, but the reader must endure long paragraphs of the history of Ellis Island and that immigrant story as well. You find unending pages regarding why the Irish immigrants came to the mills after leaving their homeland out of desperation caused by the potato famine crisis. Another chapter with ongoing descriptions on why the French Canadians similarly crossed the border at a time when their economic status sent people scurrying for mill jobs, was also very tedious to read. All of this could have been condensed down to a few passages explaining why this was essential to the story of the mills, not a hundred pages of it!This historic account takes place before the Civil War when issues of slavery in the South played a great part for the cotton mill factories. But again, the author spent way too much time informing the reader of the New England views on slavery, and how this effected local areas who were either for or against abolition including personal views from the local people questioning the right to use slaves to pick the cotton they wove. Some of this is of course relevant to the importance and history of the mills, but not to the extent the author injects into this book.I was greatly disappointed in this book due to all the other miscellaneous historical facts I wasn't expecting to get. I really was looking for a book full of quotes, memoirs and descriptive details pertaining to the thousands of women who worked 14 hour days by the sweat of their brow running the machines and living in communal boarding houses. The initial plan from the fore founders was to provide a society for female self improvement that would allow the ladies to become financially independent and in turn help them to move on to going to school to better their lives. I did not get very much of that at all. I found that these pages and pages, chapters and chapters filled with nonpertinent trivial history more than enough for anyone interested in the women's part of this story.I also feel the need to comment on the hundreds of typing errors in this book. It was truly deplorable how many mistakes there were! The book needed severe editing! If you are a woman, or researcher who is looking for a good deal of information on the women in the mills, I can't say I'd recommend this book at all. If you want a book full of just plain history of the people and the places where the mills are located, and how these people affected New England manufacturing, politics and society in the early 19th century, you might get something out of it. I believe the title was very misleading and can't say on the whole I enjoyed this book.

a true conflict for these ladies, they detested the fact that slaves picked the cotton they wove.