Richie's Picks: Great Books for Children and Young Adults

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A slave named Henry Kirk Miller was fourteen when freedom arrived with the end of the Civil War. Later he recalled how his former owner had needed money and had sold off one of Henry's sisters, taking cotton in exchange:

" 'I remember hearing them tell about the big price she brought because cotton was so high,' said Henry. 'Old mistress got 15 bales of cotton for sister...It was only a few days till freedom came and the man who had traded all them bales of cotton lost my sister, but old mistress kept the cotton.' "

I'm in touch with cotton on a daily basis. As a matter of fact, what could be closer to me? Closer than my plaid flannel boxers ("100% COTTON, Made in Bangladesh")? Closer than my Beatles Yellow Submarine Picture Book tee-shirt ("100% COTTON, Knit in U.S.A, Assembled in Honduras")? Closer than my Levi Strauss Relaxed Fit 550 Jeans (100% COTTON, Made in Mexico)? Or the soft pillow case under my head as I read this fascinating book (100% COTTON, Made in Bulgaria)? Yup, I've got some significant daily connections to cotton.

As noted by author Deborah Hopkinson, "Growing up, I never fully understood how important those old, run-down mills had been to our country's history. The evidence was right before my eyes, but I couldn't imagine the past. I couldn't see Lowell as a vibrant center of new technology or understand the forces that had left it broken and economically depressed."

Like Hopkinson's experience with Lowell, Massachusetts, I also have a bit of experience with run-down mills. In the mid-Seventies, during my years as an undergraduate student at UConn, I would frequently head down the road to the nearby mill town of Willimantic, whose nickname "Thread City" has since been memorialized by the giant spools of thread upon which the Willimantic Frog Bridge frogs sit. (Check out the bridge at http://www.kurumi.com/roads/ct/br-frog.html.) My destination in Willimantic was Shaboo, a cavernous club serving up big-name live music that operated -- of course -- in an old textile factory building.

As I learned through a bit of my own searching, the Willimantic Linen Company used to be Connecticut's largest employer. At one time they produced 85,000 miles of thread each day. Its modern-era successor, the American Thread Company, still had a presence in town during my collegiate days. And as I also discovered, another of the old buildings in Willimantic, which has recently been renovated as part of the development of a modern business and technology center, was the world's first mill to be illuminated by electric lights -- said to be Thomas Edison's first paying job!

Whether it be factories, farms, or struggling families, Deborah Hopkinson has done an exceptional job here of researching the various threads of the history of cotton in America, and of pulling them together into an engaging story that, in turn, reveals so much about the broader history of our country. What makes the story most interesting is her ability to repeatedly illustrate significant aspects by referring to the words of real characters she uncovered in her research:

"Laura Nichols from Connecticut wanted to earn her own money. She hoped to get more education, but her parents couldn't afford to help her. So Laura took a job in a mill near her home, determined not to give up her hopes for the future.
"Years later, Laura told her own children how hard she had been willing to work for her dreams. Laura believed there was 'something better within my reach and I must have it or die in the attempt. I began to realize that my future would be largely what I make of it, that my destiny was, as it were, in my own hands.'
"New England girls like Laura were part of a new chapter in American history. The early years in Lowell and other mill towns of New England marked the first time large numbers of women moved away from their families to cities to take jobs far from home."

But, as is seen repeatedly throughout the book, such manufacturing work was initially done for low wages, beginning at incredibly young ages, and was carried out at a rapid pace throughout obscenely long work days with no ventilation, and under conditions that frequently led to permanent injury. Very young people who grew old while literally spending the majority of their lives inside the walls of those mills were the victims upon whose tragic lives the modern era of child labor laws, compulsory education, safe working conditions, and minimum wages were eventually and belatedly built.

Of course, the mills were (and will be) seen by many as an improvement over the lives of sharecroppers and tenant farmers who always faced the possibility of working similarly long hours and of coming away without a cent to show for a hard year's work. For instance, Walter Strange, who began sharecropping in 1911 at the age of 12, and who was interviewed in 1938 explained that:

" 'Last year I planted seven acres in cotton and made only one bale. I used poison, too. But the boll weevil ate up the cotton in spite of it,' said Walter. 'The fertilizer cost me one hundred dollars. I sold the cotton for fifty-two dollars. The loss on the fertilizer alone was forty-eight dollars, not counting the work and the other expense. I had to sell something else to finish paying for the fertilizer.' "

Young readers will undoubtedly be intrigued by Walter's beginning as a sharecropper in his own right at such a young age. In fact, whether it be from the narratives she's uncovered, or from viewing the wealth of photographs included throughout the book, so many of the characters Hopkinson brings us face to face with are very young people.

Thus, UP BEFORE DAYBREAK is an excellent example of bringing American history to life.

Richie Partington
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