Great Quote

I read a wonderful book this past week:  Transatlantic, by Colum McCann.  The story is not related in any way to what I am writing, but the style of the book really intrigued me - multiple stories, with real and fictional characters, coming together over continents and time periods.  It gave me some new thoughts about what I'm writing and how I might solve my 'construction' problem.  There is a wonderful quote at the beginning of the book.  I've read it over and over and really love it:

No history is mute.  No matter how much they own it,

break it, and lie about it, human history refuses to

shut its mouth.  Despite deafness and ignorance, the 

time that was continues to tick inside the time that is.

                                                                                    -Eduardo Galeano

This is the idea behind the story that I want to tell of Lowell.  It is not just the story of women workers, or the labor movement, or the textile industry. . .  It is, of course, all of that, but it is also about how the past leads to the present, and how the present reflects the past and shapes our understanding of it.  

Frustration

I'm now at that point in the process where I have a lot written but feel that it isn't coming together.  I'm not sure where to go at this point.  I'm frustrated because the beginning feels solid and on the right track and then... it seems to fall apart.  It feels like I've made some real miscalculations about how to take the story of these women and their experience and make it work dramatically.  I worry that I've merely written a history lecture which is certainly not the same as a docudrama.

I guess the way forward right now is for me to get all the pieces there and the shape it.  I think I am getting closer to that aspect.  Perhaps spending the next two days finishing that and then taking time to work on my article will give me a fresh perspective to come back and think more dramatically.  I hope so.

This picture of the mills reflects my mood right now.

Some Clarity...

I've been trying to figure out what this play really is.  I've felt a tremendous pressure (from myself, of course) to make this a legitimate dramatic piece, with all the important pieces:  original dialogue, conflict, a structure that fits within something expected. . .  But every time I sit down and write dialogue between characters, it feels very false.  After all, it is the history of this place, the actual people who lived and worked in Lowell.  The power of the 'industrial machine' and the implications for the labor movement.  It is those big issues that interest me and every time I try to take something and make it a fictional account of reality - it feels false, and awkward.  I KNOW that there is theatrical material here and I also know that the  story I want to tell lies in history, not in fiction.  I've been struggling with this and going back and forth but think today I've come to the conclusion that it really is ok to do a docudrama of sorts.  This simply is not going to be a traditional play.  It is going to be my attempt to bring alive this history, largely through the primary materials that exist.

 I do worry that it will feel too much like a lecture and not like a theatrical experience.  I think the trick will be to give it a logical flow and find the ways to talk this narration and theatricalize it.  I could be wrong.  Right now (as I'm trying to breath through a bad cold), I'm a bit stuck and feeling like this will disappoint.  I keep trying to remind myself that the only person I truly need to please is myself.  But............

Cloth

I spent yesterday 'reviewing' the process of taking raw cotton and turning it into cloth.  So fascinating to me as it really isn't something I've ever thought a great deal about.  I've certainly thought about who makes our clothes and where.  I've thought about the labor issues and the sweatshops both here and across the world.  But even amidst my interest in this story and the textile industry, I hadn't really thought about the process itself.  When you think about the pre-industrial period and the amount of time it took for people to make their own clothes - and the difficulty - it contextualizes the value of creating a system where cotton could be taken from its raw state, cleaned, made into threads, strengthened, and woven into cloth.    Even though woven cloth was certainly available prior to these mills, just thinking about the impact of being able to do that with machines all under one roof clarifies how  revolutionary this was!

Another point of interest is the fact that the cotton came from the south and was shipped to the north. Even though many in Lowell opposed slavery, in this pre-civil war period they were actually supporting the cotton trade using slaves as laborers to harvest the raw material.  It is another piece of this that intrigues me - there is a whole social/political aspect of this story that is fascinating:  the debate over an agrarian vs. an industrial future for America, the role of slavery in early industrialization, the feminist perspective of an ignored population that is able to move toward independence and freedom through work in the mills.

So... what is the story I'm telling????

Why They Came to Lowell

There are  many interesting letters and diary entries from the girls and some who made their way to Lowell in the early years. Harriet Robinson, one of the more well-known girls recorded her reminiscences of her life in Lowell.  She feared that her family would not let her leave:

"I wanted to earn money like the other little girls."

For some it was the lure of independence and making their own money for a variety of purposes.  For others, it was a necessity as times were hard on the farm and many farmers in the 1840's were in trouble.  The following is from a letter by a woman who moved part of her family to Nashua, NH - not far from Lowell - in 1843 to work in the mills.

"You will probably want to know the cause of our moving here which are many.  I will mention a few of them.  One of them is the hard times to get a living off the farm for so late a family so we have devided our family for this year.  We have left Plummer and Luther to care for the farm and granmarm and Aunt Polly.  The rest of us have moved to Nashvill (a part of Nashua) thinking the girls and Charles they would probely work in the Mill.  But we have had bad luck in giving them in only Jane has got in yet.  Ann has the pros of going to the mill next week.  Hannah is going to school.  We are in hopes to take a few borders but have not got any yet."

Hoping to improve the family income was a strong reason to move.  As the mills expanded throughout New England, it was a possibility for a better life, although it didn't always turn out that way.

Once people moved to the mill towns, they often wrote to friends and family members to join them. This is from a Vermont farmer who had moved to Massachusetts and felt that life was better in the mills.

"I do not know how you are situated,  but I think you can live here easer and make more money here than up thare... You take some Borders, the children work in the mill, you can have steady work all the time and good wages if you are well.  Your incum will at least be six hundred dollars a year...I wish you to come down this winter and seem me and look around an see if it is not best.  Fore it is hard business for a poor man up there."

This letter was written in 1847 when there were changes with more men and children working in the mills.

Back from Vacation and Digging In!!

Just as I began writing I was 'distracted' by a wonderful week in St. Maarten with my partner and friends.  While I feel like it set me back, it also felt good to be away from the pressure and let things bubble in my mind.  

Sitting on the beach and looking out at that beautiful clear ocean gave me some opportunities to just let ideas come and go.  I hope that the time will help me to be more focused as I really crack down over the next few weeks.

(As an aside, a few pictures of vacation):

The first picture is from an amazing beach where we spent the day.  The second is from the deck where we were staying.  You can see how staring out at the water would be mesmerizing, allowing the imagination to fly!

But, now it is time to get serious.  I have the framework now.  I know the characters, the first scene is written, and I have a sense of how the play moves through time.  I know the beginning and the end, and I'm beginning to understand how the play "feels" as I'm writing.  I hear a lot of sound that I feel will be very important - the sound of water, of the looms, of the factory bell, music from the period.  For me, right now, it is the sounds that are leading me forward.  We shall see where that takes me.