Bread and Roses by Bruce Watson, Book Review Example

This is an era of technological marvel, with rights firmly established for workers, and where virtually anything can be obtained from the nearest street corner or computer terminal. It is an era where a middle class is firmly established, and organizations such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and others provide governmental oversight on working conditions.

For those living in this era, it is difficult to imagine what it must have been like working in a Northeastern textile mill almost a century ago. In conditions far more deplorable than what most people have ever experienced, migrants from scores of nations worked long hours in difficult conditions. In such conditions, where a person’s lifespan is measurably shortened due to common workplace accidents and disease, what may appear a small change in conditions to some can create a firestorm. Such was the case in Lawrence, Massachusetts in January, 1912, when workers received their paychecks and stormed out of the textile mills. The ensuing struggle has become known as the Bread and Roses strike, and is remembered by history as a watershed event in human rights and labor relations.

Around half of the 80,000 people residing in Lawrence, Massachusetts worked in the textile industry at the beginning of the 20th century (Gose). According to anarticle highlighting women’s involvement in the strike in The American PostalWorker “The typical workplace was dimly lit, dangerously cramped with machinery,cold in the winter, hot in the summer.” The fact that conditions were dangerous in the mills waswidely learned by the many workers who were often maimed or injured while on the job. Amongother stories that came out in the aftermath of the strike, an adolescent girl received much publicity when she testified that a loom snared her hair, tore her scalp, and left her hospitalizedfor months (Moskowitz). Bruce Watson also writes about specific hazards for the mill workers in Bread and Roses:“Inhaling fibers that floated through dank, humid mill rooms, a third died within a decade on thejob. Malnourished, they succumbed to tuberculosis, pneumonia, or anthrax…they were crushedby machinery, mangled by looms and spinners.”

The dangers were not relegated to only the machinery, but also borne of disease and mistreatment. One Lawrence physician during the early 20th century estimated that a full third of mill workers would die before they reached the age of 25 due to tuberculosis and other respiratory ailments (Gose). Mistreatment issues included prejudism and sexism. Supervisors used ethnic slurs toward the vast majority of immigrant workers, and women, particularly the large number of young female mill workers, were subjected to sexual harassment (Neeley).

The conflict began a few weeks prior to thousands of mill workers pouring out into the street. On New Year’s Day, 1912, a new law took effect that mandated a shorter work week from 56 to 54 hours. Ten days later, workers received paychecks that were reduced to reflect the shorter work week. The difference amounted to about thirty cents (Gose). Sohow does a reduction in pay amounting to the cost of several loaves of bread create aninternational movement to uphold the rights of workers? To fully understand the answer to thisquestion you must better understand that lives of those who were affected, and Bruce Watsonnarrates in vivid detail how the people of Lawrence lived in his novel: “While streetcars rumbledthrough downtown, tepid bulbs and oil lamps lit up row upon row of tenements. Bleary-eyedpeople, shivering, stamping their feet, muttering their own peculiar curses, shuffled into dingykitchens. Water taps were turned on but emitted only the dull thud of frozen pipes. Babies criedfor no reason and parents knew exactly how they felt.” One cannot blame workers who had solittle and existed so meagerly to cherish an additional thirty cents per week in their paycheck.When a person has so little, everything has greater value to them, and the pay reduction was the finalstraw in a long trail of events that caused such misery for them that they essentially rebelled.

The era of this strike was prior to the rise of the American middle class, so the struggle captured within the novel Bread andRoses could also be depicted as a struggle between rich and poor. The poor, represented by themill workers and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), embarked on a strike on a scalenever seen before in New England. The rich, represented by factory owners with the support ofmunicipal officials, reacted harshly to suppress it. The wealthy brought in the National Guard andmilitia companies. They resorted to framing strikers for violence and vandalism that theythemselves hired people to conduct (Neeley). The impoverished brought in IWW stalwarts such as JosephEttor and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and resorted to tactics designed to disrupt commerce in thecity, such as taking to the streets in the thousands, log jamming stores with people and leavingwithout making any purchases (Gose). This battle between the classes wasaptly captured in Bread and Roses: “Wherever workers huddled together…the talkturned to Lawrence. Workers pooled their wages and sent them to strikers. Rallies led by fieryspeakers ended with coins raining down on the stage…in the finer homes, men with trimmoustaches and starched collars read about Lawrence and shuddered.”

The turning point of the conflict came after a few months of conflict, when the IWW arrangedto have several hundred children of strikers sent to other cities during the strike. These impoverished children drew much publicity to the plight of the mill workers both nationally and internationally, and the response from the police was severe. In response to this tactic, the police attacked a group of women and children waiting at the train station to depart. They beat them, dragged them intomilitary trucks, and the beatings continued until the women and children were quiet. One pregnant woman wasbeaten so badly she miscarried, which led to a Congressional investigation (Neeley).

The term “Bread and Roses” became forever intertwined with the Lawrence,Massachusetts strike when a poem by the same name written by James Oppenheim was correctly, or incorrectly, associated with the event. Supposedly, Oppenheim was inspired by a banner carried by women workers while they were striking that read “We want Bread, and Roses too!” Unfortunately, this is not the case, as the poem actually was first published inDecember, 1911, a full month prior to the beginning of the strike in Lawrenceville (Zwick).Regardless of the inspiration, the poem is fitting tribute for a struggle that ultimately resulted in a25 percent raise, overtime pay, and rules against discrimination for the mill workers (Neeley). As it relates to thisconflict, bread and roses represents the workers desire to go beyond mere existence, and to find away to enjoy some of the things that make life worth living. It also meant more equality for themasses, and a basic acceptance of their rights and dignity as people.

The novel Bread and Roses details an important event in American history, and it does so in a way that creates depth and feeling for those characters who are portrayed within its pages.

This is a tale of a nation’s evolution and of the struggles between immigrants and natives, and between poor and rich. It marks a pivotal moment in workers rights, and it forever altered those rights for the better in areas such as child labor, wages, safety, and the right to organize(Gose).

Works Cited

Gose, Jack. “1912 Textile Strike Put Women In the Line of Fire.” The American Postal Worker. March/April 2008 <http://www.apwu.org/join/women/lbportraits/portraits-labor-bread-roses.pdf>

Moskowitz, Eric. “An industrial heritage revived.” The Boston Globe. September 1, 2008             <http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/09/01/an_industrialheritage_revived/>

Neeley, Lyn. “Bread and Roses: The Strike Led and Won by Women.” Workers World. January 29, 1998 <http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45b/073.html>

Zwick, Jim. “”Bread and Roses”. (Behind the song: a closer look at some of the music we love).” Sing Out!. Sing Out Corporation. 2003. HighBeam Research. 14 Oct. 2010 <http://www.highbeam.com>.