Reading RecommendationsIdentify one of the stories from the .docxsedgar5
Reading Recommendations
Identify one of the stories from the
Culture and Identity
text that was not assigned reading for HMSV5334 this quarter. Summarize the story and what you learned and convince your course room colleagues why it is worthwhile to read.
Betsie’s Story
I am 100% Jewish, having been born to two Jewish parents, both of them born to Jewish parents. I personally remember my two paternal great-grandmothers and have heard stories about their families and those of my two maternal great-grandmothers, whom I am named after, and their families. My family was seldom dull. I have always felt this way about my family history, which includes my life and the stories of my ancestors’ lives that have been passed down to me through my parents and grandparents. First, I only have three sides of family because my mother’s parents were uncle and niece. My grandfather, Bert, married his oldest sister’s daughter, Fran, my grandmother. This was in 1926, and they had to get married in Illinois because it was illegal in Indiana. One of the many reasons I do not consider myself a truly White person from European decent is because all of my family (the Frieds from Rumania, the Staks from Poland, and the Nobles from Russia) came to the United States because none of their home countries allowed Jews to become citizens. All three families came over between 1900 and 1905. They came both out of fear of the pogroms and for the economic opportunities, which were very limited for Jews in the aforementioned countries at that time. My maternal grandfather’s (Bert’s) mother died on the crossing from Rumania when my grandfather was only 3 months old, so he was raised by his oldest sister, Ellen, and her husband, Yeshiva, a butcher. It is a Jewish custom to name your children after dead relatives whom you were close to, and my middle name is Ethel, after Ellen, whom my mother knew as her grandmother. My maternal grandmother’s (Fran’s) parents were my grandfather’s next oldest sister, Bluma, and her husband, Abraham, who owned a jewelry and watch repair shop. My first name, Betsie, comes from Bluma. My mother considered naming me Bluma but could not see sticking her head out a window and calling “Bluma, come in for dinner!” So she Americanized Bluma to Betsie.
Bert was always in love with Fran (they were 6 years apart in age), and he used to write love letters to her. The mail in Bloomington used to get delivered twice a day, and Bert would write Fran a love letter in the morning on the streetcar on his way to school, where he got his master’s degree in education, and mail it from campus, and Fran would have it in the afternoon mail. She used to show my siblings and me the letters. My mother still has them, and I will eventually inherit them. One quote of my grandfather’s I will always remember is “I will always be your knight in shining armor, protecting you and our future family forever.” They were very much in love with each other, happily married for 63 .
FARM to FACTORY Womens Letters, 1830-1860 Second Editio.docxlmelaine
FARM to FACTORY
Women's Letters, 1830-1860
Second Edition
Edited by Thomas Dublin
GEISEL LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA
• Columbia University Press • New York
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Farm to factory
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Women-Employment-New England-History.
2. Women-New England-Correspondence. 3. Textile
workers-New England-Correspondence. I. Dublin,
Thomas, 1946-
HD6o73. T 42U53 331.4'877'00974 8o-28o84
ISBN o-231-o8156-1 AACR1
ISBN o-231-o8157-x (pbk.)
Columbia University Press
New York Chichester, West Sussex
Copyright C 19131, 1993 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
p 10 9 8 7 6
C 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FOUR
Mary Paul Letters
MARY PAUL, the d aughter of Bela and Mary Briggs Paul, grew up in
Woodstock and Barnard, in northern Vermont. The third of four chil-
dren, Mary led a migratory life from the age of fifteen until her marriage
at twenty-seven. We have a clear record of these years because Mary
proved a steady correspondent and her father saved twenty-five of her
letters that cover the seventeen-year period between her departure from
home in 1845 and the last letter in this collection, dated April 1862. The
correspondence offe rs a rare view into the work and family experiences
of o~an whose life was touched by mill empl~ent.•
Judging by the letters, Mary Paul was a restless spirit. She moved
around from place to place and job to job in these years. The letters open
with Mary employed as a domestic with a farmingJamily in Bridgewater,
just a few miles fro m her family home in Barnard. Difficulties there led to
her departure and her entrance into the textile mills of Lowell, Massa-
chusefts:-She labored off and on in Lowell for the next four years, but
returned home to Claremont, New Hampsh ire, where her widowed fa-
ther resided in 1850. • Two years later her letters show her living in Brat-
tleboro, Vermont making coats in a partnership with another woman.
After two years there, she was off to Redbank, New Jersey, where s he
resided in a utopian agricultural communi_!y for a year with friends she
had met in Lo well.J After that undertaking collapsed, she returned to
New Hampsh ire for a stint as a housekeeper. Finally, in 1857, a fter
twelve years of supporting herself away from home, Mary Paul marr ied
1 . Paul Family Genealogy and Mary Paul Letters, Vermont Historical Society,
Mon~her, Vt.; hereafter cited as VHS. See also letters from Mary's brother,
William Paul.
1 . Bela Paul, sixty, and Mary Paul, twenty-one, are recorded in the 1850
Census m dwelling 533 in Claremont, N.H.
J . The No rth American Phalanx, founded by American followers of Charles
Fourier, was the largest and most successful of the phalanxes, with mor_e than
a hundred members when Mary Paul joined in 1855.
122
MARY PA UL LETTERS
I ...
Reading RecommendationsIdentify one of the stories from the .docxsedgar5
Reading Recommendations
Identify one of the stories from the
Culture and Identity
text that was not assigned reading for HMSV5334 this quarter. Summarize the story and what you learned and convince your course room colleagues why it is worthwhile to read.
Betsie’s Story
I am 100% Jewish, having been born to two Jewish parents, both of them born to Jewish parents. I personally remember my two paternal great-grandmothers and have heard stories about their families and those of my two maternal great-grandmothers, whom I am named after, and their families. My family was seldom dull. I have always felt this way about my family history, which includes my life and the stories of my ancestors’ lives that have been passed down to me through my parents and grandparents. First, I only have three sides of family because my mother’s parents were uncle and niece. My grandfather, Bert, married his oldest sister’s daughter, Fran, my grandmother. This was in 1926, and they had to get married in Illinois because it was illegal in Indiana. One of the many reasons I do not consider myself a truly White person from European decent is because all of my family (the Frieds from Rumania, the Staks from Poland, and the Nobles from Russia) came to the United States because none of their home countries allowed Jews to become citizens. All three families came over between 1900 and 1905. They came both out of fear of the pogroms and for the economic opportunities, which were very limited for Jews in the aforementioned countries at that time. My maternal grandfather’s (Bert’s) mother died on the crossing from Rumania when my grandfather was only 3 months old, so he was raised by his oldest sister, Ellen, and her husband, Yeshiva, a butcher. It is a Jewish custom to name your children after dead relatives whom you were close to, and my middle name is Ethel, after Ellen, whom my mother knew as her grandmother. My maternal grandmother’s (Fran’s) parents were my grandfather’s next oldest sister, Bluma, and her husband, Abraham, who owned a jewelry and watch repair shop. My first name, Betsie, comes from Bluma. My mother considered naming me Bluma but could not see sticking her head out a window and calling “Bluma, come in for dinner!” So she Americanized Bluma to Betsie.
Bert was always in love with Fran (they were 6 years apart in age), and he used to write love letters to her. The mail in Bloomington used to get delivered twice a day, and Bert would write Fran a love letter in the morning on the streetcar on his way to school, where he got his master’s degree in education, and mail it from campus, and Fran would have it in the afternoon mail. She used to show my siblings and me the letters. My mother still has them, and I will eventually inherit them. One quote of my grandfather’s I will always remember is “I will always be your knight in shining armor, protecting you and our future family forever.” They were very much in love with each other, happily married for 63 .
FARM to FACTORY Womens Letters, 1830-1860 Second Editio.docxlmelaine
FARM to FACTORY
Women's Letters, 1830-1860
Second Edition
Edited by Thomas Dublin
GEISEL LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA
• Columbia University Press • New York
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Farm to factory
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Women-Employment-New England-History.
2. Women-New England-Correspondence. 3. Textile
workers-New England-Correspondence. I. Dublin,
Thomas, 1946-
HD6o73. T 42U53 331.4'877'00974 8o-28o84
ISBN o-231-o8156-1 AACR1
ISBN o-231-o8157-x (pbk.)
Columbia University Press
New York Chichester, West Sussex
Copyright C 19131, 1993 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
p 10 9 8 7 6
C 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FOUR
Mary Paul Letters
MARY PAUL, the d aughter of Bela and Mary Briggs Paul, grew up in
Woodstock and Barnard, in northern Vermont. The third of four chil-
dren, Mary led a migratory life from the age of fifteen until her marriage
at twenty-seven. We have a clear record of these years because Mary
proved a steady correspondent and her father saved twenty-five of her
letters that cover the seventeen-year period between her departure from
home in 1845 and the last letter in this collection, dated April 1862. The
correspondence offe rs a rare view into the work and family experiences
of o~an whose life was touched by mill empl~ent.•
Judging by the letters, Mary Paul was a restless spirit. She moved
around from place to place and job to job in these years. The letters open
with Mary employed as a domestic with a farmingJamily in Bridgewater,
just a few miles fro m her family home in Barnard. Difficulties there led to
her departure and her entrance into the textile mills of Lowell, Massa-
chusefts:-She labored off and on in Lowell for the next four years, but
returned home to Claremont, New Hampsh ire, where her widowed fa-
ther resided in 1850. • Two years later her letters show her living in Brat-
tleboro, Vermont making coats in a partnership with another woman.
After two years there, she was off to Redbank, New Jersey, where s he
resided in a utopian agricultural communi_!y for a year with friends she
had met in Lo well.J After that undertaking collapsed, she returned to
New Hampsh ire for a stint as a housekeeper. Finally, in 1857, a fter
twelve years of supporting herself away from home, Mary Paul marr ied
1 . Paul Family Genealogy and Mary Paul Letters, Vermont Historical Society,
Mon~her, Vt.; hereafter cited as VHS. See also letters from Mary's brother,
William Paul.
1 . Bela Paul, sixty, and Mary Paul, twenty-one, are recorded in the 1850
Census m dwelling 533 in Claremont, N.H.
J . The No rth American Phalanx, founded by American followers of Charles
Fourier, was the largest and most successful of the phalanxes, with mor_e than
a hundred members when Mary Paul joined in 1855.
122
MARY PA UL LETTERS
I ...
14. Look to the data.
• Census
• Daybooks
• Letters
• Diaries
• Newspapers
15. Category Number Name
Free white males under 10 1 John Brown Francis
Free white males 26-44 1 James Brown
Free white males over 45 1 John Brown
Free white females 26-44 2 Abby Brown Francis; Sally Brown
Free white females over 45 3 Sarah Brown
Ruth Smith?
Unknown servant(s)?
All other free persons 4 Unknown servants
Total household members 12 6 Brown family members
1 in law, 5 servants
17. John Brown to Abby Francis and James Brown, 13 April 1800
…for the purpose of advising your mother to Git a good Cook if one is to be had to
her likeing I am not unsencible to the Difficulty of Geting Good help of any kind...
18. John Brown to Abby Francis and James Brown, 13 April 1800
…Little John found time to Write to Jonathan but not to me, I Should Suppose that
he mought find time to write a Short Letter...
20. Gideon!
New York 17th June 1800
I hasten my dear Sally to answer three of
your letters, two of which, one by Gideon
and one by the mail, I received yesterday.
21. Abby Brown Francis Diary, 14 October 1795
“Commenced
housekeeping Octor
the 14th
on
Wednesday Ev’g.
Boston had been
here two days with
Betsey Green and
Esther came the
same Eve’g. They
have 7/ a week.”
22. Julia Bowen Diary, 13 April 1799
“In the Eve. we again
went to have our
fortunes told at
Goody Morris,
beyond where we
went before…sad to
say, Agnes came
away without paying
the old hag…”
25. • Personal
• Occupational
• Stational
• Local
• Worldly
• Who am I?
• How old am I?
• What class level am I?
• What materials can I afford?
• What do I have access to?
26. Who is Kitty Smith?
• Widowed, with a teenage son.
• Housekeeper for the Browns.
• Widowed; no property, no siblings.
Connected by marriage to the Smiths.
• From Providence; lived there with her
husband, a war veteran who died of his
wounds.
• Has traveled to Bristol and Newport.
Son at sea on the ship Ann & Hope
