One of the things I learned when writing my unit was how the cities and towns sprang up around the rivers because the flowing waters powered the mill machinery in the beginning. You should take a jaunt up to RI and explore Slater Mill!
But you’re right, mill life was not a happy life. Safety measures were pretty much non-existent, child labor was rampant, and the cotton industry was awful.
And the pollution!
I was reading an article on Levi Strauss and the entire denim production…it is amazing that we are not all poisoned from the dumping, the bleach and chemicals used…and now we just buy cheap clothing from China where the workers are subjected to this bad working conditions instead…
I swear I’m on some sort of quest to get everyone I know to read the Green Rider series. I like some fantasy, and yet find some of it so off putting, full of silly names no one can pronounce. But there’s just something about this particular series. The main character grew up as the daughter of a textile merchant, and later becomes a Green Rider, one of the secretly-magical King’s messengers. (Each has some very minor magical talent, but is not like a wizard or anything.) They spend a lot of time traveling through forest, and again the author based those bits on her time working in other National Parks so they feel incredibly real. Karrigan accidentally travels backwards in time in previous novels, but when she goes forward in book 5 and sees the textile mills, and the cloth they produce, she’s both amazed at the rapidity of production, and disgusted, because she can also see the soot in the air from the from burning coal, and is horrified that the mills are worked by slaves (slavery being illegal in her own time). There’s a character who was scalped and nearly killed in a mill accident, and a terrible fire that kills hundreds of workers, so Britain doesn’t shy away from the reality of mill life.
And yeah, growing up in New England, I didn’t realize how surrounded I was by the legacy of the textile industry, and how the rest of the country wasn’t like that. But living in Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee now have given me so much perspective about our different histories. When I was in grad school for costuming, I read somewhere that only the ancient Greeks & Romans, and the Japanese, truly appreciated the art that is weaving. Because quality cloth was difficult to produce, Greeks & Romans created chitons and togas, which are whole pieces of cloth, that are simply pinned around the body each day. And kimonos are produced with the width of the woven fabric left intact, so whole rectangles of cloth, meaning there are no scrappy off-cuts. Whereas only cultures that developed from stitching skins together, would come up with something like tailoring, which leaves huge amounts of wasteful off-cuts when creating garments.
Dang…you have me interested in reading that series…
Everyone step into my web… whahahahahaha…
I’m definitely bring lured in
Same here! I’m wondering if I could find it on Audible. 
The audio books are great! Awesome narration. Wish I could send you my copy on Audible.
I caved and got the first three books…lol…already reading the first few chapters until the books get here on Friday…
I am waiting on a fabric order to complete my lap quilt. I just did not have the right color for framing the Carpenter Star. But the weather has delayed mail everywhere. Must be patient. So I cut out a few dozen masks. And did some art journaling and cleaned the house.
It always fascinates me how the “good” parts of history and the “bad” parts of history are so entangled. So many good developments were caused by extremely bad developments.
My city also has a history of textile mills. The soil here has always been extremely poor and the area was remote. People lived in extreme poverty. Due to their religion (Catholic in a protestant part of Europe) they were second-class citizens and legally, this area was similar to a colony. The Netherlands had colonies all around the world and the valuable products that were taken from the overseas colonies were used to fund the building of canals in this area, which in turn allowed mills to settle here and employ people. The misery of the people in our overseas colonies funded a slightly better life for my own maternal ancestors, and eventually even gave them equal rights. Life in the mills was still extremely hard, but slightly better than the life people had before then.
Good news! LittleBookLover was discharged from the hospital over the weekend! He’s feeling much better, though needing a bit more care than usual. Yesterday, he had a good day being able to crawl around and play with his toys!
I’m so happy to hear this! 
I’m so glad he’s home! Hope he feels better soon.
So glad he’s doing better!
Yay! 
So glad to hear! I know it is always way more stressful when a child is ill…good news, indeed!
This is such good news. 
Hey @AudiobookLover, I used my magic Mod powers and added the link to MareMare’s binding tutorial to your awesome list of tips and tricks. I hope that’s okay!