Lyddie Quotes

Have you ever wondered what it's like to work in a factory? Imagine dust, lint, smoke, and noise all in one crowded room. This is what Lyddie Worthen in the book, Lyddie, by Katherine Paterson has to face. Lyddie has faced many hardships when working in the factory. Lyddie is a young girl who is sent off to work to pay the debts for her family. Lyddie was fired from her first job and went to Lowell, Massachusetts to be a factory girl. When working, there are poor working conditions. Other workers have started a petition to improve the working conditions. Lyddie should not sign the petition because she is mentally strong and is getting paid well.

Throughout the beginning of her speech, Kelley makes use of disturbing anecdotes that appeal to women's emotions. She first illustrates that while they “sleep, several thousand little girls” are “working in textile mills” throughout the night. This use of little girls working highlights that children all around the United States are not sleeping but are operating machines: making clothes for the adults to purchase. She incorporates this factor in order to encourage the concerned mothers to help alter labor laws so that their children are not working twelve-hour shifts. Kelley continues to describe how little girls of “six or seven years,” who are “just tall enough to reach” the machines, will be working eleven hours a day. Kelley’s use of the children's height emphasizes how as soon as children reach a certain height, they are being deprived of their childhood and sent to work in the factories. She continues to repeat the phrase that “while [they] sleep” little girls and boys “will be working” in the mills. Kelley’s continual use of this phrase evokes sympathy in the women so they can help change the lives of children by amending the harsh child labor laws.

This quote is important because later in the story Lyddie is going to become overly exhausted and start to become and act like a robot. So this is when Lyddie is in the factory and Mr. Marsden is treating her differently by giving her more looms. “She had done so well on her two, then three, machines that Mr. Marsden gave her a fourth loom” (98). These quotes are showing more reasons why Lyddie should sign the petition and leave the factory. This evidence shows that Lyddie should sign the petition. Lyddie is being harassed by Mr. Marsden in more ways than one.

When she was in the barn with Lennie, she began to tell her dream of being a movie actress in Hollywood, with luxurious life, money and respect other people that she currently doesn’t have. Her dream almost came true, but then Curley came destroyed her dream, and now, she has to stay in the dirty ranch, doing housework and doesn’t have any freedom, being treated as a possession of

Throughout the 1700’s and the early 1800’s child labor was a major issue in American society. Children have always worked for family businesses whether it was an agricultural farming situation or working out of a family business in some type of workplace. This was usually seen in families of middle or lower class because extra help was needed to support the family. Child labor dramatically changed when America went through the Industrial Revolution. When America’s industrial revolution came into play, it opened a new world to child labor. Children were now needed to work in factories, mills, and mines. These were not ordinary jobs for young children, these jobs required much time, effort, and hard work. “American

One reason Lyddie should not sign the petition is because she needs money to pay of th debt. “We got to think about keeping the farm for when papa comes back.” If Lyddie wants

Lyddie is being so overworked that she can’t even take the time to read her most favorite book because she’s exhausted. The working conditions are also dangerous to the point that it even states this on page 101: “There were no deaths on Concord Corporation, but one of the little Irish girls in the spinning room had caught her hair in the machinery and was badly hurt.” The equipment at the factory isn’t the safest, and it is hazardous for the workers to be surrounded by the machinery and use the faulty instruments, that could possibly put them at risk of

After her father sets out on a journey and may never come back again, 13-year old Lyddie and 10-year old Charlie are hired out as servants in the tavern to pay back their family debt. Lyddie's mill life begins when she meets a mill girl dressed in rich, expensive clothes and learns that she can "clear at least two dollars a week" in the mill manufacturing cloth in Lowell, Massachusetts. In the historical fiction Lyunderlineddie by Katherine Paterson, Lyddie's friend; the infamous Diana Goss, circulates a petition asking for only 10-hours of work time per day. Lyddie should sign the petition because first, it's dangerous for young girls to work in a mill 13 to 14 hours a day, lots of workers get sick because of the strength it took to do mill work. Second, contagious factory air makes a lot of workers sick, working long hours allows the sickness to worsen. In addition, the workers are working longer hours and getting paid less. Lyddie should sigh the petition because of many different factors, signing the petition will improve Lyddie's mill conditions.

She must earn all the money to pay of what they owed, so she could gather her family back on the farm while she still had family left to gather.” pg.88. Lyddie is working hard to pay off the debt but realizes if she wants it all over then she must work harder and faster to get everything done.

If a child were to work at the mill they would start out as young as ten years old. Most of the children that did work at the mill would got to school for about 6 hours then they would go to work for 7 or so hours. Also many of the women that did work at the mill their husbands had died so they had to provide for their children and they typically had more than two children. It was very rough at the mill, the air was filled with fumes and lint and it would get stuck in the worker's lungs and they would get really sick. It was terrible for the children to because they didn’t have a well developed immune system so they would get sick a lot quicker and they would get

All of the factory workers aren’t as strong and youthful as they were when they first came to work in the mills. It really wasn’t “right for this place to suck the strength of their youth, then cast them off like dry husks to the wind.” (113) This is what the factory life did to the young workers. It wasn’t at all fair for the factory life to drain the workers of their youth. After the factory life sucks their strength & youth, the workers will “never be strong enough again to work in a mill thirteen, fourteen hours a day.” (113) The workers will never be strong enough just because they worked in the mill. They are permanently scarred for life due to their weak body. Also, Lyddie had heard “that wretched hacking sound that sawed through her rib cage straight into her heart …and knew it to be Rachel.” (139) Even the youngest & newest worker can quickly get sick. Rachel hasn’t worked in the mill for even a month yet she is already sick. Lyddie should sign the petition because the factory life drains the youth out of the young factory

"If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing exaltation of affection and make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and significant, and if this heavenly, world-transfiguring drug were of such a kind that we could wake up next morning with a clear head and an undamaged constitution - then, it seems to me, all our problems (and not merely the one small problem of discovering a novel pleasure) would be wholly solved and earth would become paradise."

The author uses quotes from a variety of people, all of which corroborate the idea the working conditions women faced in Lowell changed from being a positive model of a work environment in a factory setting to a dismal work environment in less than 10 years. (check the time range). Since the quotes were from a wide demographic of individuals, they are fairly reliable because they represent more than one view about Lowell. Klein also discussed the Lowell Offering as a source of information and its impact on the perception of the manufacturer to describe the standard of living in Lowell. The women working in the factory contributed stories to the Lowell Offering. At first, their writing showed that they were interested in bettering themselves by being willing to write for a

Child labor was also a concern due to young children as young as give years old were working in factories for little pay and long working hours to assist in taking care of their families. They worked in what was known to me factory mills, coal mines, and sweat shops. Industrialization didn’t create labor, however, it aided in creating child labor reform policies.

She needs the money for the debt and she wants to keep the farm and she needs money for that. Lyddie was in the boarding house when she said,”She must earn all the money to pay off what they owed,so she could gather her family together back on the farm while she still had family left to gather. ”She wants to gather her family and get them back. Lyddie was in the factory when she said,”The money was growing again. She had nearly caught up with the wages lost by her illness…”