A New England Girlhood Outlined from Memory: Outlined from Memory

Rating:
Summary: A Pressed Flower Whose Scent Has Long Gone
Review: People in the following three categories will find this book interesting and useful : 1) feminists interested in 19th century women's lives and attitudes; 2) researchers into New England morals and values as expressed in exhortatory literature of the 19th century and 3) those who are studying lower middle class American education and intellectual interests as found in New England mill towns and the Mid-West in the mid-1800s. The author began life in the town of Beverly, Mass., which happens to be just across the water from my home town. Thus, I found a certain interest in her reminiscences about the town and countryside in the 1820s and `30s. Lowell, Mass., where the author worked for some years in the period 1835-1845, was at the time the site of a new industrial experiment, with Yankee farm girls brought in to provide a work force that was better educated and more disciplined than most. At the end of that period, the owners decided they could do better with less-educated immigrants who would not strike for their rights. America has changed so dramatically in the 111 years since this book was written that I doubt if most people would find A NEW ENGLAND GIRLHOOD too engrossing. It is chock full of moralizing homilies about life, beauty, religion, and high-minded industry. The smallest unpleasant thing is totally avoided, there is not the tiniest complaint or hint of rebellion. Earnest Christian fundamentalist sentiment suffuses the pages along with didactic glances at everything. More than once I was reminded of Chinese Communist textbooks, so terribly sincere were her chapters. There is still a modicum of interest in all this if you read the book in the light of "Wow! What a change a century can make in a culture !" Can you imagine a modern woman writing chapters on hymnbooks or uplifting poetry in her autobiography ? Yet, given the times, this was not strange, however so it appears today. In short, I cannot say that this book will enthrall too many people---its concerns and style are just too remote from the early 21st century.

Rating:
Summary: A Pressed Flower Whose Scent Has Long Gone
Review: People in the following three categories will find this book interesting and useful : 1) feminists interested in 19th century women's lives and attitudes; 2) researchers into New England morals and values as expressed in exhortatory literature of the 19th century and 3) those who are studying lower middle class American education and intellectual interests as found in New England mill towns and the Mid-West in the mid-1800s. The author began life in the town of Beverly, Mass., which happens to be just across the water from my home town. Thus, I found a certain interest in her reminiscences about the town and countryside in the 1820s and '30s. Lowell, Mass., where the author worked for some years in the period 1835-1845, was at the time the site of a new industrial experiment, with Yankee farm girls brought in to provide a work force that was better educated and more disciplined than most. At the end of that period, the owners decided they could do better with less-educated immigrants who would not strike for their rights. America has changed so dramatically in the 111 years since this book was written that I doubt if most people would find A NEW ENGLAND GIRLHOOD too engrossing. It is chock full of moralizing homilies about life, beauty, religion, and high-minded industry. The smallest unpleasant thing is totally avoided, there is not the tiniest complaint or hint of rebellion. Earnest Christian fundamentalist sentiment suffuses the pages along with didactic glances at everything. More than once I was reminded of Chinese Communist textbooks, so terribly sincere were her chapters. There is still a modicum of interest in all this if you read the book in the light of "Wow! What a change a century can make in a culture !" Can you imagine a modern woman writing chapters on hymnbooks or uplifting poetry in her autobiography ? Yet, given the times, this was not strange, however so it appears today. In short, I cannot say that this book will enthrall too many people---its concerns and style are just too remote from the early 21st century.