Child Labor and New Jersey’s Silk Industry in Paterson
Laura Oliynik, White Rock School, Jefferson Township, NJ
Grade Level: 3-5
Objectives: Students will be able to:
· explain how Paterson used water power and child labor to run its factories
· identify the commonalities of a firsthand account
· discuss their opinions about child labor with their peers
New Jersey Core Content Social Studies Standards:
· 6.1.4.C.6 Describe the role and relationship among households, businesses, laborers, and governments within the economic system.
· 6.1.4.D.19 Explain how experiences and events may be interpreted differently by people with different cultural or individual perspectives.
Common Core ELA Standards:
· RI.4.3 Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information in the text.
· RI.4.6 Compare and contrast a firsthand and secondhand account of the same event or topic; describe the differences in focus and the information provided.
Anticipatory activity
Ask students:
“How would you feel if instead of going to school, you had to go to work in a factory?”
Allow time for students to turn and talk to each other, and then offer thoughts to the whole class.
Activity Part 1: Video & Questions
1. Distribute worksheets for the lesson.
2. Visit the website “NJ History Kids” http://www.state.nj.us/state/historykids/NJHistoryKids.htm
3. Click in the “#2” circle on the map, and then click the top button to view the “Silk City” video.
4. Students should read the questions they will have to answer before watching the video. Then, have students watch the video and allow them time to discuss/answer questions that accompany the video.
Activity Part 2: Firsthand Account of a “Mill Dolly”
5. Read the definition of a “firsthand account” along with the directions together as a class.
6. Break the students into small groups of 3-4. Assign one member of the group to read as “Lini”. The group should read the definitions at the bottom of the page before listening to “Lini” read the account.
(Another option would be to read as a whole class together)
7. Student groups will work together to answer the accompanying questions as a group.
Closing:
Have the class come back together as a whole and ask the question again, “How would you feel if instead of going to school, you had to go to work in a factory?” Have the students talk to each other and then share with the class how their thoughts may have changed after viewing the video and reading/discussing the firsthand account.
Materials:
· Part 1: Video Questions Worksheet
· Part 2: Firsthand Account of a “Mill Dolly” with Questions
· Technology needed: Either a SMART board or video projection device to show the video, or students would need the video link to view on individual computers.
· Small student group assignments (3-4 students)
Related Read Aloud Book:
· The Bobbin Girl by Emily Arnold McCully tells the story of 10-year-old Rebecca, who works long hours in a New England textile mill.
Assessment:
Formative- student participation in group discussions and meetings, individual answers to questions listed
Summative- student ability to read a firsthand account, and compare it with a secondhand account
(in future nonfiction Reading or Social Studies activities)
Name:______
For this activity, you will watch a video about Paterson, which was also known as “Silk City”.
Then, you will read a firsthand account of a girl who worked in a factory.
As you watch the video, try to answer the questions below:
PART 1: Video Questions
1. Why was Paterson located where it was? What natural feature was it located near?
______
2. How was water power used to run the early factories in Paterson?
______
3. How did they get the water from the falls to the factories?
______
4. Who was Alexander Hamilton? What role did he have in the founding of Paterson?
______
5. How did the home of the Botto family differ from that of the Lambert family?
______
Part 2: Firsthand Account of a “Mill Dolly”
A firsthand account is told from a person’s own point of view. They are telling what they’ve seen firsthand, how they felt at the time, and what their thoughts or opinions might be. You will see the words “I, me, and my” a lot in a firsthand account.
Read the firsthand account of a Mill Dolly below and then answer the questions.
______
June 1918- I was almost twelve years old. I graduated from grammar school. We all had to have white dresses for the graduation ceremony. I recall Mother making me a white dress and trimming it with the fringe from old curtains. I just hoped no one would notice the curtain fringe…I was sorry to finish school. Now I wanted to go to high school.
Finally I realized that it was no use to coax her (my mother). She would not let me go to high school. She said, “I have fed you long enough. You don’t need book learning. You will go out and work.” She had to lie about my age to get my working papers, but she got them. She even got me my first job in a silk mill. The mill was on the same street where we lived, a few blocks down.
Very early in life I had learned not to expose my fright to anyone. It was useless. Yet I really was scared that first day in the mill. Machines roared. Belts whirled. Workers shouted at one another over the noise of the clacking looms. The spools that I carried got heavier and heavier as the day dragged on.
The winder kept the skeins twirling. When a thread broke she would run to tie it. The warpers demanded filled bobbins to make the warp. I was the link between them, the bobbin girl. Bobbins bright with silk thread to the warpers and empty bobbins back to the winders. All day long, ten hours a day, six days a week, I carried bobbins, bobbins, bobbins. I could not see why I had to give every cent I earned to my mother. It was my back that felt as if it were breaking. I demanded part of my earnings. I got blows, but also the promise of five cents on every dollar I earned. This gave me thirty-five cents a week, which was all mine.
However, life was easier. I was home only evenings and Sundays. I much preferred the good-natured shouting and teasing of my co-workers to the angry yells of Mother. Such a mixed-up child I was. I wanted to go to high school. I could not give up the dream. I was ashamed of being a “mill dolly” and despised myself for being ashamed.
Lini de Vries
Source:
Up From the Cellar
(Minneapolis: Vanilla Press, 1979)
Questions:
1. Why did this girl feel embarrassed at her graduation from grammar school?
______
2. Why didn’t her mother want her to go to high school? Was her mother being mean? Why?
______
3. What were the girl’s first impressions of the silk mill?
______
4. What were her duties as a bobbin girl?
______
5. How old was this girl? How many hours did she work a day? How many days a week? Do you think that today children are allowed to work in factories for this many hours?
______
______
6. What did the girl have to do with her pay? What happened if she didn’t do it?
______
7. How did she feel about being a “mill dolly?”
______