OurColony.net

Twelve-year-old Emily Watson's story is a shocking, compassionate re-creation of daily life for the urban poor one hundred years ago. At the dingy, overcrowded Acme Garment Factory, Emily Watson stands for eleven hours a day clipping threads from blouses. Every time the boss passes, he shouts at her to snip faster. But if Emily snips too fast, she could ruin the garment and be docked pay. If she works too slowly, she will be fired. She desperately needs this job. Without the four dollars a week it brings, her family will starve. When a reporter arrives, determined to expose the terrible conditions in the factory, Emily finds herself caught between the desperate immigrant girls with whom she works and the hope of change. Then tragedy strikes, and Emily must decide where her loyalties lie. With Factory Girl, Barbara Greenwood returns to the unique hybrid of fact and fiction that earned her acclaim for The Last Safe House, A Pioneer Thanksgiving and others. The life of working children in North American cities in the early part of the twentieth century directly inspired young Emily's story. Her fictional experiences are interwoven with nonfiction sections describing family life in a slum, the fight to improve social conditions, the plight of working children then and now, and much more. Rarely seen archival photos accompany this story of the past as only Barbara Greenwood can tell it.