Alice Monologue

It took 17 minutes to walk from the room to the factory, and by the time Alice had taken her seat next to the many other girls along the textile bench, her white uniform was grey from the soot and smog from the air. Alice was nineteen with just past shoulder length rich brown hair, complimented by piercing hazel eyes. She wasn’t a tall gal, just 5’6. Her face looked tired despite her beautiful features. It was her third month in the Talbott’s Textile Factory, and she had had a rough go at it. London during the 1820’s was one of the roughest places in Europe. Sanitation was despicable, crime was through the roof and one didn’t know how long they would have a job before they were fired. Men were constantly drunk, and women were always being abused. Alice, a beautiful 19 year old girl from a farm 30 miles outside London, had seen more in her time there than she had ever wished to have known. She didn’t know it was going to be this hard she really didn’t. Alice pictured the perfect scenario of living, eating and learning all on the factories dime

Talbott, a 47 year old gentleman with salt & pepper hair, tall and very proffesional walked behind the girls with his pocket watch out all day crunching numbers in his head. He was the brains of the factory, as well as the owner. He was an acute man, one with a meticulous business plan that if disturbed he would ring the bell calling attention, and bark at the workers to speed up. The work environment wasn’t the best in the world, but it sure was one of the best in London. An all woman textile factory proved to be the least rebellious and the easiest to persuade he had figured when drawing up the plans for the factory, and he was right. If a girl was not performing as well as he would have liked, he would simply ask her if she would like to work alongside a drunk alleyway man in the Brighten Factory across the river. They would always say no, and he would always see a rise in production from them, easy as