ipl-logo

Working Conditions In Lyddie, By Katherine Paterson

713 Words3 Pages

The novel Lyddie, by Katherine Paterson, is about Lyddie, the protagonist. After her family’s farm goes into debt, she goes to work in the Cutler’s Tavern where she works, almost like a slave as she doesn’t earn money for herself. Lyddie then gets fired and goes to Lowell, Massachusetts to get a job at the textile factory. She manages to become one of the factory workers at the factory and works with Diana, a fellow worker. Diana started a petition for getting fewer work hours and better working conditions because they have bad working conditions. Currently, in the novel, the working conditions are long hours of tending the looms, bad air quality, disease, and dangerous machines. Diana wanted Lyddie to sign the petition, however, there would be consequences of signing. The benefits of …show more content…

As noted on page 92, “You’d be blacklisted no other corporation would hire you.” This confirms that if Lyddie gets fired is a very little chance that she would get another job. According to dictionary.com, a blacklist is, “A list privately exchanged among employers, containing the names of persons to be barred from employment because of trustworthiness for holding opinions considered undesirable.” If Lyddie is blacklisted it means she can be fired from her current job and other factories will refuse to hire her.
On the other hand, Lyddie should sign the petition because then she would have more free time. Evidence that supports this is, “Time is more precious than money, Lyddie girl. If only I had two more free hours of an evening what I couldn't do.” This shows that the factory girls did not have a lot of free time and if they signed the petition they would have two or three more hours of free time and that Betsy (another factory girl and Lyddie’s roommate) believes that time is valuable. However, Lyddie does not need extra hours of freedom, but more money for her family and to pay off the

Show More
Related
596 Words | 3 Pages

Within the reading, I caught that, “She did not go to work the next day or for many days thereafter. Her fever raged, and she was out of her mind with it.” This shows that the fever affected her badly, and kept her from going to work for several days, as it rages on. Also, throughout Chapter 17, it stated, “It had been two weeks since she fell ill, and Dr. Morris still refused to let her return to work.” which also shows that Lyddie has been ill for a long time.

Read More
507 Words | 3 Pages

LYDDIE Lydia (Lyddie) Worthen, a thirteen-year-old begins working in the Lowell textile mill to pay off her family’s debt. In Lyddie by Katherine Paterson, every girl has the choice of signing the petition Diana Goss is circulating. The air in the factory is murky and dense, the sound coming from the looms are unbearable, as well as the unfair hours and pay on the job. Lyddie should sign the petition, for the treatment she and many other girls received on their job are unjust.

Read More
619 Words | 3 Pages

Lyddie’s working conditions in the factory are unsafe and dangerous. Even the factory building was unsafe. “... A girl had slipped on the icy staircase in the rush to dinner. ”(101) .The machines were very big and dangerous.

Read More
198 Words | 1 Pages

Jumping forward to 1909, it became the rising of the women. Once again women are fighting what they believe in when working in the factories. However, this is the most famous strike that has taken place against International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU). The women started to picket them, but ended up getting arrested for doing so. One day 20-30 thousand people went on strike; they got strike pay, publicity, and legal support from the WTUL to continue the strike against the factories.

Read More
633 Words | 3 Pages

She hasn 't seen her family in 2 years and is still working hard to collect money to get her cabin back, which is in debt. When Lyddie meets Diana Goss, who was a girl working with Lyddie in the factory, Diana introduces her to a petition, that could change her life for the better, or for the worse. Should Lyddie sign the petition for a happier, healthier life, but could get blacklisted, or should Lyddie suffer for a few more years to get the money she needs? Some people might state that she shouldn 't sign the petition because the job has decent pay and that Lyddie doesn 't mind and is only focusing on one goal- money. The right decision for Lyddie is to sign the petition, so that Lyddie doesn 't get into any dangerous situation, doesn 't get worn out from her job and has a decreased risk of getting sick.

Read More
813 Words | 4 Pages

In the mid 1800s industry was advancing and children of all ages were working in dangerous factories. People attempted to strike against these rules, while some decided not to. In the book ¨Lyddie¨ by Katherine Paterson, the main character Lyddie has a job in a factory with very poor conditions and long hours. Since this was only the 1800s, child labor laws were not yet established and Lyddie was recently introduced to her idea of rebelling against the rules for more rights.

Read More
439 Words | 2 Pages

How do you know where your place is when it comes to two different topics? In Behind the Scenes, Elizabeth Keckley tells the story of two topics, slavery, which are from her personal experiences. And Mrs. Lincoln, a good friend of hers. Elizabeth Keckely supports and develops her position on slavery by sharing her personal experiences on the cruelty, her position on Mrs. Lincoln is by defending, speaking highly and lowly about her throughout her memoir, Behind the Scenes. Elizabeth Keckley hates slavery and feels it’s a curse, but she doesn’t blame the slave owners.

Read More
830 Words | 4 Pages

She explains how happy, but conflicted because her parents refuse money from her and live as homeless people. She writes the memoir to work through her feelings and share’s her story. Some topics that I could identify in the text are: poverty, teenage pregnancy and child rights. The issue of poverty is portrayed from the beginning of the book to the end.

Read More
1140 Words | 5 Pages

Literary Analysis of Deborah and Desiree Aubigny This assignment will be analyzing the differences in Deborah from Life in the Iron Mill written by Rebecca Harding Davis, and Desiree Aubigny from Desiree’s baby written by Kate Chopin. Desiree Aubigny is the protagonist in Chopin’s story and the wife of Armand Aubigny. The two have a child together which turns the hard heart of Armand soft, however shortly after Armand’s heart grows cold and harsh with the revelation the child is not fully white, Desiree is told by Armand to leave and she does, killing herself and the child. Deborah is a protagonist from Davis’s story Life in the Iron Mills who is selfless and caring and spends most of the story trying to get Hugh Wolfe to love her. While Deborah

Read More
452 Words | 2 Pages

Moving to Windsor, Ontario from Sydney Mines, Cape Breton was a result of many changes that created a number of closures in Atlantic Canada. The coal mines closed down putting thousands of miners out of work. The Princess Colliery Pit that filled the box cars full of coal shut it's doors in nineteen seventy five. It has since been torn down. The train station where the big iron wheels were used to pull the luggage to the freight cars is no longer in business.

Read More
757 Words | 4 Pages

And what was she to do with Rachel?”(122) Lyddie worked hard for the money she needed to go back home. When she finds out she can’t even do that, she doesn’t know what to do. Even though she doesn’t know what to do now, she should not sign the petition! She instead should wait it out until she knows what to do.

Read More
479 Words | 2 Pages

Dimensions of American Workers Out of the three readings, the readings I related to the most were those of Marilyn Lindblad. The reasons I related to her the most was her views of how culture really affects Americans in the workplace. Being a 45 year old man that has worked in a corporate environment for the past 20 years, I believe her views conveyed what many of the employees that do work in a very deep corporate culture can relate to on a daily basis. Recently having gone through an exercise a work that was labeled as a “span and layer” exercise, each organization needed to ensure that all management level employees had a minimum of five (5) direct reports to ensure that the layers between management and the front line employees were no more than eight (8) to one (1). The purpose of this initiative was to flatten the layers between the lowest levels in the corporation and senior management.

Read More
952 Words | 4 Pages

For example, Patsy and his mother live in poverty on a “scanty livelihood” and were too “poor, too poor to even call in a doctor.” This shows one of Patsy’s many struggles and how it affects his and his mother’s life by showing how they can’t even get proper treatment for Patsy’s mother’s sickness. Another example is the struggle Patsy faces with being black in the 1800s, being told things like “Why don’t you stay down south where you belong.” Likewise, Joby also deals with struggles related to the time his story is set. For example, the Civil War made it so “Nothing stayed put.

Read More
262 Words | 2 Pages

My character, Adeline Purthe, was born in 1888 in New York City. She is now 25 years old and works with the NAWSA, National American Woman Suffrage Association, fighting for women’s right to vote. Her grandfather came over to America from Ireland during the Potato Famine in 1846 in his boat with his wife and other families hoping to start a new life in America. He started a business in New York City importing and exporting goods with his boat to other countries. In 1857 her grandfather and grandmother gave birth to Adeline’s father, Finn.

Read More
1044 Words | 5 Pages

Her and her family get deported the "ghetto" because they were Jewish. There life was flipped upside down; she came from a decently wealthy bakeground. With everything going down around them it was a harsh awkening for all of them. She became a goods smuggler to help her family services. Even with all the danger and risker around

Read More

More about Working Conditions In Lyddie, By Katherine Paterson

Related Topics

Open Document