The Daring Ladies of Lowell by Kate Alcott
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Lowell Massachusetts was a cotton mill town. Young women who did not want a life on a farm flocked there to work as “mill girls.” The mill owners promised that these women were of good virtue and that they would be safe. A murder of one of the girls led to a sensational trial.
This is the fictionalized account of the trial following the murder of a real mill girl. It occurred at a time when tensions were running high because of unsafe working conditions in the mill that was leading to deaths from inhalation of cotton fibers. One side of the story is represented by a mill girl who is friends with the murdered woman. She starts to speak out to try to get justice for her friend. The other side is represented by the heir to the mill who starts to realize that they are killing the workers but who can’t convince his father to change his ways.
I enjoyed this book.
