WAR INTERNATIONAL

Just in case anyone was wondering...that website for the Women At Risk International is

warinternational.org

It's an amazing website and there are even stores located around the Grand Rapids area where you can buy jewelry also!

Mary Paul

As I said I would, I spent the last couple days looking into the normal lives of mill girls and their backgrounds. I looked through my stack of books again and found a book that I had skimmed and nit picked, and decided to look more closely at it. The Book I found is called FARM TO FACTORY. It follows the lives of 4 ordinary mill women through their letters and correspondence with family and then proceeds to discuss what each letter is about and what's happening at that time. When I first looked at the book back in Oct. I had decided to use the woman Mary Paul in my paper to catch the readers attention and then I decided to weaver her throughout the paper saying here and there what Mary might have thought about certain situations. I think that it keeps the paper alive and creditable.
The reason I'm saying all this is to let you know that it helps a lot to just go back over information; even if you think you might know everything about your topic and your paper is golden. I went back over FARM TO FACTORY and just one sentence got me thinking and helped me a lot this past weekend. It was a section I'd skimmed over the first time reading through the book and it was all about how the women were the crucial ones to the city of Lowell and how it was really them who began and ran the community, with of course the men steering them in certain directions based on how fatherly they were feeling. It really helps going back over and over materials. You never know what you might have missed. I'd start with the ones you didn't spend too much time on because you thought it didn't have any info that would be relevant to your topic other than a couple sentences.

Sneak Peek!

I wanted to post some images from my presentation on here in case I go quickly through them during my  presentation!

These are the boardinghouses that were near the Boott Mill.
Many of the boarding houses were demolished or were burnt to the ground. The Lowell Heritage State Park has built replicas of many of the boardinghouses. 

This is a map of the canal system in 1845

If you wanna check out some volumes of THE VOICE OF INDUSTRY go to this website: http://www.voiceofindustry.info/   I <3 it! 

The great and mighty clock tower is pictured here. The concept of keeping time and working on a schedule was difficult for the new Mill girls to adjust to. Having their lives run by a clock and bell was the hardest part. 

Many images that were produced by the mill were not accurate. If a picture had actually been taken there would have been lint particles flying all over (it would have looked like snow) and it would have been a very dark surrounding. 

The regulations had to be kept by the women or termination of their employment would have been likely. It would have been most difficult to be watched constantly by a keeper. 

Making connections

Presentations are going great so far! Congrats to everyone!! I was ready to go on Thursday, so having a homework assignment done this early is kind of a shocker!

I've been working on my paper even more this weekend. I've been trying to make more and more connections between the boardinghouse environment, Maya, and then Now. I've figured out that I need to do less background on the factory and then add a section about the background of the women. Also, I need to work on the men section. Basically, the only reason they were in the community was overseers or potential husbands! But, I'm trying to connect them to compare how this boardinghouse system worked specifically to the women in Lowell and how it was the women who made up the community in Lowell. The men had a part in it, but the boarding system didn't apply to them in the same way.

I'm looking at Maya again because I'm trying to examine how the women's backgrounds affected their experiences and new individuality in Lowell.

I definitely am starting to realize that I need to focus more on the women instead of just the history. There's just so much to tell. Just as Fine said in REO Joe, I don't want to get the story wrong and misconstrue what actually happened. 

Prezi

Hey!

I've decided that I'm going to do Prezi for my presentation instead of a power point. If you don't know what a Prezi is then you should look it up because it's a great alternative to power points. I'm basically putting everything I though was interesting, but didn't incorporate into my paper. Yes, I will be talking about my paper and key points I layed out in it, but I gotta make it interesting! haha! A couple of weeks ago when I was researching I was scouring a lot of Issues of "The Voice of Industry." I think I mentioned before that I found a great website where all the Volumes were posted, so I'm taking examples from that and adding them to my presentation. I think it should be good. I haven't presented in front of a class since fall semester last year...so I don't know how that's gonna go, but yea. It should be good.

If you go to www.prezi.com it should take you right to the website! It's free for students.

See you tomorrow! I can't wait to hear about everyones projects!

Just been working.

Not a lot has changed. I've just been working on my research paper still even though the rough draft has been handed in. I really need to incorporate more outside issues that were occurring at the time into my paper. Of course I know what's been happening, but making sure it gets added into my paper is what the problem is.

Also, I've been working on my final project. A few posts ago I added a link to a website where there was a game you could play to see how your experience as a Lowell Mill Girl would turn out. I think I'm going to go along the lines of that and try to incorporate that into my presentation somehow....still working out the details though.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Question

Should we be using pictures or examples in our research papers?

I know for the power point yes, but in the paper??