Uprising

This novel isn’t a page-turner, but it is certainly a good historical novel. The story centers around the events that led up to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which was the catalyst that finally initiated significant reforms to workplace laws that actually protect workers.

The novels follows three young girls that are all tied to the factory in some way. Bella is a recent immigrant from Italy. Mostly on her own, she has come to America in an effort to save her family from starvation, but finds herself exploited and cheated at every turn, both by her bosses and by her landlady.

Yetta is a young Jewish immigrant from Russia. She and her sister are working to bring the rest of their family to America to save them from the increasing pogroms. However, Yetta is determined to be treated fairly and is one of the first girls on the picket line when the strike begins, suffering frequent beatings and imprisonment.

Jane is a budding socialite from a family climbing its way to the top of New York society. She has been brought up to wear pretty dresses, attend teas and balls, marry a wealthy man who will fatten her father’s assets and/or esteem, and have absolutely nothing but fluff between her ears. But when she meets Yetta and Jane on the picket line, she sees in them a freedom that she has never known and yet longs for.

Haddix really does a lovely job of intertwining the stories of these three girls as well as weaving in the facts of the strike and the fire that so quickly followed the end of the strike and resulted in the deaths of so many young girls. The novel provides some fantastic historical elements that tend to get glossed over in most public school history courses, where there is a race to finish the course in time for state testing. It is a great starting point for conversations about women’s and workers’ rights, the historical need for unions, the ethical obligations of business owners, and the discrepancy between the poor and the wealthy and how much money they each think is “enough.”

April 22, 2010 Posted in: fiction, historical fiction, Young Adult