Summary of Kim Kelly's Fight Like Hell

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The American labor movement owes a huge debt to women. Women were allowed to join early labor organizations, such as the Knights of Labor and the Industrial Workers of the World, but their relatively inclusive outlook made them outliers in the broader labor landscape.

#2 The Victorian era was a time when women were expected to be housewives, and any deviation from this norm was viewed as socially suspect. For middle- and upper-class women, the thought of earning money for their toil was completely foreign.

#3 The first strike in the country’s history was conducted by textile workers in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1824. The women blockaded the mills’ entrances and loudly declared their intention to stay out of work until the new orders were rescinded.

#4 The Industrial Revolution brought with it a wave of child labor in mills across New England. By the time of the Pawtucket mill strike, their sisters of the loom had already been sweating away in mills across New England for more than a decade.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822510777

IRB Media

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Insights on Kim Kelly's Fight Like Hell

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The American labor movement owes a huge debt to women. Women were allowed to join early labor organizations, such as the Knights of Labor and the Industrial Workers of the World, but their relatively inclusive outlook made them outliers in the broader labor landscape.

#2

The Victorian era was a time when women were expected to be housewives, and any deviation from this norm was viewed as socially suspect. For middle- and upper-class women, the thought of earning money for their toil was completely foreign.

#3

The first strike in the country’s history was conducted by textile workers in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1824. The women blockaded the mills’ entrances and loudly declared their intention to stay out of work until the new orders were rescinded.

#4

The Industrial Revolution brought with it a wave of child labor in mills across New England. By the time of the Pawtucket mill strike, their sisters of the loom had already been sweating away in mills across New England for more than a decade.

#5

The appeal of young women to the factory owner was not just their low wages, but their supposed docility. They were a transient workforce that would stick around only a few years before getting married, preventing the formation of a permanent working class in the mill cities.

#6

The Lowell mills were a paradise for young women, but as time went on and the harsh realities of the workplace began to set in, the publication of a labor activist turned firebrand, Sarah Bagley, helped change the tone of the writings in the Lowell Offering.

#7

Mill owners next turned to hiring immigrants, who were typically paid less than their Yankee counterparts. The first group of immigrant workers to enter New England’s mills were the Irish, who were routinely discriminated against and anti-Catholic violence.

#8

White men, unlike women of the time, held the threat of their votes as well as their labor to stir up trouble for those in power. The LFLRA used this to pressure legislators into passing labor laws.

#9

The connection between the suffering of enslaved Black people and that of the textile workers in the