Lawrence Strike | Homework Helpers

Read the two primary sources and answer question as an analytical essay.

Primary sources:
http://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/vorse/lawrence.html

http://exhibit.breadandrosescentennial.org

Questions:
1. Which account of the Lawrence Strike do you find most credible and why?
2. What happened during the Lawrence Strike, according to Vorse? What is her point of view? What is her attitude toward the strikers, police, the mill owners? Do you find her account credible and trustworthy? Why or why not?
3. How similar to Vorse’s account was the description in the New York Times of the children’s exodus during the strike? Was the Times article sympathetic to the strikers? What was the author’s political stance? Is this account trustworthy?
4. How was the political stance of Il Proletario different from that of miIDle-class newspapers like the Times? How did Il Proletario’s treatment of the children’s exodus differ from Vorse’s account and the story in the Times? Do you find its treatment credible?
5. Why did the removal of the children from Lawrence become a political act? What did it symbolize? Were the children themselves portrayed as politicized? How was the action “gendered” as feminine?

Your answer to question 1 will be your thesis.

Class textbook:
Murrin, John, Paul Johnson, James McPherson, Alice Fahs, Gary Gerstle, Emily Rosenberg, and Norman Rosenberg. Liberty Equality Power A History of the American People. Fifth. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011. Print.