This book was CAPTIVATING. It was recommended to me first by my social studies teacher and the Bella after she'd read it. The purpose of the book is firstly to show people what it was like for young immigrant girls working in the shirtwaist factories in New York City during the Industrial Revolution. It follows the story of Yetta, a Jewish Russian fleeing pogroms in her country, Bella an Italian who is working to save her family back in Italy, and Jane a wealthy girl with a kind heart who gives up everything for these workers. It starts with the shirtwaist strike, the beginning of the friendships between these girls and finally it ends with the fire. Saturday, March 25, 1911 when sparks ignite a pile of rags on the 8th floor of the Asch building in New York. (Read account of fire here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire) All three of them are at the building that day, and the book takes you through the terror, the courage, the pain, and the dreadful sorrow that they endured in, for some of them, their final moments.
1 comment:
That was a very touching book.
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