Women clothing workers - Social conditions

Mill Times (2001)

Icon:

Mill Times is based on the popular and widely-acclaimed book, Mill, by author-illustrator David Macaulay. Mill Times continues the unique live action/animation format of the previous Macaulay specials.

Grade Level:

Middle

Length:

01:00

Lyddie

Icon:

"The first step to freedom is schooling," a runaway slave tells Lyddie Worthen. It's the mid-1800s and the working conditions in the Storemont cotton factory are horrific. Lyddie is willing to endure those conditions to earn enough money to bring her family back together. When another worker, Diana teaches Lyddie to read, it opens up a new world of possibilities for her. After Diana dies of cotton lung, Lyddie must decide if she's willing to risk her job to fight for the rights of other workers or stay in the factory as a "wage slave." Based on the book by Katherine Paterson.

Director:

Stefan Scaini

Grade Level:

Elementary

Middle

Length:

01:30

Lyddie

Icon:

When Lyddie and her younger brother are hired out as servants to help pay off their family farm's debts, Lyddie is determined to find a way to reunite her family once again. Hearing about all the money a girl can make working in the textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts, she makes her way there, only to find that her dreams of returning home may never come true.

Author:

Katherine Paterson

Grade Level:

Middle

Lexile:

860L

Length:

07:15

China Blue (2005)

Icon:

Examines the conditions of a factory in Shaxi, China, where mostly young women workers produce blue jeans for the western market in the age of globalization. Illuminates the economic pressures applied by Western companies and their human consequences. China Blue takes a look behind the closed factory gates and gives the anonymous workers a face.

Grade Level:

High

Length:

01:28