3/9/08

Kyle Lunsford
3/9/08
Reynolds
Blog #9
The reading for this past week and over the weekend, The Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker, is a novel that depicts the life of girls on strike in 1909. The whole book is a journal of the narrator’s daily thoughts and experiences as she tries to fight for women’s rights, specifically that to have the ability to form or join a laborer’s union. I knew before reading this book that things were bad for female workers in the early twentieth century, but I was still amazed at the awful treatment they received while both working and striking. The conditions are similar to those in Life in the Iron Mills. The idea of women strikers breaks apart the many relationships in Mary’s, the narrator’s, life. The way Malkiel writes the story is very different from most. It is all based on the narrator’s account of events and her opinions. There are no actual conversations in the book, just Mary’s retelling of them. Eventually, she is kicked out of her family’s house by her father and has a falling out with her fiancée. By the end of the reading for Monday, Mary’s dad and Jim have begun to see her reasoning and side of the argument. Mary was very satisfied when she realized that Jim had changed his opinions and was happy just to have turned one person. So in the end, the strike was somewhat of a good thing in that it enlightened some people as to what struggles the factory girls had to go through. The rich and upper class people in this story were so cold and heartless even when the girls came to them and told them their stories. They gave some money, but to them it was pennies and nickels. After visiting with the girls, they would go on with their lives not thinking twice about the hardships the workers faced every day. Overall, I think the book is very feminist, which is its point, and appeals greatly to the females in the audience. It is a very convincing argument in its time as to why women should be allowed to be in unions and it leads into and mentions their right to vote.