RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY – The Rhode Island Historical Society is Making 2020 History!
Auction Ends: Dec 18, 2020 06:00 PM AST

Books

"Kissing the Shuttle: A Lyric History" by Mary Ann Mayer

Item Number
143
Estimated Value
20 USD
Sold
10 USD to di92fcd6c

The winning bid will go to FrontStream Global Fund (tax ID 26-3265577), a 501c3 nonprofit organization, which will send the donation to RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY (tax ID 050259110) on behalf of the winner.

Number of Bids
1  -  Bid History

Item Description

Original poetry, compelling photographs, and contextual summaries depict the rise of textile mills and King Cotton in the 19th century through the turn of the 20th. With industrialization came a matrix of events, sometimes deadly, always in the name of prosperity: Labor ''paced'' for the first time to feed the world's frenzy for finished cloth. Northern collusion in slave-grown southern cotton. The tuberculosis epidemic. A common weaving practice that spread TB, ''kissing the shuttle,'' sucking thread through its eye, was nick-named ''the kiss of death.'' This subject connects with others in this lyrical narrative set largely in Rhode Island. The birthplace of American industry, the state also pioneered visionary reforms: ''open-air'' schools to curb TB, the first hot school lunch program and formal outdoor recess, child labor laws and factory sanitation. This inventive collection reenacts a little-known history, one at risk of being forgotten.