Novel Guide: The Blue Door
Story Synopsis
Fourteen-year-old Amanda Videau has lived a life of privilege on her father’s cotton plantation in South Carolina. However, illness and financial difficulties call for desperate measures, and Amanda is sent to meet her great-grandfather, owner of a textile mill in Lowell, Massachusetts.
Due to an unfortunate chain of events - including witnessing a crime on-board the ship carrying her to Connecticut - Amanda is forced to disguise herself as someone else and work in her great-grandfather’s mill. She learns first-hand the horrors of factory life and begins to fight for her own newfound rights, as well as the rights of the other factory girls. She also learns some dark family secrets in the process; will she be able to heal those wounds as well?
Web Sites
Website on child labor and the Industrial Revolution
"Samuel Slater: Father of the American Industrial Revolution." Read the story of Samuel Slater, learn about child labor in Rhode Island’s mills, and link to other sites about the Industrial Revolution.
Website with information, cartoons, games, trivia, and additional links to the Industrial Revolution
home.earthlink.net/~womenwhist/textile.htm
Lesson on textile workers in the Industrial Revolution. Includes comparison of wages for males and females.
Full Lesson Plan
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