Invite students to read the description of a
mill village and the poem "Textile Life"
on the
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 exhibit at the
American Memory website from the
Library of Congress.
(Follow the American Life Histories link above.
Then search for the exact phrase "Textile
Life" and ask the search engine to match
those words only.) What parts of the poem seem to apply to the experiences that the mill workers on this website described? How did mill villages differ from community to community? What would
have been the best and worst aspects of living in a mill village? How might a poem about
textile life written by a textile mill owner be different?
Do you have other ideas for teaching using the Mill Village and Factory resources on this website? If so, please e-mail your ideas to James Leloudis. We will add selected ideas to the website in future revisions.