Imagine a conversation in the 1890s between a young brother and sister in Chicago, who are working, respectively, in a meat-packing plant and as a telephone operator, and their grandmother, who as a young girl worked in a Lowell, Massachusetts, textile mill in the 1840s (Chapter 9) before the family moved west to take advantage of new opportunities. What similarities and differences might they see in their various experiences of work? What does this tell us about changes in workers’ lives over these decades?

Imagine a conversation in the 1890s between a young brother and sister in Chicago, who are working, respectively, in a meat-packing plant and as a telephone operator, and their grandmother, who as a young girl worked in a Lowell, Massachusetts, textile mill in the 1840s (Chapter 9) before the family moved west to take advantage of new opportunities. What similarities and differences might they see in their various experiences of work? What does this tell us about changes in workers’ lives over these decades?