The Jungle (Excerpt)
Upton Sinclair's novel about immigrant workers in Chicago's meatpacking plants shocked readers when it was first published in 1906. Sinclair hoped the novel would awaken Americans to the evils of capitalism; the main character Jurgis ends the novel [...]
"Goddess of Liberty, Answer"
This poem refers to the Statue of Liberty, and appears to be a response to Emma Lazarus's poem "The New Colossus." The location mentioned by the author, "Sandy Hook," is on the coast of New Jersey, and signifies the border of the U.S. beyond which [...]
"Living"
John Boyle O'Reilly was an Irish-born poet and novelist who escaped to America from Western Australia, where he had been imprisoned for being a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, or Fenians. One of his later poems, "Living" (1881) connotes [...]
"I Am the Little Irish Boy"
Henry David Thoreau is one of America's best-loved poets and authors, known especially for his work Walden, with its meditations on nature. In this 1850 poem, Thoreau turns his attentive eye to a "little Irish boy," destined for a life of manual [...]
A Mill Girl Tells Her Story of Work
Lucy Larcom worked in the mills at Lowell as a young woman. Forty years later, she described her experiences in her book An Idyl of Work. She dedicated the book "to working women."
A Mill Girl Tells Her Story of Work (with text supports)
Lucy Larcom worked in the mills of Lowell as a young woman. Forty years later, she described her experiences in her book An Idyl of Work. She dedicated the book "to working women."
"Child of the Romans"
The poetry of Carl Sandburg often documented the lives of ordinary working people in his adopted city of Chicago. Here he contrasts the backbreaking work and simple lunch of a railroad laborer with the comfortable lives and fine food enjoyed by the [...]