The quote, “My daily life was intimately connected to these people-dependent on them- and yet, up until my time in that mine, I knew nothing about them or their world (2),” best shows the theme that Jean Marie Laskas plans to in her book. Her statement is from the introduction of her book Hidden America as she is in a coal mine observing the workers, and she realizes how foreign their work and lives are to her. This quote symbolizes how Laskas plans to use logic and emotions to break the misconception and show the reliance people have on these characters from her book. Through the display of family attitudes and facts about what actually occurs at the jobs, Laskas is able to break common misconceptions of these workers.
One aspect seen in the “Underworld” is how strong of a family relationship these miners have either with each other. This is a characteristic that one may not normally think of coal miners having, but Laskas is able to display this through their lives outside the mine. While the group heads out to the bar, Laskas includes the conversation that they had. “Sparky said he’d drive him (Kevin) to his place, where he could just go ahead and pass out” (31). Here Laskas shows how concerned the miners are for each other. They were willing to take home their fellow coworker to help him stay safe. Sparky even went so far as to say that he would give Kevin a lunch if he stayed (31). This display of generosity connects with the reader because it is like helping a friend. Even though these miners may be rough and tough to each other, they are always watching out for one another. It is a sense of family that they build that can be contributed to how well that they are able to do their job.
“G-L-O-R-Y” is another chapter Laskas...
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...rce. The revealing of emotional experiences allows for the reader to realize the true characteristics of these workers. This also allows for the connection to the readers. The readers are allowed to make connections to times in their life that are similar to the experiences shared by these workers. From this aspect Laskas shows who these workers really are. The variety of facts that Laskas includes creates the reality of these jobs. The common misconceptions are are changed through the actuality of the workers and their environments This leaves the reader with a wondering of how much that he or she really knows about the workings of the jobs that allow for lives to be easier. At her lecture Laskas explains how she hoped the readers were able to be there in the experience as well as walking away with the wonderment of who these workers are and what they actually do.
Although each character delivers their powerful and moving account, I would like to focus on one individual and his struggle to organize the miners. Rondal Lloyd struggled most of his life, he knew the coal mines first hand when he had to leave school to help his dad work in the mines to pay off debt to the company store. Unfortunately, this was common back in the times that this story is based upon. In West Virginia as far back as 1901 there are archives that have tried to set some sort of standards for child labor, but we must remember that these children grew up hard and fast. (West Virginia Mine War...
Out of This Furnace tells a impressive story of a multigenerational family of Slovakian immigrants who comes to the United States in search of a better life in the New World. The patriarch of the Slovak family was Djuro Kracha, who arrived in the New World in the mid-1880s from the "old country." The story tells of his voyage, his work on the railroad to earn enough money to afford the walk to the steel mills of Pennsylvania, his rejection by the larger mainstream community as a "hunkey," and the lives of his daughter and grandson. As the members of this family become more generally acculturated and even Americanized, they come to resent the cruel treatment and the discrimination they suffer.
In the late nineteenth century, many European immigrants traveled to the United States in search of a better life and good fortune. The unskilled industries of the Eastern United States eagerly employed these men who were willing to work long hours for low wages just to earn their food and board. Among the most heavily recruiting industries were the railroads and the steel mills of Western Pennsylvania. Particularly in the steel mills, the working conditions for these immigrants were very dangerous. Many men lost their lives to these giant steel-making machines. The immigrants suffered the most and also worked the most hours for the least amount of money. Living conditions were also poor, and often these immigrants would barely have enough money and time to do anything but work, eat, and sleep. There was also a continuous struggle between the workers and the owners of the mills, the capitalists. The capitalists were a very small, elite group of rich men who held most of the wealth in their industries. Strikes broke out often, some ending in violence and death. Many workers had no political freedom or even a voice in the company that employed them. However, through all of these hardships, the immigrants continued their struggle for a better life.
The poem describes workers to be “Killing the overtime ‘cause the dream is your life, / Refusing to take holidays or go home to your spouse, / But for many the overtime comes, ‘cause the work is not done. / Deadlines to be met. So you continue to dream like a war vet, / Having flashbacks to make you shiver and scream” (Jones, stanza 7, lines 2-6). Jones reinforces that overworking for an incentive of money does not give one a sense of gratification, and it also distracts them from the values that should matter more to them than anything else. Both Kohn and Jones have a similar approach to showing the reader the effect that overworking can have on a person, and how it will change their values in life, causing unhappiness. Many students go through school dispirited and do not join various clubs and activities for their own enjoyment. A friend of Kohn’s who was also a high school guidance counsellor had a student with ‘…amazing grade and board scores. It remained only to knock out a dazzling essay on his college applications that would clinch the sale. “Why don’t we start with some books that
..., p.6). She assures herself that she will not become malnourished nor without transportation (2001), and thus will never truly experience real fear for survival, or the possibility of being overwhelmed with the impossibility of her situation. She, unlike her coworkers, will always have a way to escape, a life to go back to. The life that awaits her is likely one that those she is working with fantasize about without any hope to attain it. This is the only real weakness in a harrowing window into the lives of those living below the poverty line, that she cannot truly feel what it is like to truly not get by in America.
The enormous rush of European immigrants encountered a lack of jobs. Those who were lucky enough to find employment wound up in factories, steel mills, or in the meat packing industry. Jurgis Rudkus was one of these disappointed immigrants. A sweeper in slaughter house, he experienced the horrendous conditions which laborers encountered. Along with these nightmarish working conditions, they worked for nominal wages, inflexible and long hours, in an atmosphere where worker safety had no persuasion. Early on, there was no one for these immigrants to turn to, so many suffered immensely. Jurgis would later learn of worker unions and other groups to support the labor force, but the early years of his Americanized life were filled, with sliced fingers, unemployment and overall a depressing and painful "new start."
While this is a dramatized statement regarding the plight of the worker under the new machine driven industrial system, rhetoric such as this did represent the fears of the working class. Over time, as industrialization appeared more common, there emerged more heated debates between the working class and business owners. The struggle between the two opposing classes of labor was the embodiment of the argument for national identity, according to Trachtenberg. His attention to detail of the divide between the lower class workers and the rich upper crust industrialists, serves to illustrate the varying changes which occurred across the country.
A quote stated during the introduction, the author answered the question to why she wrote this book as she is trying to make an overall difference. “I wanted to connect my life to the people who make it livable and, maybe, reintroduce America to some of its forgotten self.” From my perceptive and a readers point of view, I felt like Laskas wrote this book to influence her audience in hopes to open the eyes of people and be conscious and become aware of the bigger picture..
Built off of the backs of immigrants, it is the very same people that are poorly mistreated but are the reason for the country's booming economy. Yet, a century ago these migrant workers who devoted their health and time to the factories receive a poor man’s salary. They worked long strenuous hours in horrible conditions and would often get injured during the process. The corporation had no compassion towards its laborers. This extract from Sinclair’s novel The Jungle explains the terrible conditions in which employees worked: “...your hand slips up on the blade, and there is a fearful gash. And that would not be so bad, only for the deadly contagion. The cut may heal, but you never can tell,” (Sinclair, 12). Mikalos, a character in the novel, is used in this instance to personify the way in which the employees had to conduct their job. They had to focus on working as fast as humanly possible even if they were injured. The character states that he accidently made a laceration while deboning an animal. Even though his injury is significant, he is not to breathe a word of it to his employer. The employer cares not of the accident nor of the worker wasting valuable time chatting about “frivolous” events such as their health. It did not matter if a laborer lost a finger, the only thing that mattered to the businessmen was making more money. This was how life was working in the factory and it shows that the industries
We all know that most people hate their jobs. Work is seen as something we have to do, and very lucky few seem to find a job that we enjoy. How we feel about work, and what we do for a living, in many ways helps to define who we are and who we are going to become. Having seen actual people share their perspectives and view points on “working for a living” helps us see ourselves and rethink our future. Overall, Studs Terkel helps flash- back into America's history and see the changes that America ans it’s people have gone through.
He starts the novel with characters such as Clara Lemlich, “a draper at Louis Leiserson’s waist factory” (page 7). As the story continues to progress, Von Drehle uses character development to aid in the representation of perseverance. For example, the workers were treated extremely poorly but had to push through the hard times in order to survive, “at the end of each day, the factory workers had to line up at a single unlocked exit to be searched like thieves” (page 7). Although the workers endured more hardships and unfair treatment at the workplace than many people today could find imaginable, they were able to push through and reach the light at the end of the long dark
The book discussed how many workers that lost their jobs at the Rubbermaid plant had a difficult job finding a decent paying job and many times it was difficult to get hired because jobs required experience in a particular area. This is a perfect example on the system should be blamed for the poverty of these individuals instead of using person blaming and saying that these people are unemployed because they are simply
...o one in its industry wants to speak up about. Schlosser wanted to inform the audience and make sure that those conditions that low wage workers are oppressed by are revealed to the rest of the society and taken into consideration. He was extremely successful in displaying this throughout his novel because all the details he includes to pull on the heart strings of the reader. Overall, he demonstrated wide writing skills that are unique to only Schlosser himself.
The people of Omelas have become so consumed with happiness that they can’t see anyone but themselves in bliss. The residents of Omelas can only imagine the destruction fair treatment would bring. “If the child were brought up…all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed…To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for…the chance of happiness of one” (LeGuin 5) The people of omelas will do whatever it takes to keep the child oppressed to maintain peace and prosperity within the utopia. Saving the child will in essence destroy everyones happiness. This injustice is not only apparent in the city of Omelas, but also apparent in the world of inhuman labor. As the child of Omelas is forced into confinement, sweat shop workers also face the need to be forced in to labor. Both are pushed to the side and neglected in order to maintain the happiness of the oppressor. Angelo young, a writer for International Business Times covered the Chinese labor strike. Chinese workers were tired of unjust and unfair treatment so, in unison the workers stood to big business. “A strike at a Chinese factory that makes shoes for Nike, Timberland, Kenneth Cole and other popular brands grew on Tuesday to about 5,000 workers who are demanding their employer pay its government-mandated housing fund money.” (Young, Angelo. "Chinese Labor Strike: 5,000 Workers Strike At Factory
"They neglect their children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high” (221). Barbara Ehrenreich uses juxtaposition by comparing the working and upper class to implore sympathy; she makes the working class appear as victims, which brings empathy and guilt among the upper class. Society doesn’t see low wage workers by their genuine attitude towards their paying customers, but as an outcast because of their occupational status. However, one individual changes the way upper classes view the working class in the form of a book. Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed, brings the audience into her personal journey as an intentional low-wage worker. Ehrenreich accentuates how society views low-wage workers: she highlights how society sees low-wage workers as drug and alcohol abusers, she reveals how society set up traps to prove that low-wage workers are liars and thieves, and shows how society creates a psychological effect, which affects how the working class views themselves.