"The Cruel Years provides readers with a vivid picture of what life was like a hundred years ago, not for the rich and famous but for ordinary working Americans. The story is told in the words of twenty-two fascinating people who lived by laboring long hours at farms and factories and mines. A preface by Howard Zinn and an introduction by William Loren Katz provide an easy-to-follow historical map that places these hard-hitting, first-person narratives in the context of their troubled times and within the larger picture of U.S. growth and development. -- Here are the no-nonsense words of a young immigrant trying to survive as a sweatshop operator in New York City, a hard working farmer's wife who has writing ambitions; a black southern sharecropper seeking fulfillment under a new system of slavery; a young Puerto Rican passing the Statue of Liberty and ready for new challenges; a Chinese immigrant, a Mexican immigrant, and a Japanese immigrant struggling to rise from lower rungs on the social and economic ladder; an Irish girl of sixteen deciding to become a political agitator; a black southern woman trying to fend off the hurts of Jim Crow; a coal miner telling of the lethal dangers of his work; and a black cowhand rejoicing in the thrill of the cattle trails." --
Record details
ISBN:9780807054536
ISBN:0807054534
Physical Description:print 274 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
Edition:1st ed.
Publisher:Boston, Mass. : Beacon Press, 2003.
Content descriptions
Bibliography, etc. Note:
Includes bibliographical references.
Formatted Contents Note:
Preface / by Howard Zinn -- Introduction / by William Loren Katz -- Mary: keeping a job, losing a job -- Ross B. Moudy: cashing values in Colorado's mines -- A farming woman: expanding horizons -- Rose Schneiderman: becoming a union organizer -- Lee Chew: fighting discrimination -- A Japanese immigrant: becoming a servant -- Elizabeth G. Flynn: becoming a high school rebel -- Anna Louise: entering white womanhood -- An African American woman: surviving the South -- An Irish American cook -- Rocco Corresca: from immigrant to entrepreneur -- Sadie Frowne: a Jewish sweatshop operator at sixteen -- Bernardo Vega: from Puerto Rico to New York -- Georgia sharecroppers: slavery's new clothes -- Mike Trudics: an immigrant is enslaved -- Ah-nen-lade-ni: a Mohawk receives a white education -- Elias Garza: a Mexican American family in conflict -- Antanas Kaztaukis from Lithuania to Chicago's stockyards - A collar starcher -- Becoming a policeman -- Life as a coal miner -- Nat Love: from southern slave to Western cowpuncher.