Emmeline by Judith Rossner

Emmeline is a historical novel, written in 1980, which is set in America in the 1840s. It is about thirteen-year-old Emmeline Mosher, who leaves her home in Fayette in Maine and goes to work in the mills at Lowell in Massachusetts. This was common practice: the girls (around eight thousand of them in Lowell alone) were housed in large boarding houses, worked in the mills all day, and the money they earned was sent back to their, mostly farming, families. Even though the work was hard, many of the girls were pleased to have the freedom to work. However, Emmeline goes to Lowell reluctantly and is disorientated and lonely. But she is also beautiful – and a double tragedy ensues. 

REVIEWS

"This book speaks to a harsh reality. Young girls were sent off to the Lowell mills without anyone to look after them. They were too young and too ignorant to know how the world worked. This story is beautiful and heartbreaking." - Goodreads review

This beautiful book is painful in so many ways . . . And so worth reading. Based on a true story, it is the tale of a girl who, at 13, is sent to be a mill girl to support her family. She is unprepared for the world outside her family's farm and is quickly exploited by a mill supervisor." - Goodreads review