Marilyn McPhie
I'm a professional storyteller, living in San Diego, California. I'm married and have five children and twenty-four grandchildren.
Location USA
Activity
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I would liked to have seen a video of this process.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Many interesting links for more railroad stories. Thanks.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
On the job training!
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I would like more complete stories about the extraordinary work of these people. (Not so much debate about "what is a hero."
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I can certainly see the necessity and value of unions associated with these 19th century occupations. However, my personal experience with today's unions is that, although they claim to work on behalf of their members, the union bosses are often mainly after their own welfare, rather than that of the rank and file workers.
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I like the idea of the railway dogs. The dangerous working conditions remind me of the dangers of mining and textile work.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Vivid -- and unsettling.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Strong, hard-working, trained
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I'm surprised by the huge number of deaths and that there were many orphanages just for the orphans of railway workers. Sobering.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I live in San Diego, California, and I'm a professional storyteller. Last month I did some storytelling for a local "Train Song Festival." I've done that before, and it's always fun. I'm also an enthusiastic, but very amateur genealogist, and I'm interested in finding out more about working-class people in England and Scotland in the 19th century. Some of...
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The mining course was a real eye-opener for me. I always knew that one of my ancestors began working in the mines in England when he was six, but I had no idea what that was really like. I know a lot more now.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Looking forward to this. I've learned a lot from the other two courses -- textile workers and coal workers.
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Marilyn McPhie replied to Kirstie Blair
Thanks, Ann Holloway, for your comments and contributions. Very interesting.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I really enjoyed the course and learned a lot. I've taken this one, the coalmining course -- plus the ones on genealogy and the Scottish clans. Next up -- railroads! I'd be very interested in a course on cutlery. One of my ancestors was a "fork grinder."
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I'd be interested in a ship-building course.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Thanks for a very interesting course. It gave me a much better -- and sadder -- idea of the work that some of my ancestors did. I have recommended this course to others.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Thanks for the list of resources. Very helpful for further exploration.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I love oral histories, and I'm disappointed that so many people discount them because they are not "the truth." Oral histories have their own truth. Feelings, impressions, memories -- these are all true, even if they do not technically correspond with the history in history books.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I'd write a time-travel novel. A contemporary young woman finds a photo, a letter, a length of cloth from the mill where her ancestor worked, and through some magic is taken back to that time. She witnesses with horror the terrible conditions, the poor wages, the long hours, the danger. She organizes the other mill lasses to stand up to the evil mill owner...
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I especially liked the "timorous rabbits."
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I would not be drawn to read either -- except perhaps, as an example of the writing of the time. Such "literature" has always had a sentimental, cloying, formulaic style. I'm always amused that a daily email I get offering ebooks has a category they label "Women's Fiction." The stories all sound the same. A woman has lost her husband or has been...
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
It's hard to know how to feel about Ellen Johnston. She certainly doesn't come across as at all likable. She clearly sees herself as far superior to others -- yet unfairly victimized.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Apparently the highest aspiration a young woman could have was (is?) to become a "smart tidy housewife."
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Still an issue today. I have been particularly upset to hear from time to time that if a man and woman are competing for the same job and have the same qualifications, the man is always preferred because "he has a family to support."
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
As others have guessed -- I would think that the supervisory jobs would almost always be reserved for men.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I agree with all who suggested re-enactors. Very effective. Child re-enactors would likely have to be presented with video -- but also very good. Artefacts or reproductions that could be handled would add something tactile. The only suggestion I would not support is an extensive presentation of child "slavery" around the world today. While an important...
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
The use of costumed re-enactors is very effective in conveying a sense of history. And since it is a live performance, the storytelling can be adjusted somewhat for each situation and audience.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Purportedly true first-person accounts of life -- and especially very dramatic situations -- can often not withstand scrutiny. Take A Million Little Pieces by Frey, or American Dirt. So many examples. There's fiction -- and also plagiarism in many popular books.
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Once again the highly-charged term "slavery" is thrown around. It was terrible, but it wasn't actual slavery.
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Yes, of course, these poems were not high art. But in those times, many, many very ordinary people were expected -- and encouraged -- to write very ordinary verses. What's the use of criticism of something that was never meant to be high art? It had its place.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
The poetry is very sentimental. No surprise. Still, it likely did some good to bring attention to the worse of the abuses.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
The accounts seem similar -- and relatively positive. Still, the conditions were horrible. I guess the question is -- compared to what? What other choices existed for these children? Perhaps this was the best situation available?
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
The description of Owen's program makes it all sound like a dream -- especially in contrast to what we've been learning about child labor in the mills. It may not have been perfect, but I'd choose that life for me and my children in a heartbeat.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Now that we've seen the horrific working conditions in the mills, of course, I'm inclined to choose "anything else." But that "anything else" could surely have been just as bad, or even worse. So hard.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I appreciated (and was horrified by) the reports from the Nottingham lace manufacturer. One of my ancestors worked on lace in Nottingham -- although I don't believe, he began working as a child. He quit that sort of work and became a groundskeeper for a rich man, which definitely sounds more pleasant.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I agree with all of the others who commented. This was not carelessness. Accidents like the one in this story were frequent and expected. Totally the fault of the mill owners and operators.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Thanks to commenters for the additional material. Horrificly vivid.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Talking about whether child labor is equivalent to actual slavery is distracting and not helpful. The truth is that both were -- and are -- horrific. And both deserve our attention, disgust, and energetic work to eliminate.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I was aware of some -- but not all -- of the terms and jobs. The conditions of child labor are hard to consider -- but important to give a clear picture of what life was like for those who worked in the mills.
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Agree that "comparative atrocity isn't constructive."
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I had an ancestor who worked in the lace mills in Nottingham. I'm hoping for some information on that trade.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I have heard many variants of the "Hard Times Come Again No More" song. I think that it was easy for any group or person who had fallen on hard times to personalize the suffering in this sad song.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Kirstie's article was very interesting. I think it's easy for us to dismiss much occasional poetry from the Victorians. It's worth considering for many reasons.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Not written by a mill worker -- but by "one who knows." An informed sympathizer. Why did the writer not identify himself or herself?
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I had never heard the term "cotton famine" before, and the history very interesting. From time to time I see that people whose ancestors worked in the dreadful conditions in these industries in Britain compare the situation to that of slaves in America. It should come as no surprise that this viewpoint enrages many people. After all, the factory workers...
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Sometimes we think that only poets write poetry, but in the Victorian times and later, ordinary people often expected that they would write poetry about their lives and feelings. And any and all occasions called for poetry-- often to be performed in public.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
"What are your thoughts on why trade unions are a good thing for societies – in Britain and elsewhere?" I'm disappointed that this course has such a biased emphasis on the positive aspects of unions. Originally, yes -- very important for health and safety issues. But now?
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I grew up in Pasadena, California -- so my idea of a parade is a succession of flower-covered floats. I was very surprised the first time I saw a parade of any sort that didn't have real flowers. The only union-march I've ever witnessed in person was in Budapest on May Day. That introduced me to the idea that a "parade" could be a march for solidarity in...
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
"Joe Hill" is a very popular song in American folk circles.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
It's interesting to me that the tune -- and even some of the words -- are included in many church hymnals.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
A lifetime of bitterness and acrimony. Sad.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Draconian measures by employers have always been in place -- even recently. My husband says that only a decade ago in his high-tech workplace, an employee who had objected to the system was humiliated by being fired -- and also his desk was taken out to the parking lot and set on fire! Public intimidation was a major practice.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
One man's take on an important issue. Personal experience is meaningful.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
In reading and evaluating newspaper accounts, it's imperative to know the bias of the newspaper, the readership, the reporters, etc. Useful to read different accounts of the same event.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
No new content here.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
It seems to me that we've been all through this before in previous articles. Nothing new.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Interesting -- but one-sided, of course. Would more information have put a different light on the situation?
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Unions began as a way to force employers to pay a fair wage and establish safe working conditions. Unfortunately, with the great power of the union leaders came their own bullying tactics, and the incentive to profit from union activities and union members was too strong for many leaders to resist.
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@AnnT I had a similar experience. I was required to join the union in order to keep my job.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
It is good for me to read about the positive changes brought about by the miners' unions in the 1800s. I worked for a company that provided benefit programs for several labor unions -- plasterers, sheet-metal workers, etc., and because it was a union shop, I had to join the union, too. Over the course of the time I worked there, I developed a very critical...
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Interesting that Sarah wrote poetry about the difficulties of her job. I'd be surprised to see such poetry from contemporary factory workers.
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As an independent artist, I'm always dismayed to see the "gig economy" made equivalent to slavery. Some kinds of work thrive in a gig economy, so we should be wary of painting with too broad a brush.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
It's essential to constantly improve safety measures in the workplace. Still, horrible accidents happen. Twenty years ago my brother-in-law was killed when he was working in a concrete block manufacturing plant. A several-ton block was being moved overhead when the chains broke, the block fell, and he was crushed. My sister-in-law was informed of the death...
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
A very hard life -- although I imagine that it was not so very different for many families in those years -- in many places and many circumstances. My grandmother was married to a farmer in Idaho in the early 20th century, and her life was hard in many of the same ways. No coal dust, but still. . . .
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
The percent of infant mortality was shocking. The priorities would have been pitbaths, indoor toilets, washing facilities -- so many things they needed.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
It hadn't occurred to me how very important the establishment of pit-baths was -- to the miners and especially to their wives and families. Interesting.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
bronchitis, amputation, lung diseases.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
It's fitting for a poem from a miner to an engine (anthropomorphized) to be in the familiar dialect of a common man.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
The program today on Eventbrite was wonderful! Thanks so much for including the link to register.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Thanks for the explanation of the wages in real-life terms -- although it's still difficult to put it in context. I know that even now there are areas where entire families pool their work and income to support the whole.
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Marilyn McPhie replied to Mary Ellen Kerans
It wasn't only share-cropping in the south that had that wage structure. I recently read about such work in California. When a boss controlled wages, housing, and "company store," he could effectively do whatever he wanted with impunity. If workers didn't agree to be bound by the regulations, they'd lose everything in an instant. Dreadful.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I see that everyone correctly identified these sounds. I think that working all day surrounded by the deafening sound of machines would be terrible. So loud. And now I'm thinking of the white noise machines that help so many people to sleep. Same sorts of sounds in a way -- but much, much softer.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
As others have said, I would have loved to have heard more from Lily. It's interesting that so many of the comments refer to people's own experiences in factories.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
From today's perspective, some things seem so obvious. Put some sort of gate at the top of the shaft so no one could fall down. Prohibit long skirts and long scarves. How hard would that have been?
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Strong, hard-working, compliant
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Some good pictures of the types of work we've been reading about. But, as others have said, there were some clearly unrealistic parts. The coal miner, looking much as he did when he left in the morning, returning come when it was still daylight and picking up his daughter in her white dress. Not likely.
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The description of the women (who do not seem like women) is a mixture of revulsion and pity. But as is often the case in movies, the heroine may be dirty and badly clothed and her hair may be a mess, but it's easy to see right away that when she gets cleaned up and in a pretty dress, she'll be beautiful and worthy of the handsome man of her dreams. Sigh.
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Marilyn McPhie replied to Hamish Morrison
An interesting mixture of admiring and patronizing. I think that sometimes a similar tone is used even today to describe women who work in hard physical jobs -- and also women athletes.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I see the oral histories as very important. They are vivid and have an immediacy and authenticity that is valuable alongside the formal histories. Of course, you could not build an entire account of something based upon the testimony of one person, but taken together many testimonies can paint a very real picture.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
The death of David Jones was horrifying! But maybe I'm more calloused after reading about the child workers underground. Even with the noise and the coal dust, this surface work seems preferable to working in the mine.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Very patronizing assessment from these men. Women were criticized for being strong and muscular, wearing men's clothing, riding horses astride-- and of course, the extremely objectionable singing and whistling! And if they lacked the skills of baking and such, those were easily acquired on Sundays, since they required no particular skill or effort!
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
It seems that the chance for camaraderie was hugely important to the surface workers. This interaction would have made even a difficult, poorly-paid job more bearable.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Many of the comments seem to indicate that a weaver with a hand loom had much more artistic control, but it doesn't seem like that was the case at all. Both processes were not the decision of the individual weaver.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Very interesting week. Some of my ancestors worked in mills, and it was illuminating to learn about some of the horrible conditions. Having worked in a union shop for several years, I am no admirer of today's unions, so it is good to be reminded of the importance of unions in the earlier industrial era.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Horrific punishments -- and so little recourse.
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Yes -- the power to shock. I am shocked! It is very important to me to gain some knowledge, no matter how harsh, of the life-experience of my ancestors.
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Again -- very few artifacts. I guess they have to do the best they can with what they have.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I'm actually surprised that there aren't more artifacts. Lamps, belts, carts -- all kinds of equipment must have been left when the mines closed, and I would have thought that some of the mine workers would have retained a few things.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Tragic. Patience seems to have patience for this horrible job, but in the end it extracts a terrible toll. How could the interviewers have been so uncaring?
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Surely he wrote in Scots because that was the language of the colliers he worked with as a child. It lends an air of authenticity that more formal English wouldn't have given.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
It's difficult to know precisely, but I'd start with these: Punctuality. Adherence to safety standards. No smoking.
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Marilyn McPhie replied to Jayne Tyler
I had an office job during the summers when I was in college, and the place was filled with cigarette smoke. I hated that. It has been a very welcome improvement in recent years that smoking is banned in many places.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Some of those rules still exist in many workplaces -- at least in some form. But others -- washing? oaths? -- are no longer the norm.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I can understand the necessity of having workers in place at a specific time and for a specific period -- at least in any manufacturing job. However, the manipulation of clocks to cheat workers is terrible. It has been interesting to see the shift in time/work models in the midst of the pandemic. Perhaps working in a factory has not changed much -- but...
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
I think that there would likely not have been much of a choice. If you lived in a mill town and family members and others worked there, you would expect to work there, too. I'm thinking that there wasn't a huge range of opportunities, and a mill provided some perks that would have made it preferable to other kinds of work. The only one of my ancestors that...
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
My grandmother majored in college in "elocution," and had many poems that she recited. I don't know that she knew this one, but it is definitely the sort of thing that would provide a popular recitation.
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Marilyn McPhie replied to Ann Holloway
Thanks for sharing your experience with the poem as a "party piece," Anne. I can imagine it as a sentimental recitation.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
Poetry about such child labor was sad and sentimental, but the reaction seems to be to weep and sigh, but not really do anything concrete about it.
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Marilyn McPhie replied to Ann T
Good assessment. We'd like to think that we'd do differently than they did back then, but would we really? The choices were so limited. The expectations were set. It would have taken a great shift for anyone in any of these roles to buck the system.
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Marilyn McPhie made a comment
As others have commented -- The conditions don't seem to have improved, but this is from the viewpoint of an older child.
