Summary Of Bruce Watson's 'Bread And Roses'

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Bruce Watson, author of the book Bread and Roses explains to the reader an overview of a strike caused in Lawrence, Massachusetts by textile workers in 1912. Immigrant workers who came from all sorts of lands such as Italy, Ireland and Germany and many more started working in Mill working areas. They came to America for the American Dream. Sadly, these immigrants were working in horrible working conditions. These conditions led workers to die or grow sick. They breathed in toxic and dust, even the mill machines caused many people to get hurt or sadly even die. Later, hours were reduced from 56 to 54 hours, also adding the reduce in pay. So, on January 12 1912, a strike began due to short pay. Strikers increased daily each day, and were helped …show more content…
Garrow is a book that correlates with segregation on the busses. The book starts off with a woman who recently came to Montgomery and had a horrible experienced of being forced to get out of her seat from a public transit line. Six whole years after it happened and she is still thinking about it. She talks about how sad it is that they’ve done nothing to improve the conditions of African American citizens and public transportation. After two women were arrested for not leaving their spot on the bus is when Mrs. Robinson knew she had to make a difference. That’s when the Montgomery Bus Boycott took place on the bus company. African Americans were tired of the segregation as well as the discrimination and violence caused by everything. Jo Ann Gibson Robison made a difference in African American lives. Taking time to show the public the true problem that is going on and making a difference is what a heroic hero Mrs. Robinson is proven to be. In the book The Montgomery Bus Boycott and The Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson proves to show many related topics such as race, women roles and protest movements. Throughout the boycott most of these topics are shown how the movement is processed throughout and highly encouraged by the obstacles …show more content…
As read in the book, Rosa Parks courageous effort to stand up for herself made a huge difference in the role of segregation. Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1st for refusing to leave her seat for a white man. Mrs. Robinson took notice of this as well as Claudette’s incident and knew it was time for a change. She stated that “This has to be stopped. Negroes have rights, too, for if Negroes did not ride the buses, they could no operate. Three- fourths of riders are Negroes, yet we are arrested, or have to sand over empty seats. If we do or do something to stop these arrests, they will continue” (Garrow, 45). With these incidents happening, it turned to conclusion that a Boycott needed to be started.
Bread and Roses, as well as The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It All, share with us the struggles those in the past had to go through to conceive a rewarding effect. Both books have a touching story of how hard it is to get to the finish line, but it takes time and effort to get there. They were both successful in achieving a goal in striving on what is best for them as well as what was best for the future. They both show the way that leaders played a huge role in putting effort to try their hardest in making a positive

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