Letitia Elizabeth Landon's The Marriage Vow '

Women of the nineteenth century led very hard lives. If they were well off and married they were considered property, and if they were poor they were condemned to work long hours for barely any pay for most of their lives just so that they or their family could survive. In Letitia Elizabeth Landon’s “The Marriage Vow” she talks about the difficult circumstances brought on by the era. It demonstrates how a woman often had freedom taken away from her after marriage, and often did not marry for love. In Letitia Elizabeth Landon’s “ the Factory”, and in Fanny Fern’s “The Working-Girls of New York” the horrible conditions brought on by factories not only to women but the rest of the world are described in first person experience. Women in the nineteenth
In Fanny Fern’s “The Working-Girls of New York” a vivid portrayal of working women in the nineteenth century is made. This piece talks about women who come to work to support their families, or so that they can have freedom. These women wake up and work in horrible factory conditions all day, and then either send their money home to parents or children or they keep it for themselves so that they are still able to have freedom. The work their fingers to the bone all day for money that was less than what a man would earn. They work to produce goods in these factories that they work in and get paid very little while their mistress or boss gets half of the money earned from the goods that they made. If they collectively made two-hundred dollars, the Madame gets half of it. And then distributes the rest after the expenses of the business to the women that are employed. In Fern’s work she wrote “ but chiefly, and mainly, because when six o’clock in the evening comes they are their own mistresses” (Fern 596). Shortly after she also wrote this: “ this same modiste employed twenty-five girls at the starvation price of three dollars and a half a week” (Fern 597). This two quotes from “The Working-Girls of New York” demonstrate how hard the working girls worked, and how little they earned. For them it was worth it because in the end they each had a little bit of freedom once the work day was
In Letitia Elizabeth Fuller’s “The Factory” she talks about how the smoke comes out of the factory and overpowers everything. She then talks about the thousands of people living around the factory dying because of the pollution and poor living conditions that come with the factories. In her poem she speaks of a child waiting to grow up so bright and full of life who slowly dies because of the pollution and sickness in the slums around the factory. This represents all of the children and people dying because of the factories. The child in this poem is a symbol representing innocence and good. Once the factories came, the innocence, pureness and good were snuffed out. So was the potential that the children had who died because of the factories. The factories took all the potential and creativity away from the people near them and set them up for short, miserable, underpaid lives. Even if the child had lived he would grow up to be another factory worker, and continue the cycle. Either way it's a tragedy, and people are dying all around the factories. In the poem she wrote “ the smoke that rises on the air...the smoke shuts out the cheerful day the sunset’s purple hues…” (Landon 518). And