The Clock
Page 12
THE END
HOW MUCH OF THIS STORY IS TRUE?
The Clock is a made-up story; the fiction part of this historical novel. Annie and her family came right out of our imaginations, and so did Robert and Mr. Hoggart. We made up all the particular events in this story. Nevertheless, it is true-to-life in every way.
Colonel Humphreys really existed. In 1806 he established the first real factory in Connecticut, a woolen textile mill just as described here. He brought in about 150 orphans from New York to work in it, and after introducing the slubbing billies, he was the first mill owner in Connecticut to hire girls.
Colonel Humphreys also, in 1802, was the first to import merino sheep into the United States. These sheep had very long wool, which was easier to work with and made better fabric than any other. At first the merinos were worth hundreds of dollars, but later, when others were brought to America by the scores, the price suddenly fell, and many men who had invested in them when the price was high lost great sums of money, just like Annie’s father.
Mr. Hoggart represents the kind of overseer that, unfortunately, was too often found in these early mills. As we studied early industrial history, we found many episodes of unbelievably cruel behavior by overseers, some leading to the deaths of mill-workers. One young boy committed suicide rather than go back to the mill. The way in which Robert died was a very likely happenstance. Our own ancestor, Samuel Slater, was crippled as a result of chopping ice off a waterwheel.
Although the story is made up, it is based on real conditions and real events that you can study in good history books. Though most people welcomed the coming of mills to their towns, just as most Americans today are enthusiastic about computer development and space exploration, many people began to wonder if the new industrial life in new cities was any better than the old farm life in the country. And about a generation after the mill came to Humphreysville, people like Ralph Waldo Emerson, whom we quote on the opening page of this book, began to wonder if it was really worth giving up control over one’s own time and life in order to have so many material possessions. We have written this book to give you some help in thinking about whether “progress” is always for the better.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
JAMES LINCOLN COLLIER is the coauthor, with his brother, Christopher Collier, of My Brother Sam Is Dead, a Newbery Honor Book; The Bloody Country; The Winter Hero; Who Is Carrie?; War Comes to Willy Freeman; and Jump Ship to Freedom. He has written many other highly acclaimed books for young readers, including The Teddy Bear Habit and, for adults, The Making of Jazz. He lives in New York City.
CHRISTOPHER COLLIER is a professor of history at the University of Connecticut and Connecticut State Historian. His field is early American history, especially the American Revolution. He is the author of Roger Sherman’s Connecticut: Yankee Politics and the American Revolution and other works. He and his family live in Orange, Connecticut.