Note: There has been a date change from
the normal first Wednesday of June. We will be away in
Romania so we've moved it to the second Wednesday of June, June 13.
To help make up for any confusion, both Jeannette and I will buy a
beer for the first person who says hello to us in
Romanian. |
We so enjoyed the
The Constabulary Capers Revisited that we wanted to bring the
merriment north, to Manchester. Please join us for a sharing of
"life's glories" at the Bread and Roses Manchester Geo-Event!
(Bread and Roses is now a periodic event, it will occur every 4
months in Februray, June and October on the first Wednesday of the
month except when it doesn't like this one.)
The event is held at the listed coordinates on
Februray 7, 2007. The venue has a back room, that's where we'll be.
This is a smoke-free environment. We've told the pub that we'll be
arriving around 6pm but feel free to trickle in, it would help the
wait-staff. The pub stops serving dinner at 9:45pm. See the menu, (
page 1,
page 2) prices are very reasonable.
Street parking is pretty easy in Manchester and you no longer
need quarters at most meters! Manchester has ticket system that
accepts payment cards, aka debit cards and credit cards. Parking is
free after 8pm. There is a large lot at 42 59.596N 071 27.635W. The
entrance to the lot says "Permit Only" but the spaces say "Permit
before 5:30pm." I'm also sure you'll find a metered space closer
than that!
There is no need to say if you are eating or drinking like last
time. The Shaskeen waitstaff certainly has proved their ability to
handle anything we can throw at them.
There will be a TB swap table (but no log).
And Now a Word from Our Sponsors
What's different about Bread and Roses this time?
Well, there's good news and there's not-so-good news. For the
good news, please follow this link to www.jeannettecezanne.com. For
the not-so-good news ... well, you've probably noticed that our
longtime and generous sponsors are no longer with us on the page.
Their donations won't be with us at the event, either. Groundspeak
has ordered us to stop promotions on the geo-event page, and those
promotions are a necessary exchange for the donations.
Bread and Roses
As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the
day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: "Bread and roses! Bread and
roses!"
As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us
roses!
As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for — but we fight for roses, too!
As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler — ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and
roses!
— James Oppenheim
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In 2005 we moved to Manchester and were immediately fascinated with
its history. First Nations tribes had already made the rich fishing
site a village; but as the Industrial Age progressed, men with
money also saw the potential of the Merrimack River and designed a
city that would become, and remain for many years, a corporation
town.
That corporation was the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, and at
one time there was not a resident of Manchester who did not owe his
or her living in some way to the corporation. The Amoskeag mill
complex was the largest in the world, the ever-expanding job
opportunities bringing women into the workforce and attracting
immigrants from Canada, Ireland, and Greece. There was also the
dark side to the mills: long hours, child labor and poor working
conditions. The next time you pass by a mill building — any mill
building — look hard at the rows of long windows. They were closed,
all the time, so that nothing could contaminate the textiles being
manufactured. Imagine working in such a room in the summer: the
heat magnified by the glass, the deafening roar of the machines,
asking permission to leave the room to use the bathroom — and not
getting that permission. Blake described well the "dark, satanic
mills" of the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
But the twentieth century did bring some hope. A number of
movements aimed at bettering the lives of various groups of people
were making themselves heard. One such movement, demanding the
rights of women to vote, inspired a song titled Bread and
Roses.
The song was soon taken up by textile workers in Lawrence,
Massachusetts, who had recently voted to go on strike. After World
War One, the realization had been made that it was cheaper and more
efficient to locate textile mills in the south, near where the
cotton is harvested. New England mills responded to the competition
by lowering wages, increasing hours, and making the mills more
dangerous places to work. In response to these impossible working
conditions, workers went on strikes all over New England,
unintentionally yet effectively closing down the mills forever. The
Amoskeag survived the strikes of 1922, but closed its doors forever
in the 1930s. Manchester has only in the past twenty years begun to
rebound from the economic depression caused by the closing of the
mills.
We chose Bread and Roses as our theme for this event because of
its connection with the history of our city, with the terrible
times that preceded the strikes; but also because we connected with
what it expressed. We all need bread... but we desire roses. That
little extra something in life can be called a hobby, something
that is unnecessary for survival but which brings joy. Some of us
call that geocaching.
|
Muchado says - If you look at the bottom picture on the event
page, in the center you'll see two round spools at the base of the
two looms - those are called beams. They feed the yarn to the
looms. My high school job (back in the 70's) was to remove the
empty ones (like those in the picture) and replace them with full
ones. When they were full with cotton yarn, they were relatively
light - 500 - 800 lbs. But with synthetics, they could get up to
2500 lbs. We used manual "trucks" with a hand pumped hydraulic lift
to move them and load them into the looms. I was quite muscular by
the time I left that job to go off to college!
The picture of the women is the area where they put the yarn
on the beams - I forget the name for that area. They are surrounded
by the individual strands of yarn - an "end". Each strand is fed
through those racks and wound up onto a beam. A beam would
typically have between 60 and 360 ends.