Sepia Saturday is a fun challenge that inspires bloggers by providing a visual prompt every week. Above we see a girl working in a shoe factory. In the left lower corner there’s an M so you can also use that to inspire you (e.g. money, manufacture, etc.).
I was compelled to find photos of girls working in factories in different eras and different countries.
Hine, Lewis Wickes, photographer. A Basket Factory, Evansville, Ind. Girls Making Melon Baskets.Location: Evansville, Indiana. Evansville Evansville. Indiana United States, 1908. October. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2018673845/. A crowded room in a cigar factory, women and girls making cigars, Manila, Philippine Islands . , ca. 1907. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002709846/.United States Office Of War Information, Bransby, David, photographer. Women aircraft workers. An experienced girl worker in a West Coast airplane factory trains a new girl in the use of a rivet-squeezing machine. Vega. Burbank Burbank. California Los Angeles County United States, 1942. May. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017691830/.Hine, Lewis Wickes, photographer. Girls working in Tampa, Fla., Box Factory. I saw 10 small boys and girls. Has had reputation for employment of youngsters but work is slack now.Location: Tampa, Florida . Florida Tampa Tampa. United States, 1909. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2018675074/.
To see more Sepia Saturday posts, click here and you’ll get to the hub and links to more fascinating photos. Each blogger has a different spin.
I don’t know the director’s intent, but Cuties, a French coming-of-age film, was sad and disturbing. The heroine, 11 year old Amy has come to Paris with her mom and two younger siblings. Her mother is devastated to learn that her husband, who’s still back in Senegal, has chosen a second wife. It hits Amy hard, but her reaction is far more self-destructive than she knows.
At her new school, Amy becomes obsessed with joining a mean girls clique, who’re preparing to dance in an upcoming competition. That sounds a bit harmless, though sacrificing your self-respect to befriend people who mock, humiliate and hit you, is not a good choice. I cringed when the girls kick out their lowest status member and Amy strives to get accepted by a group of misguided, powerful jerks.
Amy and her new “friends” get way over their heads in social media and sexy dancing. The camera draws the audiences’ attention to the girls’ bodies and movements that is gross and would only appeal to a pedophile. It’s really horrible and a far cry from a “feminist liberation” as the director claims. The director has recently claimed that the film is a critique on the exploitation of girls. I see it as more of a film about a degenerative society where parents neglect their children. The girls aren’t roped into anything, they just have no adult in their life who’s paying close attention to them.
As I mentioned when I wrote about the must-see Loving Vincent, this week I asked for the Fall Film Challenge to suggest some “groundbreaking” films and received Wadjda, which depending on whom you talk to is the first or second Saudi movie to be made. In Saudi Arabia there are no movie theaters since films are prohibited (like a lot of other things).
Directed by a woman, Haifaa Al Mansour, who had to direct from a van via walkie talkie because passers by would make trouble for a woman giving orders to a man, Wadjda showed me what life is like for women and girls in the Kingdom.
Wadjda is an 11 year old girl who dreams of riding a bike, although it’s taboo because there’s a fear that a bike accident would affect a female’s virginity. That’s what they believe. Really. Nonetheless Wadjda is determined.
She’s a spunky girl, who though not defiant, just spirited gets in trouble at school a lot. The school is run by a principal who gets after any girl who isn’t covered enough, reads magazines or wears nail polish. Even being in the vicinity of such behaviors can get you scrutinized.
Wadjda’s closest friend is a cute boy, who’s about a head shorter than her. They strike a deal that if she lets him hang election materials for his uncle from her rooftop, she can ride his bike up there out of sight.
Wadjda gave me a look inside a Saudi family. Wadjda is an only child and while loved, something of a disappointment since she’s female. While her mother loves her father, who’s rarely home, she fears that the father will get a second wife to get a male heir.
There were no feminists other than possibly Wadjda in the film. Even the mother who wears jeans at home and works, is constantly scolding Wadjda for small “unload-like” infractions. Women were often looking at each other to judge any impropriety. The minute rules that must be followed to be considered a pure woman are overwhelming.
I was surprised that this oil rich country had such a shoddy middle class neighborhood. There were no sidewalks, new cars, or modern classrooms. Living conditions were on par with Indonesia. (Saudi Arabia’s GDP per capita is $20,890 vs. $3,817 for Indonesia). I wonder why the public roads and schools were awful in the capital city.
I rooted for Wadjda in her quest for a bike and would love to see this girl in other films. The plot took some unexpected turns for me. I’d say this is a groundbreaking film that anyone interested in other cultures should watch.
The Radium Girls by Kate Moore tells the story of the young women who worked in factories painting iridescent numbers on watch and clock dials. In New Jersey and Illinois after WWI, girls were hired to use paint made with radium to make the dials glow in the dark. The technique they were required to use was to lick the tip of the brush, dip it in the paint and paint the numbers. Then they were to repeat. No step to clean the brush.
At the time radium was believed to be an ultra-healthy substance. No safety precautions were taken.
These girls were proud to earn good wages and had a good lifestyle. Proud of their work, when they would go out dancing, they would take the radium dust rub it on their eyelids and skin, which made them glow.
As you can imagine, the women started to get ill. One woman had awful jaw pain, and when she went to the dentist her jaw fell out, which was the first of many ailments that inflicted her and her colleagues. One after another, the girls began to experience horrific health issues. The radium would attack their bones. Others, as you’d guess, got rare, devastating cancers.
Statue of a Radium Girl, Ottawa, Illinois
The girls began to take legal action and the two radium companies fought them tooth and nail. The story soon turns to one of courage and tenacity as these women fight for their lives and fight for justice in the courts against two Goliath companies.
In many ways the story is hard to take, but because these women banded together and had great resilience and remained strong in spirit and clung to hope, The Radium Girls was not a depressing story. My only critique is that the author’s scope covering two factories which weren’t that connected, made the book confusing at times. Yet I understand her desire to tell the full story. I think it would have been better if Moore had focused on fewer girls and added an epilogue about the others. I highly recommend reading The Radium Girls.
(Janice, thanks for recommending this compelling, yet sad book.)
This week we’re prompted to post on farmers, agriculture or harvest. I descend from city folk, none with a green thumb that I know of so I’ll dig through the Library of Congress and Flickr Commons to find some images of Irish farmers since I’ve got a lot of Irish blood.
To see more Sepia Saturday posts, click here.
Ireland, 1920, National Library of Ireland, Flickr Commons
Harvesting, Ireland, 1899, National Library of Ireland, Flickr Commons
National Library of Ireland, Harvest, 1897
Here’s one from the U.K., since I’ve got some British blood and I’ve never seen an oyster farm:
Report on Oyster Cultivation, U.K., ca 1870, Flickr Commons
Ruined for Life: Phoenix Edition 