Carmela Teoli

Decades later, a reporter named Paul Cowan revived Teoli's long-forgotten story, generating renewed interest in the history of the strike and prompting discussions on the nature of historical memory.

In ''A Place at the Table: Struggles for Equality in America'' by Maria Fleming, Oxford University Press in association with Southern Poverty Law Center (2001), we can read: ''Most of the workers, including Carmela Teoli and her father, were recent immigrants from Europe'' [2].

To circumvent child labor laws, the recruiter offered to forge a birth certificate for a bribe of $4, showing that Carmela was 14, old enough to work.

[1] Working conditions in the Lawrence mills were grim: the hours were long, the air was filled with lint, and workers were not paid a living wage.

[7] That March, socialist organizer Margaret Sanger arranged for a group of workers to testify before the United States House Committee on Rules, which was investigating the causes of the strike.

[10] This latest bout of bad publicity put additional pressure on the mill owners to concede to the workers' demands, and a few days later, on March 13, the strike was settled.

[12] A year later, Massachusetts passed the 1913 Child Labor Bill, which mandated shorter hours for children so that they could attend school, and set minimum ages for dangerous jobs.

[10]Cowan's front-page article in the Village Voice in 1979 helped spark renewed interest in the strike among Lawrence residents, many of whom had been hesitant to discuss it.

Carmela Teoli
Adrienne Pagnette, a French girl working as a doffer. Winchendon, Massachusetts. Lewis Hine 1911.
Camella Teoli Way in 2017