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.