Book Descriptions
for Up Before Daybreak by Deborah Hopkinson
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
Cotton has been a key crop for the American economy since colonization, and is often viewed as strictly a Southern commodity based on slave labor. Hopkinson traces the role that cotton has played in the history of the United States for both Southern and Northern interests, revealing a symbiotic relationship between the two regions. The South may have produced cotton, relying heavily on slave labor and then poor sharecroppers, but the North also played a key role in the processing, manufacturing, and exporting of textiles. By studying cotton through multiple lenses of economics, agriculture, race and gender, labor, and politics, Hopkinson paints a picture of the history of labor in America, with all of its injustices and exploitations. Photographs reveal the effects of backbreaking work on slaves in the fields, women and children in mills, immigrants, and almost every segment of the labor force. Arranged chronologically, and with extensive notes and suggestions for further reading, this book fills an important void in the literature of agricultural and labor history. (Age 11 and older)
CCBC Choices 2007 . © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2007. Used with permission.
From the Publisher
In this stunning nonfiction volume, award-winning author Deborah Hopkinson weaves the stories of slaves, sharecroppers, and mill workers into a tapestry illuminating the history of cotton in America.
In UP BEFORE DAYBREAK, acclaimed author Deborah Hopkinson captures the voices of the forgotten men, women, and children who worked in the cotton industry in America over the centuries. The voices of the slaves who toiled in the fields in the South, the poor sharecroppers who barely got by, and the girls who gave their lives to the New England mills spring to life through oral histories, archival photos, and Hopkinson's engaging narrative prose style. These stories are amazing and often heartbreaking, and they are imbedded deep in our nation's history.
In UP BEFORE DAYBREAK, acclaimed author Deborah Hopkinson captures the voices of the forgotten men, women, and children who worked in the cotton industry in America over the centuries. The voices of the slaves who toiled in the fields in the South, the poor sharecroppers who barely got by, and the girls who gave their lives to the New England mills spring to life through oral histories, archival photos, and Hopkinson's engaging narrative prose style. These stories are amazing and often heartbreaking, and they are imbedded deep in our nation's history.
Publisher description retrieved from Google Books.