The Silent Partner: Including the Tenth of January

By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

Book Overview

The Silent Partner (1871) and "The Tenth of January" (1868) were among the earliest realistic portrayals of industrial life--and social injustice--in the United States. The novel focuses on Sip, a mill worker, and Miss Kelso, the silent partner in the mill after her father's death. The lives of these two women intersect as worker and owner as they both reject marriage proposals in favor of new vocations--underscoring Phelps's vision that, regardless of class, women can be united around their right to work.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0935312080
• ISBN13: 9780935312089
• Release Date: July 1993
• Publisher: Feminist Press
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.9" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

Important novel

I love this book! I used it in a course called Lost Women Writers. It filled a niche that is desperately needed in 19th c American Literature. It addresses how women of the late 19th century joined cross class lines to try to alleviate the problems of industrialism. While it is not a radical book by today’s standards,in the sense that, they do not think about unions and are highly religious, they are on track to what will someday become the labor movement. I should also say that John Steinbeck must have read this book carefully because he decided to pick out a very important passage towards the end of the book to include in his book grapes of wrath. I challenge you to find that “. He never gave her any acknowledgment for that.