"It's easy to be good when you're not hungry," a character
meditates in this tale of the desperate poverty of immigrant
mill workers at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.
Intending to free her beloved cousin from a life of
slaving in the mills, a woman steals a wallet. In a
lurid tale of morality, greed, and the attempt to make
art out of the depths of despair, Rebecca Harding Davis
brings the ills of the industrial age into sharp human
focus.
