Three Whistles: An Italian family's love story with America. - Paperback

by Gloria Grillo Barsamian (Author)

This is a story of a City and its people. In 1912, Lawrence, Massachusetts was referred to as a Mill Town, run by the whistles and bells of mills and churches. Pasquale Foenia lived there with his parents, and people from over fifty nations, lured there by Yankee aristocracy promising them food, shelter and work. Instead, they found dangerous working conditions and 60 hours of tedious work for $6.00 a week. On a cold day in January, one of the greatest mass protests in American history took place, the Bread and Roses Strike. Wages were cut and thousands of workers walked out. Strikers, mostly women and children, were met with militia and fire hoses. The killer 1918 Spanish Flu has many parallels to the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. What is unique about THREE WHISTLES is that the author challenges the myths perpetrated by movies and social media about the ultimate search for the American dream. She draws from a War hero captured by the Germans in World War II and a number of little known diaries. It is an historical look at how immigrant families persevered, their hopes, prejudices and love during the early twentieth century. This is a saga about family life; struggling to be Americans while holding onto their roots.