The belles of New England: the women of the textile mills and the families whose wealth they wove

A place in the universe: the ingenuity of Francis Cabot Lowell brings large-scale textile manufacturing to New England ; Generations of native-born Americans and immigrants find jobs in the mills

The glory of the nation: from the rocky farmland and tranquil villages of New England, women migrate to the mill towns to take their place in the history of the American labor movement

The lords of the loom: business leaders in Boston expand the textile industry, accumulate great wealth, and ignite a fierce debate over the morality of using Southern slaves to provide the cotton that feeds the mills

From across the Irish Sea: Irish laborers build the mills, and Irish famine victims of the mid-nineteenth century replace the Yankee women at the looms

Voyagers south: The ethnic character of New England is changed forever as the French Canadians of Quebec cross the border to seek opportunity in America

Wretched refuse: Pole, Italians, Russians, Jews, and many others weary of Europe's nineteenth-century wars and poverty join the workforce in the New England mills

Fighting for roses: immigrant women led the great 1912 textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and the women win

Last bells: the shift of textile manufacturing to the South destroys the industry in New England.