Chapter 8: Crafts and Industry

This chapter is about a time when Newfoundland buzzed with trade activity. Read these words by best-selling author James Michener in his book about the Caribbean:

"The wealth of a nation derives from the hard work of its citizens at home, the farmers, the leather workers, the carpenters, the ship builders and the weavers at their looms; they create the usable goods which measures whether a nation is prospering or not."

Part II: Lost Angels

Chapter 9: The Poor House

This chapter describes a place where 1904 society put rejected people: the old, the poor, the mentally ill, the alcoholics.

Where do we put those people today? Choose one of our modern day institutions and find out as much as you can about what goes on inside. Ask people who have lived inside, or visited, or worked there. Visit them yourself. Write what you see.

How is it different from the miserable Poor House of 1904? How is it the same?

Chapter 10: The Coopers' Strike

In this chapter William Pender is angry because the newspapers "treat the working man like a nobody". You can see in this chapter how William lives in a society where rich people are respected more than others. They get called "honourable." Poor people do not.

Look through an old newspaper to find examples of this. Then look through a modern newspaper. How have things changed? How have they stayed the same?