When Stacey Kaplan was looking to get back into the workforce three years ago, she wasn’t sure just what she wanted to do, but as a mother of school-aged children, she was looking for something part-time and seasonal. When looking through the classified ads in the newspaper one day, she came across an advertisement that caught her eye. It was a listing from Slater Mill, the first factory built in the United States, now a historical site in Pawtucket, looking for tour guides.

Kaplan, the mother of son Matthew (at Western Hills Middle School) and daughter Sophie (at Glen Hills Elementary School), decided to apply for the job and was offered the position.

Now, three years later, she still has the job and works both at the Slater Mill itself, giving tours, and also as a classroom presenter who travels to schools across Rhode Island, teaching the students about the Industrial Revolution, Samuel Slater, Moses Brown and about the various types of fibers (cotton, wool and flax) Slater Mill was known for producing. Some of her presentations are strictly classroom presentations while others prepare the students for an upcoming field trip to Slater Mill.

“It’s a great way for the kids to get excited about upcoming field trips to the mill, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution,” said Kaplan.

On June 15, Kaplan presented to Karen Friedmann’s fourth-grade class at Orchard Farms Elementary School. The Industrial Revolution is one of the topics studied in the fourth grade in Cranston Public Schools, and Friedmann’s students were getting ready to take a field trip to Slater Mill later on in June.

Kaplan came dressed in an outfit appropriate for the time period – a simple brown and white dress and vest, and a kerchief on her head. She warned the students to be sure to eat a good breakfast the day of their field trip and to get a good night’s rest the night prior, because “You’re going to need all of your energy and strength that day; you’re going to be put to work.”

According to the Slater Mill Web site (www.slatermill.org), “Children get up close and personal with early production processes as they provide the power and operate miniature machinery in the Apprentice Alcove. And in the Sylvanus Brown House they can look back to a time when spinning, weaving, cooking and quilting were the stuff of everyday life.”

Kaplan began her presentation to the students by giving them a summary of how the Industrial Revolution began, with Samuel Slater arriving in Pawtucket, Rhode Island in 1790 and meeting Moses Brown, who had recently retired from the shipping industry. She explained the factory system to the students and talked about the wave of immigrants who came to America to work in the factories. Samuel Slater made millions of dollars making white cotton thread.

The students listened closely as Kaplan described a typical day for boys and girls who worked in factories during this time period.

“At 5:30 a.m., the church bells ring for you to get up and do your chores,” Kaplan said. “By 6:30 you had to be at your station, the door shut and locked at that time. You worked from 6:30 to 6:30 during the week, 6:30 to 2:30 on Saturdays. On Sunday you were in church for three hours and at school for five hours.”

Students were shocked at the wages that boys earned during this time – 50 cents – and even more surprised to hear that girls were paid only 30 cents for performing the same job. Kaplan said boys could get fired and go on to be an apprentice (an unpaid job) for seven years. At the end of the apprenticeship, the boys would then be making $2 a day.

Kaplan next moved onto the hands-on part of the presentation. The students were given a chart to fill in as they learned all of the steps that went into preparing cotton, wool and flax for sale, from picking to spinning. The students were given real samples of each fiber to touch and feel and performed each of the steps: such as ginning (cleaning the seeds from the fibers), willowing (removing impurities) and carding the cotton. For wool, the students in Friedmann’s class learned to shear, flick and scour the fibers and with the flax, they were taught how to pull up, “ret,” “break,” “hackle” and spin the fibers. The students glued their samples of the cotton, wool and flax onto their charts and wrote the steps for each in the appropriate spaces.

“It was cool,” said Grace Ohsberg, one of the students in Friedmann’s class. “It was fun and the cotton was really soft. Twirling the cotton was my favorite part.”

Kaplan also explained to the students that the phrases “tow-haired boy” and “flaxen-haired beauty” both came from this period of time. She also noted that as Cranston residents, the students were lucky to live in a part of the state that has both farms and factories. She mentioned some students in other cities have never even seen a farm.

The samples of wool that the students used were from a sheep farm in Seekonk. The cotton was grown in Mississippi and donated to the mill.

Kaplan ended with the most anticipated portion of the presentation: a demonstration of how flax was spun, using a real spinning wheel. Sitting on the rug at the front of the classroom, the students gathered all around her, Kaplan carefully operated the wheel with ease while the students watched in awe. By the time she had finished, the class was eager to see more, ready to take their field trip to Slater Mill.

She explained the importance of involving the students in every step of the presentation.

“The hands-on activities help the kids understand and get excited about Rhode Island history and brings their classroom learning to life,” said Kaplan.