In the American Jungle by Waldo David Frank

(_Notes written in the Great Textile Strike of 1934_) a. At dawn, they are all outside the mills: men, girls, mothers with children. The huge structure, submerged in mist, leaps suddenly with lights; the gates swing open; nobody goes in. The men talk in lively groups, the mothers smile, the girls have put on their glad rags and there is song in their throats. At the doors stand a few guards, glumly. In half an hour, they swing the gates shut and the lights snap out. The crowd of strikers, sure of its strength, strolls up the long flank of the mill, stretches in the morning sun; idles down to the next mill where stands another crowd before shut doors.

The strike has begun gaily. Men and women have joy of themselves in their common purpose, like a young animal discovering the health of its body.