Dearly Earned - The Play
The text for Dearly Earned is drawn entirely from historical sources: letters, diaries, and newspaper articles of the period. The piece includes the correspondence of Amy Galusha to her family in Berkshire, VT, as well as a collection of letters written by the immigrant Hollingworth brothers to their uncle in England. These letters express the hopes and fears of the writers and reveal the difficulties of their working lives in the mills of New England. 

In Dearly Earned, Pontine Theatre examines the lives of these Operatives, and the conditions they worked under.

Touring History  -  Credits

A Collage of both Public and Private Reflections
Dearly Earned is a collage of both public and private reflections on early industry. The staging conventions used reflect several 19th century entertainments. The corporate story of the mills is told through a compilation of contemporary newspaper articles which accompany a panorama composed of period illustrations and photographs. 19th century audiences delighted in the spectacle of panoramas depicting historical events, literature, etc. Huge painted canvases would be unrolled across the stage to the accompaniment of music and dramatic
oratory. Pontine s artists were inspired to use this convention by seeing an exhibition at the Portland Museum of Art of a panorama of The Pilgrims Progress which had recently been discovered in the basement of the historical society in Saco ME. 

Another collection of historic photographs, screened on muslin, are used to illustrate a collection of news stories which tell the human experience of working in the mills. Some of these stories are amusing anecdotes, many tell of gruesome accidents which occurred in the mills, or the terrible consequences of poverty and alcoholism for the workers and their families. 

Other scenes in Dearly Earned make use of a 19th century parlor entertainment called Toy Theatre. Theatre managers of the era would sell pasteboard illustrations of characters and scenes from popular melodramas in the theatre lobby. Children would take these home, cut
them out , and reenact their favorite scenes for friends and family. Pontine s production uses these cut-out illustrations to accompany the Galusha and Hollingworth letters and the day book of a mill manager, which outlines the daily activities of the mill and its workers. 
In the Galusha letters, Amy Galusha frequently refers to her parents struggles to build a new house. 

" I want to see you have a good little house to live in, and not be
crowded in as you have done. . . I want to stay [here in the mill] long
enough to save up enough money to finish off the new house, if I can,
before I come home. "

While these lines are being recited, an actor sets up a dollhouse and furnishes it with an assortment of personal and household effects: photos, furniture and evocative objects. Accompanying the managers diary entries, the actors arrange cutouts of mill workers taken from historical photos, and miniature illustrations of textile machines: a picker, a carder, a spinning frame and mule, a warper, and a power loom.

Like any technology, the textile industry had its own language, detailing the machines, workers and processes involved. As the technology became outdated, this language was lost. Understanding the diaries and letters required much research to figure out what the
machines were, how they worked, what they did, and the processes that were being described in such passages as altering creel to mule spinner, or Making gudgeons to warper yarn beams. This outdated vocabulary, coupled with the 19th century writing style, gives the audience a flavor of authentic history by giving voice to a bygone era.

A short video tape of excerpts from Dearly Earned and booking information are available by contacting Pontine.