Uprising has three main charactors, Bella, Yetta and Jane. Bella arrives in New York from Italy and gets a job at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, working long hours under hard conditions. Yetta came from Russia and helps the shirtwaist factory workers rise up in a strike. Jane, a wealthy girl, finds out about the strike and wants to help any way she can. On March 25,1911 a spark catches on to some cloth and the shirtwaist factoy is ingulfed in flames. 2 girls dies, one survives. Who will it be? Read the book and find out who the mysterious Mrs.Livingston is.
This story has a vein of truth. A particularily big vein, as this quote from the authors note points out: "The shirtwaist strike of 1909-10 really happened. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of March 25, 1911, really happened." Haddix did a really good job of describing everything, up to the point where you couldn't tell what was real and what had sprung from the authors imagination. "So I won't tell you which parts didn't really happen." another quote from the authors note that states that we are free to research it ourselves, but what fun would that be? There's a reason Haddix chose not to tell us what was real, and while I don't think I know exactly why she did this, I can guess and my guess is as good as yours. My guess is that she didn't want us to be weighted down with the possibility that we learned about real people who really died and connected with them. She might also wants us to let our imagination soar with facts about stuff, even when we didn't know we were learning.
