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Chapter 15
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Ragtime, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The American Dream
Replication and Transformation
Freedom, Human Dignity, and Justice
The Cult of Celebrity
Women’s Roles
Social Inequities
Summary
Analysis
By this time, Tateh and Little Girl are living in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Tateh works in the textile mills, but—desperate to protect her—he doesn’t allow Little Girl to work or attend school. They live in an unheated, one-room apartment. Racial tensions run high among the various groups of millworkers, but one day when the American Woolen Company shorts everyone’s pay, they all unite in a strike. The strike garners national attention—Industrial Workers of the World founder Big Bill Haywood even shows up.
Tateh and Little Girl left New York behind but failed to escape their lives of poverty and backbreaking, dangerous labor. If anything, conditions seem somewhat worse in Lawrence, where racial tensions divide the millworkers and prevent them from improving their common lot. At least at first. Eventually, the owners—who, the reader should remember, consider themselves the champions of civilization but who have built their wealth on the exploitation of others—go too far, and their abuse overcomes the racial resentments they’ve relied on to keep their workers compliant.
Themes
Tateh makes posters for the strikers and with the extra materials—India ink, scraps of paper—he begins to make small pieces for Little Girl. One night, he starts making flipbooks—one of a passing streetcar, one of a pirouetting, ice-skating Little Girl. They delight her.
The strike changes Tateh by reminding him of the value and power of art. A socialist, he already knew about the power of uniting and fighting against the social and economic elites.
Themes
The strike intensifies, but some workers—especially those with children to feed—begin to lose heart. Strike organizers hatch a plan to send the children to foster homes in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. When the first crowd of Lawrence children arrives at Grand Central Station, they become front page news. The mill owners worry that a children’s crusade will turn public sentiment against them—the bastions of American civilization and progress—so they resolve to put a stop to it.
The mill owners react to the strike with such cruelty that it becomes impossible for them to continue to claim the moral high ground. Readers should note that they’re more concerned with losing the goodwill of the public than with the wellbeing of their workers or of the workers’ children. This episode highlights the difficult conditions for the working classes at the turn of the century and illustrates the dire necessity of the reforms people like Emma Goldman or the International Workers of the World or Jacob Riis fight for.
Themes
Tateh agonizes for days about giving permission for Little Girl to go. He wants her to be warm, well-fed, and well cared for, but he fears what might happen if she’s out of his sight for a minute. Eventually, however, he signs the permission slip. On the appointed day, he takes Little Girl to the train station so she can go to Philadelphia with the others. There’s a special car reserved just for them. But before they can board, a line of militiamen descends on the station to enforce the city marshal’s order prohibiting all children from leaving Lawrence. They begin violently separating children from their parents and viciously beating the parents, including Tateh. Within minutes, the militia concludes its bloody sweep, leaving bruised adults and terrified children crying all along the platform.
Tateh’s lingering fears over what might happen to Little Girl if he lets her out of his sight offer a timely reminder of his low opinion of women and their inherent value as human beings. He clearly loves Little Girl, but he’s obsessed with ideas about her sexual purity, even to the point of almost keeping her from having access to a better life. But his agonized decision becomes moot the moment the civil authorities, in the form of the militia, decide it’s time to put an end to the strike. Once again, the book doesn’t soften the violence and cruelty with which the mill owners asserted their dominion over their workers. It seems that prosperity isn’t meant to be available to everybody but is a jealously guarded commodity.
Themes
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Dazed, Tateh leans against a pillar and tries to make sense of what has happened. He hears Little Girl calling his name and he looks around desperately for her. Then, he realizes that she somehow made it onto the train, which is now pulling out of the station. He runs after it, flinging himself at the guardrails of the rear observation platform at the last second.
The book quietly rebukes Tateh’s attempts to control Little Girl by making her, in this moment, the instrument of their deliverance. Of all the children and adults on the platform, by some miracle, only she has made it onto the train, and she pulls Tateh along with her by the strength of his love for her.
Themes
