[Amoskeag] belongs to the literature of testimony, offering up insights on work experiences, family practices, patterns of sociability, the pleasures and miseries of life and labor in Manchester . . . Tamara Hareven, one of the most intelligent and prolific among contemporary historians of the family, has disclosed something of the life and work patterns of men and women in a great mill. In the course of it, she has also warned us about the insufficiency of simple formulas, the complexity of men and societies, and we are in her debt for it. --New Republic