Spoiled Silk is the story of two immigrants from the Rhineland, William Brueckmann and his wife Katherine, who started a new life in America's first industrial city, Paterson NJ, nourishing a vision of their adopted country that was never to be. Committed to a socialist dream, they struggled to improve the lot of their follow immigrants and, at the same time, to raise a family in the midst of the turbulence that surrounded them. Their efforts contributed in the long run to improved working conditions in American mills, but their dream of a socialist America was never to be realized. It was in...

Spoiled Silk is the story of two immigrants from the Rhineland, William Brueckmann and his wife Katherine, who started a new life in America's first industrial city, Paterson NJ, nourishing a vision of their adopted country that was never to be. Committed to a socialist dream, they struggled to improve the lot of their follow immigrants and, at the same time, to raise a family in the midst of the turbulence that surrounded them. Their efforts contributed in the long run to improved working conditions in American mills, but their dream of a socialist America was never to be realized. It was in...