Growing up in New England you can't help but notice the multitude of late 19th-early 20th textile mills. Growing up with French-Canadian ancestry you hear the stories of how great-grandma and grandpa came down from Quebec to work these mills. But I know it wasn't just folks chiming down from Quebec.

I've heard a little about some of the mills in Woonsocket, RI using Belgians and having just moved to a new community near Lowell, MA I've learned that one of the local mills here heavily recruited workers from Belarus shortly before World War One.

I'm curious as to how these recruitment might have taken place. Did they advertise? Send agents to personally find potential workers? Did the mills do this themselves or were there agents who could find these workers? Were there experienced textile workers in Europe who could be enticed to leave or were these people who were new to the industry? What were they promised and how did that compare to the reality in their new jobs?

Lots of questions there and possibly no one-size-fits-all answer that can be generalized for all situations, but I would live to know where I can find some more information on this topic.