Girl Alone
by Claire Meikle
Claire Meikle was born in Willimantic, CT, in 1926 and is still living in 2014. With the exception of a few years, she has lived there all of her life. She was born in a tumultuous decade, the year after a debilitating strike at Willimantic’s American Thread Company, a time when the New England textile industry showed its first signs of decline.
Claire’s memoirs are thus the story of the decline and eventual transformation of a New England textile mill town, and as such have importance as a historical document. It was edited by Adam Phelps, who treated it as a document, letting Meikle’s own words shine through, edited mostly for grammar and clarity.