Carnegie's Maid

“With the rest of steerage, I was herded into a large, dingy waiting room that reeked of unwashed bodies and urine. Once again, we waited. I promised myself that, if I ever made it through Lazaretto and onto American soil, I would not wait anymore.”

This early comment by Clara is ironic. She barely sets foot on American soil before she is bound for a job where all she will do is wait. Clara makes this statement at a point when she still knows her own mind. Her judgment becomes clouded over the course of the novel by the influence of others. Fortunately, she reasserts her true nature by the end of the story.

“I saw filth the likes of which I’d never imagined. Black clouds billowing in plumes from tall stacks. Buildings turned ashen from sooty air, outlines of posters in white, like ghosts on their walls. Why didn’t anyone tell me that industrialization would look like biblical hell?”

Clara comes from a rural environment in Ireland, and Pittsburgh is her first taste of an industrialized American city. Post-Civil War America had no plan or policy for the rapid growth of factories in urban areas, nor was it concerned about environmental pollution. Clara’s comparison of factories and hell would also be echoed by those who toiled in them.

“In her gaze, in such close proximity, I saw something familiar. Intelligence. Determination. Even grit perhaps. Something I didn’t expect in a lady [...] I admired that grit. But it didn’t mean I wasn’t scared of it. And it didn’t mean that I wasn’t scared of her.”

Clara has just gotten her first close look at Mrs. Carnegie. Because of her own impoverished upbringing, Mrs. Carnegie learned how to be a survivor. In high society, ladies are not bred to survive. They are intended to be decorative ornaments. In contrast, Mrs. Carnegie asserts herself both in the parlor and in the boardroom. Clara shares this same independent spirit, and both admires and fears others who possess it too.