Following the Gold Thread: labor, class, and childhood in the work of Norman MacLeod

This paper explores how the serialized novel The Gold Thread by Norman MacLeod portrays children as mutual liberators of each other, and attends to the role it played in the social movement which led to the abolition of child labor in 19th century Scotland. In stark contrast to the highly moralized children's literature of Victorian Britain aimed at the middle class, in The Gold Thread Norman MacLeod uses literary form to create a story affirming the spiritual capacity and moral agency of children as mutual liberators of each other. This affirmation of the spiritual agency of children can be traced in MacLeod's radical publication Good Words for the Young, a periodical created for working class children. This paper offers insights both into the role that literature played in the advancement of the rights of working-class children in Scotland, as well as reflections on how MacLeod’s approach could act as a model for contemporary accounts of the significance of children’s spiritual lives and their status as persons with spiritual capacity and agency for mutual liberation.