Transcript Factory Girls - Suffield Academy

Factory Girls
By: Erin Leech and Sarah Moore
Table of Contents
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Rules
Living Conditions
Work Conditions
Wages, Ages,
Hours, and Types
• Pictures
• Protests
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Personal Accounts
Harriet Hanson
Sarah Bagely
Poetry, Songs, and
Lyrics
• Bibliography
Rules
Factory Rules from the Handbook to
Lowell, 1848
REGULATIONS TO BE OBSERVED by all persons
employed in the factories of the Hamilton
Manufacturing Company. The overseers are to be
always in their rooms at the starting of the mill,
and not absent unnecessarily during working
hours. They are to see that a ll those employed in
their rooms, are in their places in due season, and
keep a correct account of their time and work.
They may grant leave of absence to those
employed under them, when they have spare
hands to supply their places, and not otherwise,
except in cases of absolute necessity.
All persons in the employ of the Hamilton Manufacturing
Company, are to observe the regulations of the
room where they are employed. They are not to
be absent from their work without the consent of
the over-seer, except in cases of sickness, and
then t hey are to send him word of the cause of
their absence. They are to board in one of the
houses of the company and give information at
the counting room, where they board, when they
begin, or, whenever they change their boarding
place; and are to observe t he regulations of their
boarding-house.
Those intending to leave the employment of the
company, are to give at least two weeks' notice
thereof to their overseer.
All persons entering into the employment of the
company, are considered as engaged for twelve
months, and those who leave sooner, or do not
comply with all these regulations, will not be
entitled to a regular discharge.
The company will not employ any one who is habitually
absent from public worship on the Sabbath, or
known to be guilty of immorality.
A physician will attend once in every month at the
counting-room, to vaccinate all who may need it,
free of expense.
Any one who shall take from the mills or the yard, any
yarn, cloth or other article belonging to the
company, will be considered guilty of stealing and
be liable to prosecution.
Payment will be made monthly, including board and
wages. The accounts will be made up to the last
Saturday but one in every month, and paid in the
course of the following week.
These regulations are considered part of the contract,
with which all persons entering into the
employment of the Hamilton Manufacturing
Company, engage to comply.
Living
Conditions
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Bedrooms in boarding houses offered little or no privacy, usually between four and six
women shared a room, and sometimes two women had to share a double bed.
These dwellings housed 20 to 40 people and contained a kitchen, a dining room and
parlor, a keeper’s quarters, and up to ten bedrooms. Row after row of boardinghouse
blocks visually distinguished Lowell from earlier New England mill towns.
This type of communal living encouraged close bonds between the women, and helped
the new girls adjust to new city lives.
Room and board costs, which ranged from $1.25 to $1.50 per week during the 1830s
and 1840s, were deducted from wages. For this amount, workers received three meals
a day, limited laundry service, and a bed in a shared room.
Many of the workers saved money and gained economic independence. The city’s shops
and religious institutions, along with its educational and recreational activities, gave
the girls exciting social lives they never would have experienced living on a farm or in
a small village.
Living in a boarding house was hugely different than life on a farm. They had to share
rooms and beds, they had to say prayers with their three meals a day, and they all
dined together in a common room. They created strong bonds and those bonds helped
them adjust to their news lives in a boarding house.
The boarding houses were also later used to hold meetings on protests.
Working
Conditions
*The working conditions were often times not good. The girls worked between 60 and 80
hours a week.
*In return for monthly cash wages, female workers in Lowell agreed to regulations that
varied little from company to company: work for at least a year live in a company
boardinghouse, attend church. Many worked for a year and went back to the farm,
some repeating this pattern two or three times.
*Supervisors believed that the breeze through open windows would cause the threads to
break more often so windows were always shut tight. Cotton dust and fabric particles
filled the uncirculated air, causing many workers to develop tuberculosis and other
respiratory diseases. Lighting was insufficient and workers often could not see well
enough to avoid injury from the constantly running, high-speed machines.
*Even at the pinnacle of its renown, however, conditions in Lowell had begun to
deteriorate. In 1834, an economic downturn led to the mills' first wage cuts. In the
1840s, managers instituted a speedup, requiring higher and higher output for the
same hourly wage.
*The women formed the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association and tried to appeal to
their employers and then to the state legislature through petitions. They wanted
better and safer living and working conditions.
*Lowell's early mills used power looms, and operations combined the spinning of yarn and
the weaving of cloth. To operate the equipment, Lowell employed women and girls.
*The Lowell girls worked on machines, usually they were in charge of multiple machines.
The machinery operated at high speeds. The demands of textile mills took tolls on
worker’s health and safety as the years went by.
Wages, Age,
Hours, and Types
of Factories
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In the mid 1830’s, the average work week was six, twelve hour days. The mills were
closed to observe four holidays during the year: Fast Day, Fourth of July,
Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.
Six days a week earned a factory girl between $5 and $9. At the same time the
average factory worker was making about $18.
They were between fifteen to thirty years old, but might be as young as ten years
old. Farm life, especially for unwed daughters, was very tough as well--the work
never stopped, and for many young women the social life in the "dormitories" was
preferable to the isolation of rural life
The factories made textiles, rubber products, chemicals,
machine parts, foodstuffs, shoes, and plastics.
Pictures
Protests
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Even at the pinnacle of its renown, however, conditions in Lowell had begun to deteriorate. In
1834, an economic downturn led to the mills' first wage cuts. In the 1840s, managers instituted a
speedup, requiring higher and higher output for the same hourly wage. The women formed the
Lowell Female Labor Reform Association and tried to appeal to their employers and then to the
state legislature through petitions.
Lowell’s textile corporations paid higher wages than those in other cities, but the work was hard
and the working conditions were often unhealthy.
They threatened labor reformers with firing or blacklisting the girls who protested. They
protested twice in the 1830s.
In the 1840s they banded together to fight for 10 hour days. Very few of these strikes
succeeded.
A prominent figure in leading protests was Sarah Bagely, she created the Lowell Female Labor
Reform Association.
One of the first strikes of cotton-factory operatives that ever took place in this country was
that in Lowell, in October, 1836. When it was announced that the wages were to be cut down,
great indignation was felt, and it was decided to strike, en masse. his was done. The mills were
shut down, and the girls went in procession from their several corporations to the “grove” on
Chapel Hill, and listened to “incendiary” speeches from early labor reformers.
And after a time, as the wages became more and more reduced, the best portion of the girls left
and went to their homes, or to the other employments that were fast opening to women, until
there were very few of the old guard left; and thus the status of the factory population of New
England gradually became what we know it to be to-day.
Personal
Accounts
Harriet
Robinson
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Harriet Hanson Robinson worked in the Lowell Mills at age ten until she
married at twenty-three. Months after her fathers death, Harriet's
mother moved to Lowell to get support from her family to help raise
her four children. Harriet's mother took in boarders in their house in
Lowell to make money. At age ten, when it was obvious that not enough
money was being earned, Harriet went to work in the Lowell Mills. She
worked 14-hour days for six days each week and was paid $2 for her
labor.
In October of 1836, it was made clear to the mill girls that the wages
were going to be cut. Harriet and many mill girls became upset and
decided to take part in a strike. Harriet and many other girls were
unsure about walking out. Harriet realized she should support her fellow
workers and join in the strike. Once she took part, the others followed
after her.
Harriet wrote an autobiography to tell people about her life as a female
factory worker in the textile mills of Lowell, Mass.
Sarah Bagely
Sarah Bagely began work in a Lowell factory in 1836 and by 1844 had begun had
organized the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association (LFLRA) to protect
deteriorating working conditions. he organization quickly grew to include five
hundred workers, and Bagley served as its first president. During the legislative
hearings in February 1845, she argued in favor of the ten-hour day, which by then
was a full-fledged cause among workers. Bagley testified that in addition to
suffering physically from their long hours in the mills, female workers lacked
sufficient time to improve their minds, an activity she considered essential for
laborers in a republic. When the legislature ruled against the women, Bagley was
farsighted enough to recognize that male and female workers needed to cooperate
to advance their cause and sought affiliation with the New England Workingmen's
Association. As one of the editors of that organization's Voice of Industry, she
developed a "female department," under the title, "As is Woman, so is the Race."
Little is known of Bagley after she left both the LFLRA and the mills in 1846 and
went to work as a telegraph operator, perhaps the first woman to hold that job.
Although her time in public life was brief, Bagley raised issues relating to the health
of workers and their need for sufficient leisure to fulfill civic duties that remain
important today, as is her insistence that women are entitled to "be heard and our
rights acknowledged . . . ."
Poetry, Songs,
and Lyrics
Poem that Concluded Lowell Women Workers’
1834 Petition to Manufacturers
Let oppression shrug her shoulders,
And a haughty tyrant frown,
And little upstart Ignorance,
In mockery look down.
Yet I value not the feeble threats
Of Tories in disguise,
While the flag of Independence
O’re our noble nation flies.
1836 Song Lyrics Sung by Protesting Workers
at Lowell
Oh! Isnt it a pity, such a pretty girl as I
Should be sent to the factory to pine away and
die?
Oh! I cannot be a slave, I will not be a Slave,
For I’m so fond of liberty,
That I cannot be a slave.
Bibliography
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Factory Rules from the Handbook to Lowell, 1848, http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/lowell.html
Texts about Lowell Mill Girls,
www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/americanstudies/lavender/lowetext.html#1834poem
A Year in Fashion, 1912,
http://www.costumegallery.com/Delineator/May_1912/factory/factory1.htm
The Factory Girls, http://www.homestead.com/homefront/factorygirls.html
The Boarding House System,
http://www.nps.gov/lowe/loweweb/Lowell_History/boardinghouse.htm
Working Conditions, http://www.nps.gov/lowe/loweweb/Lowell_History/working_conditions.htm
Time Table of the Lowell Mills,
http://www.si.edu/lemelson/centerpieces/whole_cloth/u2ei/u2images/act9/time_tbl.html
Lowell Mill Girls, http://www.historychannel.com/
Harriet Robinson, http://web.bryant.edu/~history/h364proj/sprg_00/amp5/hr.html
A People’s History of the United States, Harper Collins, By Howard Zinn, Copyright 1999
http://womenshistory.about.com/cs/worklowellmill/
http://web.bryant.edu/~history/h364proj/summ_99/hutchinson/*http://chnm.gmu.edu/course
s/jackson/mill/people.html
http://www.sun-associates.com/mercer/handouts/millgirls.html
http://womenshistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nps.gov%2
Flowe%2Floweweb%2FLowell%2520History%2FMillgirls.htm