Transcript Lowell Mill Girls

Lowell Mill Girls
“It is very hard indeed and sometimes I think
I shall not be able to endure it. I never
worked so hard in my life but perhaps I shall
get used to it.” Mary Paul, 1848
Town of Lowell, Mass.
The “Mill Girls”
• In 1821, the Boston Association purchased land and rights to the
Pawtucket Canal.
• Water power from the Merrimack River made Lowell, Mass. a
prime site for woolen and cotton mills. The first opening in 1823.
• During the next 25 years, the textile industry grew, so that by 1848,
Lowell, was the largest industrial center in U.S.
• Due to the relatively good pay, for females, young women came
from family farms to work in the mills, during the mid-1800s.
• Most of them were 15-25, unmarried and from New England and
New York.
• By the 1840s, nearly 10,000 women were working for Lowell’s ten
major textile corporations.
• Their stay averaged one to four years, after which they returned to
the farms, married, went to work etc.
• Women held most of the machine-tending jobs in the mills.
• They worked as “operatives” in carding, drawing, spinning,
weaving, warping and dressing.
• Newcomers began as “sparehands,” learning and getting used
to the pace of the machines.
• Men held the supervisory jobs and skilled positions such as
mechanic or loom fixer.
• The corporations required the girls to work in the mills for a
least one year and to give two weeks notice before quitting, in
order to receive an “honorable discharge.”
• These cotton mills fostered working class wage labor.
• In 1836, the girls were paid 40-60 cents a day and 1842,
$14.50 for 4 weeks.
• They worked for 12 hours a day, six days a week.
Reasons for Coming
• The young women often asked their father’s to allow them to
work in the mills. For example,
• Mary Paul (1845 letter excerpt) “I want you to consent to let me go to
Lowell if you can. I could earn more to begin with than I can any where about here.
I am in need of clothes which I cannot get if I stay about here and for that reason I
want to go to Lowell or some other place.”
• A daughter’s departure from the farm meant one less mouth
to feed and extra money coming in.
• These unmarried women lived in boardinghouses and $1.25
was taken out of each week’s pay for room and board.
• Their pay was comparable to the wages for a teacher or
seamstress.
• They worked long days in the hot, humid mills.
• After a period of adjustment, most mill girls found life and
factory work tolerable.
• They also enjoyed a degree of social and economic
independence they would never have found on the farm.
• Their wages allowed them to have books, clothing and
savings.
• The city offered new opportunities: lectures, libraries,
theatre and religious activities.
• However, each textile corporation also had a printed set of
regulations that controlled many aspects of the women’s
lives: living in a boarding house, going to church and being
in bed by 10 p.m.
• Their protests, in later years, led to the creation of labor
organizations and the 10 hour workday.
• The “Lowell Girls” began to disappear from the labor force
after the Civil War.
The Boardinghouse
•
As Harriet Robinson (1898) wrote “Each house was a village or community of
itself…When not at their work, by natural selection they sat in groups in their
chambers, or in a corner of the large dining-room, busy at some agreeable
employment: or they wrote letters, read, studied, or sewed, for as a rule, they
were their own seamstresses and dressmakers.”
• Harriet worked in the Lowell Mills from age 10 until she married at 23.
• She worked 14-hour days for six days each week and was paid $2 for her
labor.
• In October of 1836, the mill girls were told that their wages were to be
cut, so, Harriet and other mill girls participated in a strike.
• Because workers were recruited from a distance, the corporations
provided housing.
• The corporations hired boardinghouse “keepers” to provide for the needs
of the girls.
• These “keepers” were unmarried or widowed older women.
• The boardinghouse usually consisted of eight units, housing 25-40 workers
each.
• The first floor had a dining room, kitchen, and the
keeper’s quarters; bedrooms were on the second floor.
• Each bedroom had two to three beds that four to six
girls shared.
• Many who came to Lowell already knew someone
working in the mills; this allowed them to adjust more
easily.
• The women had very little privacy, but, they did
develop close bonds with other women.
• Sarah Bagely was another early “mill girl.”
• She began factory work in 1836, and by 1844 had
organized the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association,
to protect deteriorating working conditions.
• In 1845, she argued in favor of the ten-hour day, which
by then was a full-fledged cause among workers.
The Mill Girl’s Day
Factory Conditions
• As Mary Paul wrote, in 1848, “It is very hard indeed and sometimes I think
I shall not be able to endure it. I never worked so hard in my life but
perhaps I shall get used to it.”
• While, at first the mill girls were satisfied, factory
conditions soon began to take their toll.
• Mills had a hot and humid environment to prevent threads
from breaking.
• Windows were nailed or painted shut, all outside
ventilation was cut off.
• Cotton dust and lint filled the air in the mills and caused
many workers to suffer from respiratory illnesses.
• The noise from the machines, caused many workers to
experience hearing loss.
• In 1841, a mill girl wrote for the Lowell Offering:
“Up before day, at the clang of the bell – and out of the mill by the clang of
the bell – into the mill, and at work, to the obedience of that ding dong bell –
just as though we were so many living machines.”
• The mill girls also experienced frequent injuries - Hair and
clothing got caught in the machinery.
• They were also bound by the rules of the factory.
For example, “The company will not employ any one
who is habitually absent from public worship on the
Sabbath, or known to be guilty of immorality.”
• By the 1830s, the price of textiles was falling, so
corporations increased the speed and number of machines
each girl worked; often without raising wages and even
lowering them
• As conditions worsened, the mill girls responded with
strikes and demands for labor reform.
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.
Songs and Poems of the Mill Girls
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.
Lowell Factory Song, 1830s
Written by Irish immigrant, who worked in Lowell
When I set out for Lowell,
Some factory for to find,
I left my native country
And all my friends behind.
But now I am in Lowell,
And summon’d by the bell,
I think less of the factory
Than of my native dell.
The factory bell begins to ring
And we must obey
And to our old employment go,
Or else be turn away.
Come all ye weary factory girls,
I’ll have you understand
I’m going to leave the factory
And return to my native land.
Southern Mill Girls
• North Carolina – the textile industry grew quickly during the
late 1800s.
• Children under 16 represented roughly 25% of all workers.
• It was considered normal for children to begin working
between 10 and 13 years of age, but children as young as 5
could be found working in mills.
• The social photographer Lewis Hine studied child labor in the
Carolina mills.
• Gaston county was a center of textile manufacturing
beginning with the opening of 3 mills in the 1850s.
• By 1901, the mills produced fine “combed yarn.”
• The 1929 strike of the Loray Mills, is the best known event in
Gaston County’s history.
• Georgia – In the summer of 1864, Sherman created
hundreds of refugees by ordering the arrest of
civilian millworkers in Roswell, Ga.
• He charged them with treason for spinning yarn and
weaving cloth.
• Sherman shipped them, and millworkers from
Sweetwater Creek, Georgia, north up through
Tennessee and on to Louisville, Kentucky.
• He directed these refugees to cross the Ohio river
and either work in the northern mills, or find other
ways to support themselves.
• After the Civil war, some returned home, while
others made new lives “up north.”
Resources and References
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Websites
www.nps.gov/lowe - Lowell National Historical Park
http://libweb.uml.edu/clh/mo.htm - Mill Life in Lowell 1820-1880
www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/ - Photographs by Lewis W. Hine
www.quiltersmuse.com/mill_girls_of_spindle_city.htm
http://massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=116 - “Mill Girl” Writer Lucy Larcom
www.sun-associates.com/mercer/handouts/millgirls.html - Lowell Mill Girls
Webquest
www.lessonplanet.com/search?keywords=lowell+mill+girls&m... – Lesson Plans
http://historymatters.gmu.edu – primary and secondary sources
http://womenshistory.about.com/gi/dynamic - primary and secondary sources
North Carolina/Georgia mills:
www.ncatwork.org/childlabor/child_labor_in_north_carolina_co.htm - NC mill
www.ncatwork.org/childlabor/index.htm - NC textile industry and its workers
www.girl.lib.nc.us/lrgs/textile.htm - textile heritage in Gaston County, NC
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Books and Magazines
Moran, W. (2002) The Belles of New England: The Women of the Textile Mills and
The Families Whose Wealth They Wove, Thomas Dunne Books.
OAH Magazine of History (March 2005). “Mill Girls” and Labor Movements:
Integrating Women’s History into Early Industrialization Studies, pp 42-46.
Holland, R (1970). Mill Child: The Story of Child Labor in America, Crowell-Collier.
Gourley, C. (1999) Good Girl Work: Factories, Sweatshops, and How Women
Changed Their Role in the American Workforce. Millbrook Press.
McCully, E. (1996). The Bobbin Girl. Dial Publishing.
Patterson, K. (1993) Lyddie. Puffin Books.
Anonymous, Lowell Offering (1845) A Week in the Mill, Vol. V
Byerly, V. (1986) Hard Times Cotton Mill Girls: Personal Histories of Womanhood
and Poverty in the South. ILR Press. Cornell University.
Ranta, J. (1999) Women and Children of the Mills: An Annotated Guide to
Nineteenth-Centry American Textile Factory Literature. Greenwood Press.
Searce, F.A. (2006) Cotton Mill Girl. Tate Publishing.
“The Lowell Offering”. The North American Review. (April 1841):537-541.
Cook, R.B. (1999) North Across the River. Crane Hill Publishers.