Lowell%20Mill%20Girls

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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

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Town of Lowell, Mass.
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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 Lowells ten major textile corporations.
• Their stay averaged one to four years, after
  which they returned to the farms, married, went
  to work etc.

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• 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.

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Reasons for Coming

• The young women often asked their fathers 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 daughters 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 weeks 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.

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• 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 womens 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.

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The Boardinghouse

• As Harriet Robinson (1898) wrote Each house was
  a village or community of itselfWhen 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.

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• The first floor had a dining room, kitchen, and
  the keepers 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.

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The Mill Girls Day
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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.

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• 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.

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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.

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Songs and Poems of the Mill Girls
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• 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
• Ore 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 Im so fond of liberty,
• That I cannot be a slave.

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Lowell Factory Song, 1830sWritten 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 summond 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,
• Ill have you understand
• Im going to leave the factory
• And return to my native land.

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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 Countys history.

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• 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.

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Resources and References

• 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.ht
  m
• http//massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid116 -
  Mill Girl Writer Lucy Larcom
• www.sun-associates.com/mercer/handouts/millgirls.h
  tml - Lowell Mill Girls Webquest
• www.lessonplanet.com/search?keywordslowellmillg
  irlsm... 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_c
  arolina_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 Womens
  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.