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8-3 Final Project Submission: Historical Event Lowell Mill Project...

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8-3 Final Project Submission: Historical Event Lowell Mill Project

United States History I: 1607–1865 April 9, 2020

2 The Lowell mill ladies were the first young female workers, who came to work in the industrial corporations in Lowell. Massachusetts through 1830s to 1860s. 1Lowell Mills were operated by only women in the beginning. These operatives would be known as the Lowell Mill Ladies".2 They were the first trail blazers to fight for rights of women, the first to implement the start of boycotting for better working conditions and more pay, and the first of their time to be self sufficient and have manage their own funds. They formed their own society, for selfimprovement with night classes and other educational endeavors. With the absence of men from their daily lives, these ladies were able to live outside of the confinements of their own homes and able to access literature and advancement for their own educational endeavors as well as publish their own newspapers and improvement society's. Due to high employee turn over rate the mill employed, they women stayed in Lowell a average of three years,3 the demographic of workers changes drastically. As of 1836. less than four percent of the 7,000 workers had been foreign born.4 The end of the Lowell Mill ladies ended in 1850's, when the mills started relying on poor and Irish immigrants labor, which was cheap labor. The mill manager allowed for bad working conditions to deteriorate worse because they knew that the Irish and poor immigrants would not complain and be grateful for work. Over the 1850s Lowell saw a rise in immigrant labor mostly from Ireland. By the late 1870s to 1880s the work force in Lowell had entirely transformed to "adult immigrant and permanent" 5which brought the end of the Lowell Mills Ladies Era. Lowell mill ladies had opportunity's for the fine things such as access to books,

1Nancy A. Hewitt and Steven F. Lawson, Exploring American Histories: To 1865 (Asheville, NC: Soomo Learning, 2017; Boston, MA: Bedford St. Martin’s, 2013), 333. 2Julie Husband, “‘The White Slave of the North’: Lowell Mill Women and the Reproduction of ‘Free’ Labor,” Legacy 16, no. 1 (1999): 11-21. 3Hewitt and Lawson, Exploring American Histories, 333-335. 4“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls,” 1834–1836, http://csivc.csi.cuny.edu/americanstudies/files/lavender/lowetext.html. 5“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.”

3 literary opportunity's as well as education., as a result of job training opportunities , financial independence, and living on their own for the first time. The Lowell Mill Ladies were the first generation of female workers in the factory system did not profit from industrialization; they paid a heavy price through 1830s to 1860s. The reason for the Mills were due to industrialization. It drove society away from an agricultural to a urban way of life. This first generation of Ladies at Lowell were the first to pass from the traditional agrarian society to factory work where it was a place of long hours doing repetitive tasks,using the machines to produce raw material. This was a efficient way to produce a large quantity of high quality of goods very cheaply for factory owners. Lowell Mill Strikes transpired when more factories led to over production/manufacture business, which led to a fall in prices & profit. Mill owners, Boston Capitalist business men, lowered wages and increased the pace of work for profits. The owners wanted to make the most of profits and their investments and get the most work out of their employees, the Lowell Mill Ladies and girls. The factory were dangerous places to work, and the lifestyle connected to them at first had a terrible effect on the human condition of these Ladies of the Mills. The Lowell Mill Ladies and girls realized because of them, that they deserved more of the profits because it was their labor that made production possible. This situations of deplorable working conditions of the factory and low wages caused conflict in these first stages of industrialization. The working conditions in the factory's was miserable working conditions, poor lighting, and ventilation and dangerous machinery. Safety standards at this time were none existent. Due to to this causes hazards to the Mill Ladies and girl health. Young female operatives organized a protest due to the wage cuts & having to pick up the cost of the broadring house expense. Boarding house expenses were paid before by the corporation.[1] The Lowell Mill strikes unfolded,emerged as a result when the factory when the

4 factory made the announcement that paltry [2]wages would be slashed & workers now had to pay for lodging cost that would have resulted up to a loss of a 25 cents a week. The girls organized, fought back with a strike, line up with 1, 000 to 1,500 in a parade like procession, they had no flags or music, they sang songs some that were not appropriate for the times, like the parody of "I won't be a nun" and listened to fiery speeches of other past prominent labor reformers.[3] The Legacy of the Lowell Mill Strikes, was the start of the very first strike for oppressive hours, and paltry pay. Owners, of mill, fought back and didn't accessed to their demands and continued to cut wages. Some strikers had to return to work, back to the production line, even with the wage cuts, even if wages did continue to plummet, some went back home or transitioned into other jobs for women at the time. The factory was a place where The Lowell Mill strikes unfolded,emerged as a result when the factory when the factory made the announcement that paltry 6wages would be slashed & workers now had to pay for lodging cost that would have resulted up to a loss of a 25 cents a week. The girls organized, fought back with a strike, line up with 1, 000 to 1,500 in a parade like procession, they had no flags or music, they sang songs some that were not appropriate for the times, like the parody of "I won't be a nun" and listened to fiery speeches of other past prominent labor reformers. [3] The Legacy of the Lowell Mill Strikes, was the start of the very first strike for oppressive hours, and paltry pay. Owners, of mill, fought back and didnot accessed to their demands and continued to cut wages. Some strikers had to return to work, back to the prodution line, even with the wage cuts, even if wages did continued to plummet, some went back home or transittioned into other jobs for women at the time.7

6Thomas Dublin, “Women, Work, and Protest in the Early Lowell Mills: ‘The Oppressing Hand of Avarice Would Enslave Us,’” Labor History 16, no. 1 (January 1, 1975): 99-116, https://doi.org/10.1080/00236567508584324. 7Dublin, “Women, Work, and Protest,” 83–86..

5 Lowell Mills provided an opportunity in liberties and that never existed before, for ladies, with proof by bringing into existence of opportunity’s that never happened before with jobs, educating young women, self-reliance and set in motion the onset of women’s rights. 8 This was a trend in time as to the start of ladies of Lowell being able to participate in educational endeavors and literary opportunities. Lowell provided women in the mid-19th century with access to libraries, lectures, and night class education opportunities for the first time. 9 The Lowell Ladies sacrificed their hard work with the trade of for literary opportunities and educational endeavors that they created for themselves. This trend also was the start of women getting highest salary for financial security for themselves as well as financial independence that were available to female employees for the very first time, as well as being able to save their wages as they saw fit to do so. "The young ladies in Lowell lived on the highest wages afforded to female employees anywhere in America." The women grossed pay that "compared favorably with the pay in domestic service, teaching, sewing which were three of the major alternatives that were open to ladies in those years". The mills offered the greater independence that did the ladies lives on family owned farms" 10 The ladies while working at the Mills managed between meals and curfew managed to squeeze the ability to attend a lecture, exhibition, or play". The underlying theme was self improvement. The ladies also "joined many lending libraries and formed and joined literary elegance circles that offered intellectual stimulation" This Young Ladies of Lowell Mills were not only just, "reading books,wearing gold watches, purchasing sweetmeats, they were also starting to write and publish their own Literary magazine"as well. 11

8Dublin, “Women, Work, and Protest,” 118. 9“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.” 10Dublin, “Women, Work, and Protest,” 116. 11“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.”

6 12

The mills offered the greater independence that did the ladies lives on family owned

farms" The ladies while working at the Mills managed between meals and curfew managed to squeeze the ability to attend a lecture, exhibition, or play". The underlying theme was selfimprovement. The ladies also "joined many lending libraries and formed and joined literary elegance circles that offered intellectual stimulation" This Young Ladies of Lowell Mills were not only just, "reading books,wearing gold watches, purchasing sweetmeats, they were also starting to write and publish their own Literary magazine"as well. The ladies "enjoyed the freedom of writing what [they] pleased."This ability to publish worked as a form of unity among the ladies. The demographics of single women allowed for a niche in society to be formed,as everyone left their families to be there.13 In a 1846 editorial printed in Voice of Industry, entitled the "Recruitment of Female Operatives" blamed New England mill recruiters of enticing young ladies with expectations that they blamed "dress in skills and spend half their time reading" 14knowing that ladies were moving to Lowell to chase literary opportunities. The people in charge with hiring these ladies were very deceitful and misleading, "by the 1840's, the myth that textile factory work was a opportunity for factory ladies a privileged lot had been dispelled."15 The City of Lowell provided literary opportunities for ladies that could hardly be found anywhere else. The city of Lowell required a massive amount of work from the ladies living in it. Life of a Mill Lady was difficult and hard, involving long hours and being separated from their loved ones and their traditional way of life. In a letter home, one of the operatives conveyed the amount of work she was

12“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.” 13“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.” 14Hewitt and Lawson, Exploring American Histories, 40. 15“We Call On You to Deliver Us from the Tyrant’s Chain,” Factory Tracts, 1845, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6217.

7 expected to complete was "very hard indeed"16 and she felt she "shall not be able to endure it "17 claiming she has never worked so hard in her life"18 Lowell became a city of ladies who were "determined to get a education for themselves",19 very few were with out a plan to pursue educational endeavors for themselves. In the mill lady, or young girl period, the mills offered these ladies and young girls, a opportunity, kind of like a golden ticket, way from life of their fathers on the farms only to be passed to the farm of a husband, with no control of their own personal finances and self sufficiency, therefore many of them seized the opportunity. As the ladies left their families to move to Lowell, they needed a new place to live. To accommodate these ladies,the companies built boarding houses. 20 The ladies would earn $ 12 to 14 dollars a month and "after paying $ 5 dollars monthly for room and board in a company boarding house,21 " one would be able to use the rest of her earnings as she saw fit to do so, or send to her family. These ladies would have never earned this much money for herself at farm work, and had "had more real cash than her father".22 "Lowell may have been looked upon as a industrial school for young ladies"23which may have been a over statement considering how hard these ladies were expected to work and due to harsh labor conditions. The lasting value placed on female educational endeavors by these ladies of Lowell, can be seen as "the granddaughters of the first mill girls are now found in colleges for women"24 Lowell was ahead of it's time in offering educational endeavors to these ladies, even if it was still dominated by a male society. Lowell Lyceum was the epic center for educational advancement for these Lowell Mill worker

16“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.” 17“We Call on You to Deliver Us.” 18“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.” 19“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.” 20“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.” 21“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.” 22“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.” 23“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.” 24“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.”

8 ladies. 25 The Lowell Lyceum had the most attendance by the mill ladies more than any entertainment offered in the city at the time.26 The Lowell Lyceum hosted for the ladies, world famous speakers such as John Quincy Adams, Edward Everett, John Piperpont, Ralph Waldo Emmerson, John Greenleaf Whittier, Edgar Allen Poe and many other rotating professors from Harvard University. A.P Peabody, a Harvard Professor who regularly lectured to packed audiences of these mill ladies attendance at the Lyceum, recalled that he had "never seen anywhere so assiduous note-taking" as the ladies of Lowell demonstrated, "not even in a college class".27These lectures were the main attraction for these ladies to Lowell. Ladies of this time, were desperate for educational endeavors in classes that their brothers and men had access to with upper education. An editorial published by the Boston Quarterly Review by Orestes Brownson in 1840 gave a negative review of the mill ladies, claiming they were likely to lose their reputation as respectable ladies due to their time in Lowell and would have a difficult time marrying after their employment. 28Brownsen wrote that "few of them never marry, fewer still ever return to their native places with reputation unimpaired. 29 This editorial represented the portion of the population that was threatened by the education and self sufficiency of these ladies that Lowell allowed. After this article, by mid century mill owners no longer offered the two-cent lectures by Harvard faculty at the Lyceum.30 At the turn of the century this is where the demographics changed drastically from New England farm ladies to immigrant labors, the mill managers at this point, is where they started to reduce the opportunities offered to the mill ladies and replaced with Irish men and women of various ages. 25Hewitt and Lawson, Exploring American Histories, 252. 26“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.” 27“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.” 28“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.” 29“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.” 30“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.”

9 The Ladies of Lowell Mills were self sufficient, financially independent, and had the ability to send money home to help their families. While a Lowell Mill girl worked long hours with the ability to afford her own educational endeavors, "many a lady or girl, at Lowell was working to send her brother to college"31, and at least "a quarter of the Harvard student population" which was entirely male, "depended upon the financial support of their sisters who worked at the mills."32 These ladies carved out a literary society for themselves through hard work, in education, financially with purchasing power, and their camaraderie of improvement circles,boarding house interactions and through their self publications like the Lowell Offerings and many others, they could recall their time in Lowell and it's influence on their lives as they "felt that [she] belonged to the world, that there was something for [her] to do in it".33The Lowell Ladies, were the first generation to experience the demand for plentiful and cheap labor due to the mill demands. Because of their sacrifices, they were the start of leading the way to the 19th century to where it was the start of health and disability insurance. They were the first stages of industrialization. They suffered the social upheavals of this time. Those that survived the first generation of industrialization escaped these desperate conditions due to the Lowell Ladies and girls. Later other generations profited by the sacrifice of these ladies. The cost by these first generation of Ladies and girls of Lowell Mills making the transition between family base rural life were immense but not in vain.

31“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.” 32“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.” 33“Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.”

10 Bibliography City University of New York. “Texts about Lowell Mill Girls.” 1834–1836. http://csivc.csi.cuny.edu/americanstudies/files/lavender/lowetext.html. Dublin, Thomas. “Women, Work, and Protest in the Early Lowell Mills: ‘The Oppressing Hand of Avarice Would Enslave Us.’” Labor History 16, no. 1 (January 1, 1975): 99–116. https://doi.org/10.1080/00236567508584324.

Harriet Hanson Robinson, “The Lowell Mill Girls Go on Strike, 1836,” in Loom and Spindle, or Life Among the Early Mill Girls, 1898, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5714. Hewitt, Nancy A. and Steven F. Lawson. Exploring American Histories: To 1865. Asheville, NC: Soomo Learning, 2017. First published 2013 by Bedford St. Martin’s (Boston). Factory Tracts. “We Call On You to Deliver Us from the Tyrant’s Chain.” 1845. History Matters. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6217. Husband, Julie. “‘The White Slave of the North’: Lowell Mill Women and the Reproduction of ‘Free’ Labor.” Legacy 16, no. 1 (1999): 11–21....