Lowell Mills
3/7/2010 9:52:00 PM
Francis Cabot Lowell
 Lowell, Massachusetts
 Late 1800’s
Intentions vs. Results
 Intentions
o Cheap, easy labor
o Fair working conditions
o Would promote women as workers
 Increase workforce

o Women could help support their families
Outcomes
o Oppression of female workforce
 Degradation of working women
 Women not trained to improved
 Sought out by managers to be stable for
decades to continue work
o Would never improve their lives
o Strengthening of female workforce

Female worker’s guilds
Factories
 Looms
o http://www.ehow.com/how_2154105_use-loom.html
o Used for textile manufacturing
o Each girl would have to attend to two or three looms at a time
 Would require constant activity from the girl
 No breaks in work

Dark and damp
Working Women
 Referred to as bobbin girls
 Started off as girls
o Hoped to support family and to compose a sort of dowry/
have money in case of marriage.
o Could not move up in life because of lack of education



Lower class women
o Not especially literate
o Would work for cheap
 $2-3 per week
o Would work long hours
Poor working conditions as manufacturing progressed
o Women became fed up with conditions
 Strikes ensued
"Oh! isn’t 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."
 Let oppression shrug her shoulders,
And a haughty tyrant frown,
And I itt le upstart Ignorance,
In mockery look down.
Yet I value not the feeble threats
Of Tories in disguise,
While the flag of Independence
O'er our noble nation flies.
Evolution of Lowell Girls
 Started off good
o Conditions were tolerable
o Women were surprisingly literate
o Still not great working conditions
 Women treated better than slaves, but not by much
 Deteriorated
o Women kicked out due to misconduct and wage
disagreements
o Pay cuts
 1834
 1836
 $2-3 per week
o Worsening working conditions
o Longer hours
 Some worked 12+ hour days

 Ten hours was considered a short work day
o Oppressive mill managers
Became better
o Strikes forced better conditions
 Conditions improved
 Hours decreased
 Wage increased
Positives vs. Negatives
 Positives
o
o
o
o
Promoted northern textile industry
Helped strengthen American industry in general
Generated revenue for north
Reinforced women’s place in the workforce
 No longer fit the “housewife stereotype”
 Mainly as a result of the strikes
 Women gained the ability to acquire a respectable
job
 Started women on path towards equality


“They called their labor "freedom," but what they meant
by freedom was the newfound--and short-lived--chance
to earn a dollar or two or three every week. It wasn't
much, but for those hardworking Yankee females, it was
a start on the long road to independence.”
Negatives
o Degraded women
 Pre-strikes
o Showed primitive and abusive nature towards low-level
factory workers
o Conditions were terrible
o Hindered evolution of women (& women’s rights)
 Pre-strikes
 Women were stuck in lower class
 Lack of literacy/education presented towards
them prevented progress
Outcomes
 Women’s rights
o Strikes
 Showed power of women
 Helped women’s claim towards a more equal workforce
 The rhetoric used by the strikers is impressive and
important. They linked their action expressly to the
tradition of the Revolutionary War, to the efforts of their
patriotic ancestors to win independence from England.
These women expressed their pride and their sense of

independence as they talked of being "daughters of
freemen".
"We learn that extraordinary excitement was
occasioned at Lowell, last week, by an announcement
that the wages paid in some of the departments would
be reduced 15 percent on the 1st of March. The
reduction principally affected the female operatives, and
they held several meetings, or caucuses, at which a
young woman presided, who took an active part in
persuading her associates to give notice that they
should quit the mills, and to induce them to 'make a
run' on the Lowell Bank and the Savings Bank, which
they did. On Friday morning, the young woman referred
to was dismissed, by the Agent...and on leaving the
office...waved her calash in the air, as a signal to the
others, who were watching from the windows, when
they immediately 'struck' and assembled about her, in
despite of the overseers.”

-From the Boston Transcript
Evolution of industry
o Lowell girls became obsolete
 People realized that they could no longer work the less
dominant class for cheap
o Factories developed

In light of the strikes and the apparent problems,
people made a constant push towards advancing their
industry and making manufacturing easier
 To compete with Britain
 To keep their citizens happy
 To strengthen the economy
http://www.lowellmillwomen.com/about.html
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5714
http://faculty.uml.edu/sgallagher/Mill_girls.htm
http://www.ehow.com/how_2154105_use-loom.html
3/7/2010 9:52:00 PM
3/7/2010 9:52:00 PM