To Strike or Not to Strike in 1830s Lowell: A Role Play
In this activity you will perform a role play of a talk show between Lowell workers and factory owners. To research your characters, you
will analyze primary sources.
Objectives
1. You will analyze how changing working conditions and decreasing pay led to strikes in the 1830s.
2. You will dramatize the conflict between factory owners and factory workers over changing working conditions
and pay.
Instructions
1. Step 1: Divide into four equal groups: one group to play the factory owner, one group to play a girl who wants
to go on strike, one group to play a girl who does not want to go on strike, and one group to play the talk show
host. Pass locate copies of the To Strike or Not to Strike worksheet describing the situation and we will go
over the parts of the role play carefully.
2. Step 2: Please locate the character planning worksheets, as well as the primary and secondary documents. In
your character groups, review the readings and select evidence and information you wish to include in the talk
show role play. You should consider the arguments and evidence the character would use, and how he/she
would counter the arguments of the other characters. The talk show host groups should also plan for what
kinds of questions they will ask the other characters.
3. Step 3: Each group should choose one member to perform the role play for the class. Please locate copies of
the Scene Assessment Rubric (only needed by the non-performing members of the class). We will go over
directions for completing it as you actively listen to the role play; as you watch the talk show, you should take
notes about the main points of each character and the sources the actors used to create their dialogue. Now, the
designated characters present the role play to the class.
4. Step 4: After concluding the role play, we will discuss the following points:
 How did factory work benefit the girls?
 In what ways was factory work not a benefit to the girls?
Historical Context
A group of Boston capitalists built a major textile manufacturing center in Lowell, Massachusetts beginning in the
1820s. The first factories recruited women from rural New England as their labor force. These young women, far from
home, lived in rows of boardinghouses adjacent to the growing number of mills. The industrial production of textiles
was highly profitable, and the number of factories in Lowell and other mill towns increased. More mils, however, led to
overproduction, which led to a drop in prices and profits. Mill owners reduced wages and speeded up the pace of work.
They also raised the rent for their boardinghouses. The young female operates organized to protest these wage cuts in
1834 and 1836.
A Former Lowell Girl Remembers Working in the Mills
Lucy Larcom worked in the mills at Lowell as a young woman. In her memoir, written more than forty years later, she remembered
how she and other young female mill workers felt about their jobs.
I know that sometimes the confinement of the mill became very wearisome to me. In the sweet June weather I would
lean far out of the window, and try not to hear the unceasing clash of sound inside….
I regard it as one of the privileges of my youth that I was permitted to grow up among these active, interesting girls….
They were earnest and capable; ready to undertake anything that was worth doing…. They gave me a larger, firmer
idea of womanhood….
Country girls were naturally independent, and the feeling that at this new work the few hours they had of every-day
leisure were entirely their own was a satisfaction to them. They preferred it to going out as ‘hired help.’ It was like a
young man’s pleasure in entering upon business for himself. Girls had never tried that experiment before, and they
liked it.
SOURCE | Lucy Larcom, A New England Girlhood (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1889).
CREATOR | Lucy Larcom
ITEM TYPE | Biography/Autobiography
Regulations of the Middlesex Company and Its
Boarding Houses
The Lowell textile factories, and the boarding houses where they required their female workers to live, had strict rules. The women
accepted these rules and even helped enforce them.
All persons [working for] the Middlesex Company . . . [must live] in one of the boarding-houses belonging to the
Company.
The Company will not employ any one who is habitually absent from public worship on the Sabbath, or whose habits
are not regular and correct.
All persons entering into the employment of the Company are considered as engaged for twelve months; and those who
leave sooner will not receive a regular discharge.
Smoking within the factory yards will in no case be permitted.
Boarders are not permitted to have company at unreasonable hours.
Boardinghouse doors must be closed at ten o’clock in the evening, and no one admitted after that time without some
reasonable excuse.
The keepers of the Boarding House must . . . report the names of such as are guilty of any improper conduct, or are not
in the regular habit of attending public worship.
SOURCE | Samuel Lawrence, 1 July 1846; Tsongas Industrial History Center and Center for Lowell History, http://www.uml.edu/tsongas/bringinghistory-home/page_00/index.htm.
CREATOR | Samuel Lawrence
ITEM TYPE | Pamphlet
Young Women Ask Permission to Work in Lowell
Starting in the 1820s, a group of business owners built textile mills in New England, where for the first time, people could use machines
to weave cotton into cloth. The first factories recruited women from rural New England as their labor force. Most of these young
women viewed mill work as a temporary stage in live, a way to escape the limits of farm life and to earn money for themselves and to
help support their families.
Sally Rice Writes to Her Parents, 1839
I am most 19 years old. I must of course have something of my own before many more years have passed. And where
is that something coming from if I go home and earn nothing? . . . You may think me unkind, but how can you blame
me for wanting to stay here? I have but one life to live and I want to enjoy myself.
Mary Paul Asks Her Father to Go to Lowell, circa 1830-1860
I want you to let me go to Lowell if you can. I think it would be much better for me than to stay about here. 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. We all think if I could go with some steady girl that I might
do well. I want you to think of it and make up your mind. Mercy Jane Griffith is going to start in four or five weeks.
Aunt Miller and Aunt Sarah think it would be a good chance for me to go if you would consent—which I want you to
do if possible.
SOURCE | Thomas Dublin, ed., Farm to Factory: Women’s Letters, 1830-1860 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981).
CREATOR | Various
ITEM TYPE | Diary/Letter
A Former Mill Girl Remembers the Lowell Strike of
1836
Harriet Hanson Robinson began work in Lowell at the age of ten, later becoming an author and advocate of women's suffrage. In 1834
and 1836, the mill owners reduced wages, increased the pace of work, and raised the rent for the boardinghouses. The young female
workers went on strike (they called it “turning out” then) to protest the decrease in wages and increase in rent. In 1898 Robinson
published a memoir of her Lowell experiences where she describes the strike of 1836.
Cutting down the wages was not their only grievance, nor the only cause of this strike. [Before] the corporations had
paid twenty-five cents a week towards the board of each operative, and now it was their purpose to have the girls pay
the sum; and this, in addition to the cut in the wages, would make a difference of at least one dollar a week. It was
estimated that as many as twelve or fifteen hundred girls turned out, and walked in procession through the streets. They
had neither flags nor music, but sang songs, [including]
“Oh! isn’t it a pity, such a pretty girl as IShould 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.”
SOURCE | Harriet Hanson Robinson, Loom and Spindle or Life Among the Early Mill Girls (New York, T. Y. Crowell, 1898), 83–86, fromHistory
Matters: The U.S. Survey on the Web, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5714/.
CREATOR | Harriet Hanson Robinson
ITEM TYPE | Biography/Autobiography
Time Table of the Lowell Mills
The young farm women who worked in the Lowell textile mills were used to hard work, but working the large, noisy mills was different.
On the farm, women had controlled their own work schedule, and they did may different tasks. In the mill, women did one task over
and over again. Factory owners now controlled the speed and hours of work.
SOURCE | Time Table of the Lowell Mills, Merrimack Valley Textile Museum, from Uses of Liberty Rhetoric Among Lowell Mill Girls,
http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/americanstudies/lavender/lowell.html.
CREATOR | Unknown
ITEM TYPE | Pamphlet
Daughters of Free Men Script Excerpts
The following excerpts are taken from the script for Daughters of Free Men.
Appleton (mill owner): . . . In this rich, young republic-we have started afresh in all things. Here on the Merrimack
River we have prospered, not only because we invented a power loom. But also because we found disciplined and
respectable workers, the virtuous daughters of our New England farmers. Our mills at Lowell are a kind of industrial
miracle. In America, we can have manufactures without the sprawling, filth-strewn slums of England. Abundance
without the degradation and poverty of the old world…
Obadiah Smith (overseer): Watch out, Harriet Dearie. Or you can leave right now and not come back. Don't need all
of you anyway. People aren't buying so much cloth these days. The Boston partners-Appleton and the rest-they can't
sell what they got already. You better quiet down and be sensible like little Lucy here
VOCABULARY
POWER LOOM: MACHINE FOR WEAVING CLOTH
OLD WORLD: EUROPE
SOURCE | American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning.
CREATOR | American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
ITEM TYPE | TV/Film
To Strike or Not To Strike: Lowell in the 1830s
The Situation
A group of Boston capitalists built a major textile manufacturing center in Lowell,
Massachusetts, beginning in the 1820s. The first factories recruited women from rural New
England as their labor force. These young women, far from home, lived in rows of
boardinghouses adjacent to the growing number of mills. The industrial production of textiles
was highly profitable, and the number of factories in Lowell and other mill towns increased.
More mills led to overproduction, which led to a drop in prices and profits. Mill owners reduced
wages and speeded up the pace of work. They also raised the rent for their boardinghouses.
The young female operatives organized to protest these wage cuts in 1834 and 1836.
In this talk show role play, a factory owner and two of his workers will be interviewed by a talk
show host about working and living conditions at the Lowell textile mills and whether a strike
by the workers is the best way for workers to address those issues.
The Cast of Characters
  Factory owner 
  Female operative who wants to go on strike 
  Female operative who doesn’t want to go on strike 
 Talk show host 
The Sources
  Daughters of Free Men Viewers Guide 
  Time Table of the Lowell Mills 
  Regulations of the Middlesex Company and its Boarding Houses 
  Harriet Robinson Remembers the Lowell Strike of 1836 
  Lucy Larcom Remembers Working in the Mills 
  Daughters of Free Men Script Excerpts 
 Young Women Ask Permission to Work in Lowell 
The Task
Divide the group into four equal groups (one for each character). The groups should select one
person who will perform their designated role during the talk show.
In your character groups, carefully review the sources. Think about the evidence and
arguments your character would make about working conditions and the possibility of a strike.
Also, think about what arguments other guests will make and how you might counter those
arguments. For the talk show host group, think about what questions you would ask the
guests.
Name your character. Select evidence and information that you wish to use in the role-play.
Record your talking points or questions on the worksheet, making note of where the evidence
comes from. Include details that are authentic to the time and place (Lowell in the 1830s).
Character Name: _________________________________________________________
KEY POINTS/QUESTIONS YOUR CHARACTER WILL USE
SOURCE
Character Name: _________________________________________________________
KEY POINTS/QUESTIONS YOUR CHARACTER WILL USE
SOURCE
Character Name: _________________________________________________________
KEY POINTS/QUESTIONS YOUR CHARACTER WILL USE
SOURCE
Character Name: _________________________________________________________
KEY POINTS/QUESTIONS YOUR CHARACTER WILL USE
SOURCE
SCENE ASSESSMENT RUBRIC: To Strike or Not to Strike?
As each group performs its role play, answer the questions below to assess the work:
1. Pick one character (factory owner, operative who wants to strike, operative who doesn’t want to
strike). What arguments did this character make?
Character: _______________________________________________
Arguments: _____________________________________________________________
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2. What sources did the group use evidence and/or quotes from?
o Daughters of Free Men Viewers Guide
o Time Table of the Lowell Mills
o Regulations of the Middlesex Company and its Boarding Houses
o Harriet Robinson Remembers the Lowell Strike of 1836
o Young Women Ask Permission to Work in Lowell
o Daughters of Free Men Script Excerpts
o Lucy Larcom Remembers Working in the Mills
3. How did the talk show reflect the historical setting of Lowell factory workers in the 1830s?
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