Station 1
Lowell System
The Lowell system or Waltham-Lowell system, named after Francis Cabot Lowell, was a
paternalistic textile factory system of the early 19th century that relied almost exclusively on young,
unmarried women laborers. Because many in New England considered the employment of women
to be somewhat immoral, factory owners emphasized the maintenance of a proper environment:
they enforced strict curfews, mandated church attendance, provided their workers with a healthy
diet, and maintained a high degree of cleanliness. Unlike many of the factories of the day, Lowell
factories were clean, and the workers lived in well-kept dormitories and boardinghouses. Wages
were good compared to the standards of the day.
The innovative system and the enthusiasm it incited in its employees drew international acclaim. The
women wrote a newsletter, the Lowell Offering, that was widely read. Charles Dickens, who visited
Lowell during part of his four-month tour of the United States, said of the place, "I cannot recall or
separate one young face that gave me a painful impression; not one young girl whom, assuming it to
be matter of necessity that she should gain her daily bread by the labour of her hands, I would have
removed from those works if I had had the power."
[1] (http://www.learner.org/channel/workshops/primarysources/lowell/docs/dickens.html) The system's
success was one of the factors that propelled Lowell and his fellow entrepreneurs (later the Boston
Associates) to great success.
The Lowell system almost immediately ran into trouble, however. The women, most of whom were
recruited from the surrounding countryside, found transition to factory life and the tediousness of
repetitive tasks difficult. And the competitiveness of the textile industry made the high standards of
living and working conditions difficult to maintain. An economic downturn in 1834 led to a 25%
wage cut, and the mill workers responded by organizing a union (the Factory Girls Association) and
immediately going on strike. The strike failed, but the depression of 1837 three years later virtually
destroyed the system entirely. Despite the agitation of the militant Sarah Bagley and her Female
Labor Reform Association, conditions continued to worsen throughout the 1840s, and the mill
owners began to seek cheaper labor in Irish immigrants. By the 1850s, the Lowell system had been
abandoned.
Station 2
Lowell System
Francis Cabot Lowell revolutionized the early stages of industrialization in the United States, with his vision of
an entire community involved in textile production. Upon returning from a trip to England to observe the
Lancashire cotton mills, Lowell was inspired to create a system of textile mills and develop a "paternalistic"
working environment of caring for the workers. This setting would attempt to care for the workers while
governing their moral reputations. Lowell passed away in 1817 before he was able to see his vision become a
reality. The Boston Associates carried on the ideas of Francis Cabot Lowell and opened the first mills in Lowell,
Massachusetts in 1823.
The system used domestic labor, often referred to as mill girls, who came to the new textile centers from rural
towns to earn more money than was possible at home, and to live a cultured life in "the city". They lived a very
regimented life - they lived in company boardinghouses and were held to strict hours and a rigid moral code.
Women between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five were recruited to work at the mills. The protective setting,
promised by the mill agents, alleviated the parents' fears of letting their daughters leave the farms. The Lowell
Mills management offered cash wages, company run boardinghouses and cultural events for the women. The
women agreed to a strict set of rules including church attendance and curfews. In the 1800s, job options were
limited for women and the Lowell Mills offered them the opportunity to become money earning rather than a
money-saving part of the family.
A further benefit to the mill owners was that the young mill girls were willing to work for two or three years at
one-half to one-third the wages paid to men for similar work before returning home to marry and start a family.
At $2.40 to $3.20 a week, the pay was still more than domestic servants and seamstresses, the two most common
occupations for working women. Moreover, the work was not much more difficult than farm labor or home
spinning, and most of the female workers enjoyed having more financial and personal independence that they
had ever experienced in their paternalistic, male-centered farm households or in the claustrophobic confines of
rural villages. The keepers of the Lowell boardinghouses where the women lived did impose strict discipline,
with curfews, mandatory church attendance or Sunday self-improvement, and chaperones for male visitors, but
the women were more than willing to trade these limits on their freedom for the money in their pockets and the
camaraderie of their fellow workers, at least for a few years.
Work routines were strict at Lowell, with a twelve-hour day starting at seven in the morning, and only a halfhour lunch break at midday. Factory bells announced times for leaving and entering the plant, and the
employees were fined for lateness as well as other breaches of the rules, including insubordination, profanity, or
improper conduct. The work did not demand great physical strength, but it did require constant attention as the
women generally tended carding, spinning, and weaving machines, checking for and then correcting broken
threads and patters. In winter, work began before sunup and lasted into the darkness, when smoky whale-oil
lamps illuminated the interior of the factories. Because cotton thread breaks more readily in dry air, overseers
sealed windows shut and sprayed water in the air to keep the humidity high in the six-story factories. As a
result, not only were light and ventilation blocked, but the "buzzing and hissing and whizzing of pulleys and
rollers and spindles and flyers" became an unnerving cacophony in the enclosed machinery rooms.
It has long been debated by scholars if the intentions of Francis Cabot Lowells' "paternalistic" expectation of the
Lowell mills were realized after his death. Through the documentation left by many of the female workers in
the mill system, we can see that the hope for a clean, safe and nurturing environment was not always possible.
Station 3
Immigration to the US
Wars in Europe and American slowed immigration during the late 1700's and early 1800s. Newcomers
included Irish fleeing English rule and French escaping revolution. Congress made it illegal to bring in
slaves of 1808. By that time, about 375,000 black Africans had been imported as slaves.
During the early 1800's, New York City began to replace Philadelphia as the nation's chief port of
entry for immigrants. The country's first immigration station, Castle Garden, opened in New York
City in 1855. Ellis Island, the world's most famous station, operated in New York Harbor from 1892
to 1954.
The second wave lasted from 1820 to 1870. Almost 7 � million newcomers entered the United States.
Nearly all of them came from northern and western Europe. About a third were Irish, many of them
seeking escape from a potato famine that struck Ireland in the mid-1840's. Almost a third were
German. Most of the Irish had little money, and so they stayed where they arrived, on the East
Coast. Many Germans had enough money to journey to the Midwest in search of farmland. (Source:
The World Book Encyclopedia, Volume 10, Page 82).
In the mid-1880's, some states sent agents to Europe to attract settlers. Railroad companies did the
same thing. Better conditions on ships and steep declines in travel time and fares made the voyage
across the Atlantic Ocean easier and more affordable. In the mid-1800's news of the discovery of gold
in California reached China. Chinese immigrants and sojourners streamed across the Pacific to strike
it rich. Sojourners were temporary immigrants who intended to make money and return home.
French-Canadian immigrants and sojourners opened still another path to the United States. They
moved across the Canadian-U.S. border into the New England states and Michigan.
The flood of immigrants began to alarm many native born Americans. Some feared job competition
from foreigners. Others disliked the religion or politics of the newcomers. During the 1850's, the
America Party, also called the Know-Nothing Party, demanded laws to reduce immigration and to
make it harder for foreigners to become citizens. Although the part soon died out, it reflected the
serious concerns of some Americans.
During the 1870's, the U. S. economy suffered a depression while that of Germany and Britain
improved. German and British immigration to the United States then decreased. But arrivals
increased from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, China, Canada, and southern and eastern Europe. In
1875, the United States passed its first restrictive immigration law. It prevented convicts and
prostitutes from entering the country. During the late 1870's, Californians demanded laws to keep out
Chinese immigrants. In some instances, mobs attacked Chinese immigrants, who were accused of
lowering wages and unfair business competition. They were also denounced as inassimilable and as
racially inferior.
Station 4
Immigration to US
A.
B.
Station 5
Transportation
Trains
In 1852, the first railroad tracks were laid in Hilliard, Ohio. These railroad tracks were completed in
1853 and the railroad opened in Hilliard. The railroad station was made up of three boxcars put
together to form a building, and it was called Hilliard’s Station. The trains took people from the
village of Hilliard, which was founded by John R. Hilliard in 1853, to Pleasant Valley. The trip fare
to Pleasant Valley, what we now call Plain City, was 28¢. The railroad also had a train that took
people from Hilliard to Columbus for a fare of 10¢. This train left Hilliard early in the morning for
workers and shoppers to travel to Columbus and then return back home to Hilliard in the evening.
Around 1890, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company replaced Hilliard’s Station with a new building.
This new building was a combination depot where the town’s transportation and communication
needs were met.
Between 1800 and 1900, the way Americans moved around their world changed drastically.
In 1800, the only practical way to travel and trade across long distances was along the nation’s
natural waterways. As a result, settlement clung to the nation’s coasts and rivers. A few roads
connected major cities, but travel on them was difficult and time consuming.
One hundred years later, railroads sped along thousands of miles of track. Large ships moved
passengers and freight across the oceans and smaller boats plied the nation’s rivers, lakes and canals.
Bicycles, carriages and wagons rolled over thousands of miles of roads. Seventy-five million people
lived coast to coast, many in towns and cities that had sprouted up along the new routes.
One of the fastest growing of these young cities was Chicago. In 1800 the state of Illinois didn’t exist;
by 1900, its largest city was an economic powerhouse with over 1.6 million residents. Located at the
intersection of river, lake and railroad routes, Chicago’s industrial, manufacturing and commercial life
depended on the boats and trains traveling into and out of the city. Lake steamers carried coal and
iron ore to Chicago’s steel mills. Railroads brought livestock to the city’s stockyards and shipped sides
of beef, pork, and lamb to the rest of the country.
Sears, Roebuck and Company and Montgomery Ward—both Chicago firms— sold everything
including the kitchen sink and guaranteed delivery to the nation’s doorstep, or at least to the nearest
railroad station.
By 1900, the average American had come to depend on far-flung places for the basic staples of life.
Fruit from California, furniture from Chicago and clothes from New York now criss-crossed the
country with a speed and ease unheard of a century earlier.
Station 6 Transportation
It was during the industrial revolution that massive modifications of transport systems occurred in two
major phases, the first centered along the development of canal systems and the second centered along
railways. This period marked the development of the steam engine that converted thermal energy into
mechanical energy, providing an important territorial expansion for maritime and railway transport systems.
Much of the credit of developing the first efficient steam engine in 1765 is attributed to the British Engineer
Watt, although the first steam engines were used to pump water out of mines. It was then only a matter of
time to see the adaptation of the steam engine to locomotion. In 1769, the French engineer Cugnot built the
first self-propelled steam vehicle, along with being responsible for the first automobile accident ever
recorded. The first mechanically propelled maritime vehicle was tested in 1790 by the American Inventor
Fitch as a mode of fluvial transportation on the Delaware River. By 1807, commercial steam boat services
were inaugurated. This marked a new era in the mechanization of land and maritime transport systems
alike. From the perspective of land transportation, the early industrial revolution faced problems over
bottlenecks, as inland distribution was unable to carry the growing quantities of raw materials and finished
goods. Roads were commonly unpaved and could not be used to effectively carry heavy loads. Although
improvements were made on road transport systems in the early 17th century, such as the Turnpike Trusts in
Britain (1706) and the development of stagecoaches, this was not sufficient to accommodate the growing
demands on freight transportation. The first coach services had speeds of about 5.5 miles per hour in the
1750s. By the 1820s turnpikes greatly improved overland transportation but roads were not profitable if used
to haul anything except compact and valuable goods. In a horse drawn era, road economics were clearly
disadvantageous. Bulk products could be transported for about 100 miles, but in a slow, costly and inefficient
manner. For instance, four horses could pull a wagon weight of one ton 12 miles a day over an ordinary road
and one-and-a-half tons 18 miles a day over a well maintained turnpike. Comparatively, four horses could
draw a barge of 100 tons 24 miles a day on a canal.
From the 1760s a set of freight shipping canals were slowly built in emerging industrial cores such as
England (e.g. Bridgewater Canal, 1761) and the United States (e.g. Erie Canal, 1825). These projects relied on
a system of locks to overcome changes in elevation, and thus linking different segments of fluvial systems
into a comprehensive waterway system. Barges became increasingly used to move goods at a scale and a cost
that were not previously possible. Economies of scale and specialization, the foundation of modern industrial
production systems, became increasingly applicable through fluvial canals. Physical obstacles made canal
construction expensive, however, and the network was constrained in its geographical coverage. In 1830 there
were about 2,000 miles of canals in Britain and by 1850, there were 4,250 miles of navigable waterways. The
canal era was however short-lived as a new mode would revolutionize and transform inland transportation
emerged in the second half of the 19th century.
Station 7 – Changes in Technology
The Industrial Revolution boasts many advancements and achievements in technology and
science. Inventions created during the Industrial Revolution paved the foundations of
Industrial America. Transportation was greatly expanded upon, electricity was discovered,
and industrial processes were improved. Below are some of the greatest inventions and
achievements that occurred during the industrial age.
Cotton Gin
The cotton gin was created by Eli Whitney. It was designed to weed out the cotton from its
seeds. Previously, cottonseed had to be separated by hand and was very time consuming. The
cotton gin automated the process using a small wire screen and hooks that pulled the cotton
over the screen and separated the seeds.
Medical Achievements
During the Industrial Age in the late 1800s, many breakthroughs in medicine occurred. The
basic concepts of disease, sanitation, and medical care were all advanced upon during this
time. Many of the ideas discovered would go on to fuel the extensive knowledge and
treatments we have available today.
In 1870, Louie Pasteur from France showed the link between microbes and illness. He also
proved false the concept of spontaneous generation - that life could spring from nonliving
matter. He showed the bacteria are like other living organisms and can reproduce, and are
always constantly in the air. He went on the event pasteurization, which kills the bacteria
that ferment and cause the souring of milk, wine, and juices.
Pain management techniques advanced as well. Crawford Long, an American surgeon, had
often used a gas called "ether" to make his patients unconscious and to eliminate pain. It was
actually an anesthetic, and it was later developed upon and used regularly during operations.
Unfortunately, many patients continued to die from infections due to unsanitary medical
practices.
Station 8 – Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution that occurred in the 19th century was of great importance to the
economic future of the United States. Three industrial developments led the way to
industrialization in America:
1. Transportation was expanded.
2. Electricity was effectively harnessed.
3. Improvements were made to industrial processes.
Following is a list of key events and dates of the Industrial Revolution.
Person
Invention
Date
James Watt
First reliable Steam Engine
1775
Eli Whitney
Cotton Gin, Interchangeable parts for muskets
1793, 1798
Robert Fulton
Regular Steamboat service on the Hudson River 1807
Samuel F. B. Morse
Telegraph
1836
Elias Howe
Sewing Machine
1844
Isaac Singer
Improves and markets Howe's Sewing Machine 1851
Cyrus Field
Transatlantic Cable
1866
Alexander Graham Bell
Telephone
1876
Thomas Edison
Phonograph, Incandescant Light Bulb
1877, 1879
Nikola Tesla
Induction Electric Motor
1888
Rudolf Diesel
Diesel Engine
1892
Orville and Wilbur Wright First Airplane
1903
Henry Ford
1908, 1913
Model T Ford, Assembly Line