Historical Question:
Was southern slavery worse than work in the textile mills of
the North?
Author: John Buell
School: Sound School
District: New Haven
Overview:
As the controversy over slavery heated up in the mid-1800s, southerners began to defend slavery as
a positive good rather than simply an economic necessity and property right. In his book Cannibals
All!, southerner George Fitzhugh famously compares slaves in the South to mill workers in the North
and claims that slaves are in the end better off. It is true that there are some striking parallels in the
harsh realities of exploitation and poor treatment of both slaves and workers by those who profited
from their labor. Furthermore, the fact that slaves were valuable property gave the slave owner the
motivation and responsibility to care for his slaves while the mill owner had little concern for his
workers once the shift was over. The documents in this lesson provide evidence on the harsh
realities for those in both environments. The challenge for students is to make the case for the lesser
of two evils.
Document Summary:
Document 1 is an excerpt from the book Cannibals All! by George Fitzhugh in which he makes the
claim that the slaves are in fact better off than mill workers in the North. He argues that slaves
receives cradle to grave care and support while the free laborer in the North receives nothing unless
he can work. Slaves who are too young or old to work or are infirm are taken care of by the slave
owner. Mill owners have no sense of responsibility in this area. In this sense he claims that slaves
have more rights than northern workers.
Document 2 is a description of the work performed by the mostly female workers in the Lowell mills.
There are elements to support both sides of the question in this. The work hours are long and the
work is constant. The conditions in the mill are unhealthy. Yet no where is it stated that a worker
can’t decide to quit if they so choose. There is no indication of physical mistreatment of the workers
by the overseers either.
Document 3 consists of two photographs depicting the boarding houses built by the textile mill owners
for their workers. They provide a good contrast with the photograph of the slave cabins. Together
they provide support for the view that mill workers did have it better – at least in terms of living
quarters.
Document 4 is a list of regulations that all mill workers must follow. It has elements that can be used
in support of both positions. The level of control exerted over the workers is high, but there is also
some concern for the workers’ well being – both physical and spiritual.
Document 5 is a photograph of slave cabins along with some secondary source commentary on the
conditions in most slave quarters. In general this document along with document 3 provides strong
support for arguing that slavery was worse than mill work.
Document 6 consists of excerpts from three slave narratives recorded in the 1930s by the Federal
Writers Project. In them the slaves speak of their work which was clearly very hard and unending.
One excerpt however provides an example of fair treatment by the master and a certain degree of
affection for the master by the slave.
Procedure (80 minutes):
1. Introduction of lesson, objectives, overview of SAC procedure (15 minutes)
2. SAC group assignments (30 minutes)
a. Assign groups of four and assign arguments to each team of two.
b. In each group, teams read and examine the Document Packet
c. Each student completes the Preparation part of the Capture Sheet (#2), and works with
their partner to prepare their argument using supporting evidence.
d. Students should summarize your argument in #3.
3. Position Presentation (10 minutes)
a. Team 1 presents their position using supporting evidence recorded and summarized on
the Preparation part of the Capture Sheet (#2 & #3) on the Preparation matrix. Team 2
records Team 1’s argument in #4.
b. Team 2 restates Team 1’s position to their satisfaction.
c. Team 2 asks clarifying questions and records Team 1’s answers.
d. Team 2 presents their position using supporting evidence recorded and summarized on
the Preparation part of the Capture Sheet (#2 & #3) on the Preparation matrix. Team 1
records Team 2’s argument in #4.
e. Team 1 restates Team 2’s position to their satisfaction.
f. Team 1 asks clarifying questions and records Team 2’s answers.
4. Consensus Building (10 minutes)
a. Team 1 and 2 put their roles aside.
b. Teams discuss ideas that have been presented, and figure out where they can agree or
where they have differences about the historical question
5. Closing the lesson (15 minutes)
a. Whole-group Discussion
b. Make connection to unit
c. Assessment (suggested writing activity addressing the question)
DOCUMENT PACKET
Document 1
In their defense of the slave labor system, many southerners argued that their
system was in fact more humane than the free labor system used in the growing
industrial economy of the North.
We are all, North and South, engaged in the White Slave Trade, and he who succeeds best is
esteemed most respectable. It is far more cruel than the Black Slave Trade, because it exacts
more of its slaves, and neither protects nor governs them…
When the day’s labor is ended, [the mill worker] is free, but is overburdened with the cares of
family and household, which makes his freedom an empty and delusive mockery…The Negro
slave is free, too, when the labors of the day are over, and free in mind as well as body; for the
master provides food, raiment, house, fuel and everything else necessary to the physical wellbeing of himself and his family.
The Negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and, in some sense, the freest people in the
world. The children and the aged and infirm work not at all, and yet have all the comforts and
necessaries of life provided for them. They enjoy liberty, because they are oppressed neither by
care nor labor. The women do little hard work, and are protected from the despotism of their
husband by their masters. The Negro men and stout boys work, on the average, in good
weather, not more than nine hours a day. The balance of their time is spent in perfect abandon.
The [mill worker] must work or starve. He is more a slave than the Negro because he works
longer and harder for less allowance than the slave, and has no holiday, because the cares of his
life with him begin when its labors end. He has no liberty, and not a single right.
Vocabulary
esteemed: considered
exacts: takes
appropriate: take
delusive mockery: false joke
raiment: clothing
Source: Excerpt from Cannibals All!, by George Fitzhugh, 1857.
http://www.teachushistory.org/dred-scott-decision/resources/pro-slavery-argument-cannibals-all
Document 2
This is a selection from a magazine report investigating the textile mills of Lowell,
Massachusetts, and Manchester, New Hampshire. The reference to “these
Associations of this moral and Christian community” is meant to be ironic
(sarcastic).
...We have lately visited the cities of Lowell and Manchester, and have had an opportunity of
examining the factory system more closely than before… In Lowell live between seven and
eight thousand young women, who are generally daughters of farmers of the different States of
New England…The operatives work thirteen hours a day in the summer time, and from daylight
to dark in the winter. At half past four in the morning the factory bell rings, and at five the girls
must be in the mills. A clerk, placed as a watch, observes those who are a few minutes… [late],
and [steps are taken to enforce] punctuality. This is the [beginning of] … industrial discipline
(should we … say industrial tyranny?) which is established in these Associations of this moral
and Christian community. At seven the girls are allowed thirty minutes for breakfast, and at
noon thirty minutes more for dinner, except during the first quarter of the year, when the time is
extended to forty-five minutes. But within this time they must hurry to their boardinghouses…
Now let us examine the nature of the labor itself, and the conditions under which it is
performed… The din and clatter of these five hundred looms under full operation, struck us on
first entering as something frightful and infernal, for it seemed such an… [attack on] the sense
of hearing… The girls attend upon an average three looms; many attend four, but this requires a
very active person, and the most unremitting care. However, a great many do it. Attention to
two is as much as should be demanded of an operative…. The atmosphere of such a room
cannot of course be pure; on the contrary it is charged with cotton filaments and dust, which, we
were told, are very injurious to the lungs.
Vocabulary
operatives: workers
punctuality: being on time
tyranny: cruel dictatorship
boardinghouses: living quarters
infernal: terrible
unremitting: never ending
Source: excerpt from "Female Workers of Lowell," The Harbinger
November 14, 1836
http://www.learner.org/workshops/primarysources/lowell/docs/harbinger.html
Document 3
The young female workers at the mills were generally required to live in communal
boarding houses that were provided by the company. Money for rent and food was
deducted each week from each worker’s pay.
Source: Top photograph - Lowell National Historical Park Website
http://www.nps.gov/lowe/parknews/lowell-women-s-week-2009.htm
Bottom photograph – CullensHistoryCorner.
http://cullenshistorycorner.wikispaces.com/Boarding+Houses
Document 4
These work rules were written for the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, one of
the textile companies in Lowell. They were written in 1848. The rules were strict,
but some show an indication of concern for the well being of the workers.
REGULATIONS TO BE OBSERVED by all persons employed in the factories of the Hamilton
Manufacturing Company… They are not to be absent from their work without the consent of
the over-seer, except in cases of sickness, and then they 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…
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 …
Payment will be made monthly, including board and wages.
Vocabulary
over-seer: supervisor
engaged: employed
regular discharge: leaving the job on
good terms
habitually: regularly
the Sabbath: Sunday
counting-room: office
Source: Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts at Lowell.
http://library.uml.edu/clh/all/ham2.htm
Document 5
The photograph below shows slave cabins as they would have looked in the years
before the Civil War. It is part of an online exhibit about life on the Plantation.
The following note is included with this picture:
Comments from slaveholder and slave alike detail the slip-shod condition of many of these
buildings. Slave cabins had chimneys that were prone to catching fire, roofs that leaked, dirt
floors, and walls with gaping holes… Yet, testimony from former slaves points up their
persistent and deliberate efforts to improve their cabins, to keep them in good repair, and to
make them as comfortable as possible. In short, many slaves worked very hard to transform
their quarters into homes.
Slave Quarters at the Hermitage plantation, Chatham County, Georgia,
(Photograph by Charles E. Peterson, 1934)
Vocabulary
Slip-shod: poorly built
Source: On-line exhibit: The Cultural Landscape of the Plantation
http://www.gwu.edu/~folklife/bighouse/panel15.html
Document 6
In the 1930s writers were hired by the federal government to interview former
slaves to record their personal accounts of the experience of slavery before they
died and their memories were lost forever. Slaves were owned for the sole purpose
of providing labor and yet the attitudes of the slaves toward their masters were not
always negative. Note: the language and phrasing has been modified.
I never know what it was to rest. I just work all the time from morning till late at night. I had to
do everything there was to do on the outside. Work in the field, chop wood, hoe corn, until
sometime I feel like my back will surely break. I did everything except split rails.
-- Sara Gudger, former slave from Burke County, North Carolina
I used battling blocks and battling sticks to help clean the clothes when we were washing; we
all did. We took the clothes out of the suds, soaped them good and put them on the block and
beat them with a battling stick, which was like a paddle. On wash days you could hear them
battling sticks pounding every which way.
-- Julia Brown, former slave from Jackson County, Georgia
Master John had a big plantation and lots of slaves. They treated us pretty good, but we had to
work hard. From the time I was ten years old I was a regular in handling the plow. Oh, yes sir,
Master John was good enough to us and we got plenty to eat, but he had a overseer named
Green Bush who would whip us if we don't work to his satisfaction. Yes sir, he was mighty
rough with us but he didn't do the whipping himself. He had a big black boy named Mose who
was mean as the devil and strong as a ox and the overseer let him do all the whipping. And he
sure could lay on that rawhide lash. He whipped a negro girl about thirteen years old so hard
that she nearly died… That made Master John mad, so he ran that overseer off the plantation
and Mose didn’t do any more whipping.
-- Walter Calloway, former slave from Montgomery County, Alabama
Sources: Top two quotes are from the online exhibition, The Cultural Landscape
of the Plantation. http://www.gwu.edu/~folklife/bighouse/panel9.html
The bottom quote is from American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wpa/callowa1.html
Some of the language and phrasing in these documents have been
modified from the originals.
CAPTURE SHEET
Was southern slavery worse than work in the
textile mills of the North?
Preparation:
1. Highlight your assigned position.
Don’t forget the rules of a successful
academic controversy!
1. Practice active listening.
2. Challenge ideas, not each other
3. Try your best to understand the other
positions
4. Share the floor: each person in a pair
MUST have an opportunity to speak
5. No disagreeing until consensusbuilding as a group of four
Yes: Southern slavery was worse than work in northern textile mills.
No: Work in the textile mills of the North was worse than slavery in the South.
2. Read through each document searching for support for your side’s argument. Use the
documents to fill in the chart (Hint: Not all documents support your side, find those that do):
Document
#
What is the main idea of this document?
What details support your position?
3. Work with your partner to summarize your arguments for your position using the supporting
documents you found above:
Position Presentation:
4. You and your partner will present your position to your opposing group members. When you
are done, you will then listen to your opponents’ position.
While you are listening to your opponents’ presentation, write down the main details that they
present here:
Clarifying questions I have for the opposing partners:
How they answered the questions:
Consensus Building:
5. Put your assigned roles aside. Where does your group stand on the question? Where does
your group agree? Where does your group disagree? Your consensus answer does not have
to be strictly yes, or no.
We agree:
We disagree:
Our final consensus: