The system of labor in the Lowell mills became widely admired because the young women were housed in an environment that was not only safe but reputed to be culturally advantageous. The young women were encouraged to engage in educational pursuits while not working and even contributed articles to a magazine, The Lowell Offering. Francis Cabot Lowell founded the Boston Manufacturing Company, prompted by the increased demand for cloth during the War of Using the latest technology, he built a factory in Massachusetts which used water power to run machines that processed raw cotton into finished fabric.
The factory needed workers but Lowell wanted to avoid using child labor which was commonly used in fabric mills in England. The workers did not need to be physically strong, as the work was not strenuous. However, the workers had to be fairly intelligent to master the complicated machinery.
The solution was to hire young women. In New England, there were a number of girls who had some education, in that they could read and write. Working in the textile mill seemed like a step up from working on the family farm. Working at a job and earning wages was an innovation in the early decades of the 19th century when many Americans still worked on family farms or at small family businesses.
And for young women at the time, it was also an opportunity to assert some independence from their families despite being paid less than men. The company set up boardinghouses to provide safe places for the women employees to live and imposed a strict moral code.
Francis Cabot Lowell died in His colleagues continued the company and built a larger and improved mill along the Merrimack River in a town they renamed in Lowell's honor. In the s and s , Lowell and its mill girls became fairly famous. In , faced with increased competition in the textile business, the mill cut the worker's wages, and the workers responded by forming the Factory Girls Association, an early labor union.
However, the efforts at organized labor were not successful. In the late s, the housing rates for the female mill workers were raised. They attempted to hold a strike but it did not succeed. They were back on the job within weeks. The mill girls became known for engaging in cultural programs centered around their boardinghouses. The young women tended to read and discussions of books were a common pursuit. The women also began publishing The Lowell Offering. The magazine was published from to and sold for six-and-one-fourth cents a copy.
But equal amounts of disadvantages came along such as severe injuries, strict discipline, long tiring shifts and lesser freedom. The Industrial Revolution had many positive effects. Among those was an increase in wealth, the production of goods, and the standard of living.
People had access to healthier diets, better housing, and cheaper goods. In addition, education increased during the Industrial Revolution. Changes in Society The factory system had a large impact on society. Before the factory system, most people lived on farms in the countryside. With the formation of large factories, people began to move to the cities. Cities grew larger and sometimes became overcrowded.
How did the factory system change the way that goods and products are produced? Concentrated in set location, faster methods of production, craftsmanship replaced by lower skilled workers that did same task over and over.
Low wages, poor conditions, allowed capitalist to reduce production costs and increase profits. New England was ideal for the development for factories because the ppor soil caused people to leave their farms, to find work, river provided water power to run machinery, easily accessible ports for passage, proximity to resources.
What was the main reason for poor living conditions in cities? Cities were not prepared for so many new workers. What was the biggest effect that new technology had on farm workers? Many workers lost their jobs. The labor movement in the United States grew out of the need to protect the common interest of workers. For those in the industrial sector, organized labor unions fought for better wages, reasonable hours and safer working conditions. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search.
Press ESC to cancel. Skip to content Home Who worked in the Lowell Mills? Ben Davis May 15, Who worked in the Lowell Mills? Why did the Lowell Mills prefer to hire female workers? Who replaced the Lowell mill workers? And when they left the mills, they tended to settle in large towns rather than returning to farms. The women made sacrifices, too. Unlike domestic industries, the factory environment was highly regulated.
Women worked six days a week for twelve hours per day, with only three holidays and Sundays to rest. If anyone violated these terms, the Lowell magnates made certain she never worked in their factories again.
The work was repetitive and could be dangerous. Penny-pinching managers also regulated every moment of the work day to ensure maximum productivity, essentially cutting laborers off from the outside world. Women rarely held supervisory responsibilities and were employed in part because of the low wages they accepted. The Lowell manufacturers required their female workers to board together in brick company housing, built in the s to replace earlier ramshackle wooden structures.
Up to forty women lived in a typical boardinghouse, with up to eight per room and two per bed. The houses were kept clean and reasonably comfortable, and the meals were adequate and regular. However, the women were expected to adhere to strict rules designed to ensure moral living, including regular church attendance.
Boardinghouse keepers attempted to enforce these rules but could not be everywhere at once. Ultimately, the women developed their own community values. Through toiling and boarding together in company housing, and by producing their own literature, they created a sense of shared culture and experience. Although they did not fight the system as it stood, when the Boston Associates colluded to reduce wages in and , the women went on strike.
They did so in the context of a wider pattern of labor organization and unrest across the country that occurred in conjunction with the rise of the factory system. New England mill workers were often young women, as seen in a this early tintype made around By the s, labor activism among the Lowell Girls had become fairly constant. Workers did not always agree. Activists usually remained in the minority, competing with conservatives who published their opinions in the Lowell Offering.
Shrugging off labor agitation, the Boston Associates continued to grow, with output doubling between and The social implications were tremendous. By , approximately 41 percent of the U. In New England, the creation of factories produced a shift to urban environments, with 36 percent of people in the region living in cities or other large settlements by Approximately sixty thousand women worked in large textile mills in New England by this time. The factory system also fostered immigration; in the wake of the Irish famine of , thousands of Irish women moved to Lowell.
Irish men, women, and children worked in the factories but were not provided the housing, churches, and other services. By , they made up perhaps 50 percent of the Lowell factory workforce. What impact did the Lowell Girls have on the development of a labor movement in the newly industrial Northeast? Which statement best describes the Lowell Girls in comparison to New England women that did not work in the mills? They are said to be healthy, contented, and happy. This is the fair side of the picture.
There is a dark side, moral as well as physical. Of the common operatives, few, if any, by their wages, acquire a competence. The bills of mortality in these factory villages are not striking, we admit, for the poor girls when they can toil no longer go home to die.
The average life, working life we mean, of the girls that come to Lowell, for instance, from Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont,. What becomes of them then?
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