The Lowell Mills

1. The Lowell Mills Industry, Labor, and Culture 1823-1860

2. Water power from the Merrimack River made Lowell a prime site for the building of woolen and cotton mills. The Merrimack Manufacturing Mill was operating by 1823. Rising power of industry

3. The early needs for laborers at the mills were met by employing young women, primarily the daughters of New England farmers. These workers, pictured in drawings from the 1820s-40s, and in photographs by the 1850s, were among the first concentrations of women in American industry. Lowell Girls

4. “Lowell Girls,” as they came to be called, lived in tightly regulated conditions, housed in company dormitories and under carefully enunciated rules. They were paid less than male workers. Strictly regulated lives

5. Historians know much about the lives of female workers in the mills – from letters written by some of them, from company records and magazines like the Lowell Offering – a company publication that featured fiction, short stories, news and information about activities in the mills and dormitories. Vital insights preserved

6. The mill-owner’s hunger for ever more cotton to process served to accelerate the cultivation of cotton in the south. This in turn spread slavery across the southern states. By 1848, anti-slavery leaders like Charles Sumner of Massachusetts (left) were decrying an immoral alliance between “the lords of the lash and the lords of the loom.” Lords 0f Loom and Lash

7. The (illegal) renewal of the slave trade from Africa, and the opening of serious divisions within the nation over “the slavery question” became a more divisive issue than the labor conditions among the Lowell workers. Cotton south

8. "I cannot recall or separate one young face that gave me a painful impression; not one young girl whom, assuming it to be a 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.“ Charles Dickens, on visit to Lowell, 1842 Impressed visitors

9. Cloth workers were traditionally paid by “piece work” -- so much per finished item. Those who worked at the power looms were generally paid a daily wage: 1836 – 40 to 80 cents a day 1842 -- $14.50 for 4 weeks (6 days at 12 hours a day). Workers pressed for a 10 hour work day during the 1840s and 1850s. Only a few mills granted it for “skilled jobs.” Pay and Expenses

10. 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. From 1836 strike song sung at Lowell In 1834, as more mills led to overproduction of cotton and woolen goods, the mill owners reduced the pay of the workers – less money for each piece they completed. Some 800 women reacted by striking. The strikes failed, but left a legacy on which some unions were eventually built. Strike

11. The Lowell Female Labor Reform Association petitioned the State of Massachusetts for action to obtain a 10 hour day and in the late 1840s the Legislature held pubic hearings. This was the first time a legislature investigated labor conditions in American history. But the Legislature declined to act – “in a matter of private contract.” In 1853 most mills adopted an 11 hour day. But they also began to hire immigrants – who took lower wages. The “Lowell Girls” began to disappear from the labor force after the Civil War. The Factory Girls Association

12. In 1978, the U.S. established the Lowell National Historical Park, using the Boott Cotton Mill as a museum and the Mill Girls and Immigrants Boardinghouse to preserve the story of the Lowell Girls. Modern Historic Site