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Saturday, January 16, 2010
Lucy Larcom Poet and Mill Girl
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Tintype. University of Massachusettes at Lowell
American poet Lucy Larcom (1824-1893) was the ninth of ten children. Her sea captain father died when she was very young. When she was 11 years old, her family moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, where her mother got a job as superintendent of a female dormitory at the local textile mill. Lucy herself worked in the mills for 10 years.
Excerpt from An Idyl of Work 1875
The carding room, with its great groaning wheels,
Its earthquake rumblings, and its mingled smells
Of oily suffocation;
Long clean alleys, where the spinners paced
Silently up and down, and pieced their threads,
The spindles buzzing like then thousand bees.
The Long threads were wound from beam to beam,
And glazed, and then fanned dry in breathless heat.
Here lithe forms reached across wide webs, or stooped
To disentangle broken threads, or climbed
To where their countenances glistened pale
Among swift belts and pulleys.
The door, swung in on iron hinges, showed
A hundred girls who hurried to and fro,
With hands and eyes following the shuttle’s flight,
Threading it, watching for the scarlet mark
That came up in the web, to show how fast
Their work was speeding. Clatter went the looms,
Click-clack the shuttles. Gossamer motes
Thickened the sunbeams into golden bars,
And in a misty maze those girlish forms,
Arms, hands, and heads, moved with the moving looms,
That closed them in as if all were one shape,
One motion.
Source: Lucy Larcom, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary by Daniel Dulany Addison, Houghton, Mifflin, 1894.
American Textile History Museum
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Tintype. University of Massachusettes at LowellAmerican poet Lucy Larcom (1824-1893) was the ninth of ten children. Her sea captain father died when she was very young. When she was 11 years old, her family moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, where her mother got a job as superintendent of a female dormitory at the local textile mill. Lucy herself worked in the mills for 10 years.
Excerpt from An Idyl of Work 1875
The carding room, with its great groaning wheels,
Its earthquake rumblings, and its mingled smells
Of oily suffocation;
Long clean alleys, where the spinners paced
Silently up and down, and pieced their threads,
The spindles buzzing like then thousand bees.
The Long threads were wound from beam to beam,
And glazed, and then fanned dry in breathless heat.
Here lithe forms reached across wide webs, or stooped
To disentangle broken threads, or climbed
To where their countenances glistened pale
Among swift belts and pulleys.
The door, swung in on iron hinges, showed
A hundred girls who hurried to and fro,
With hands and eyes following the shuttle’s flight,
Threading it, watching for the scarlet mark
That came up in the web, to show how fast
Their work was speeding. Clatter went the looms,
Click-clack the shuttles. Gossamer motes
Thickened the sunbeams into golden bars,
And in a misty maze those girlish forms,
Arms, hands, and heads, moved with the moving looms,
That closed them in as if all were one shape,
One motion.
Source: Lucy Larcom, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary by Daniel Dulany Addison, Houghton, Mifflin, 1894.
American Textile History Museum.
Mill Girls at Lowell, Massachusettes
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Harriet Jane Hanson Robinson (1825-1911) was born in Boston, one of 4 children of William and Harriet Hanson. When she was six years old, her father died. To support the children, her mother moved to Lowell, Massachusettes, to manage one of the boarding houses there operated for the girls who worked in the mills. When she was 10, Harriet began working in the mills intermittently from 1835 to 1848. She left at 23 to marry.
Excerpts from Loom and Spindle
The first factory for the manufacture of cotton cloth in the United States was erected in Beverly, Mass., in 1787, and in 1790 Samuel Slater established the cotton industry in Pawtucket, R.I.; but the first real effort to establish the enterprise was in Lowell, where a large wooden building was erected at the Wamesit Falls, on the Concord River, in 1813.
The history of Lowell, Mass., is not identical with that of other manufacturing places in New England, and for two reasons: first, because here were gathered together a larger number of factory people, and among them were the first who showed any visible sign of mental cultivation; and, second, because it was here that the practice of what was called " The Lowell factory system " went into operation, a practice which included the then new idea, that corporations should have souls, and should exercise a paternal influence over the lives of their operatives...
In 1832, Lowell was little more than a factory village. Five "corporations" were started, and the cotton mills belonging to them were building. Help was in great demand and stories were told all over the country of the new factory place, and the high wages that were offered to all classes of workpeople; stories that reached the ears of mechanics' and farmers' sons and glave new life to lonely and dependent women in distant towns and farmhouses .... Troops of young girls came from different parts of New England, and from Canada, and men were employed to collect them at so much a head, and deliver them at the factories...
The early millgirls were of different ages. Some were not over ten years old; a few were in middle life, but the majority were between the ages of sixteen and twentyfive. The very young girls were called "doffers." They "doffed," or took off, the full bobbins from the spinningframes, and replaced them with empty ones. These mites worked about fifteen minutes every hour and the rest of the time was their own. When the overseer was kind they were allowed to read, knit, or go outside the millyard to play. They were paid two dollars a week. The working hours of all the girls extended from five o'clock in the morning until seven in the evening, with one halfhour each, for breakfast and dinner. Even the doffers were forced to be on duty nearly fourteen hours a day. This was the greatest hardship in the lives of these children. Several years later a tenhour law was passed, but not until long after some of these little doffers were old enough to appear before the legislative committee on the subject, and plead, by their presence, for a reduction of the hours of labor...
The most prevailing incentive to labor was to secure the means of education for some male member of the family. To make a gentleman of a brother or a son, to give him a college education, was the dominant thought in the minds of a great many of the better class of millgirls. I have known more than one to give every cent of her wages, month after month, to her brother, that he might get the education necessary to enter some profession. I have known a mother to work years in this way for her boy. I have known women to educate young men by their earnings, who were not sons or relatives. There are many men now living who were helped to an education by the wages of the early millgirls.
It is well to digress here a little, and speak of the influence the possession of money had on the characters of some of these women. We can hardly realize what a change the cotton factory made in the status of the working women. Hitherto woman had always been a money saving rather than a money earning, member of the community. Her labor could command but small return. If she worked out as servant, or "help," her wages were from 50 cents to $1 .00 a week; or, if she went from house to house by the day to spin and weave, or do tailoress work, she could get but 75 cents a week and her meals. As teacher, her services were not in demand, and the arts, the professions, and even the trades and industries, were nearly all closed to her.
As late as 1840 there were only seven vocations outside the home into which the women of New England had entered. At this time woman had no property rights. A widow could be left without her share of her husband's (or the family) property, an " incumbrance" to his estate. A father could make his will without reference to his daughter's share of the inheritance. He usually left her a home on the farm as long as she remained single. A woman was not supposed to be capable of spending her own, or of using other people's money. In Massachusetts, before 1840, a woman could not, legally, be treasurer of her own sewing society, unless some man were responsible for her. The law took no cognizance of woman as a moneyspender. She was a ward, an appendage, a relict. Thus it happened that if a woman did not choose to marry, or, when left a widow, to remarry, she had no choice but to enter one of the few employments open to her, or to become a burden on the charity of some relative.
The life in the boarding-houses was very agreeable. These houses belonged to the corporation, and were usually kept by widows (mothers of mill-girls), who were often the friends and advisers of their boarders.
Each house was a village or community of itself. There fifty or sixty young women from different parts of New England met and lived together. When not at their work, by natural selection they sat in groups in their chambers, or in a corner of the large dining-room, busy at some agreeable employment; or they wrote letters, read, studied, or sewed, for, as a rule, they were their own seamstresses and dressmakers.
The boarding-houses were considered so attractive that strangers, by invitation, often came to look in upon them, and see for themselves how the mill-girls lived. Dickens, and his "American Notes," speaks with surprise of their home life. He says, "There is a piano in a great many of boardinghouses, and nearly all the young ladies sub- scribed to circulating libraries." There was a feeling of esprit de corps among these households; any advantage secured to one of the number was usually shared by others belonging to her set or group. Books were exchanged, letters from home were read, and "pieces," intended for the Improvement Circle, were presented for friendly criticism.
There was always a best room in the boarding-house, to entertain callers in; but if any of the girls had a regular gentleman caller, a special evening was set apart each week to receive him. This room was furnished with a carpet, sometimes with a piano, as Dickens says, and with the best furniture, including oftentimes the relics of household treasures left of the old-time gentility of the housemother.
This mutual acquaintanceship was of great advantage. They discussed the books they read, debated religious and social questions, compared their thoughts and experiences, and advised and helped one another. And so their mental growth went on, and they soon became educated far beyond what their mothers or their grandmothers could have been. The girls also stood by one another in the mills; when one wanted to be absent half a day, two or three others would tend an extra loom or frame apiece, so that the absent one might not lose her pay. At this time the mule and spinning-jenny had not been introduced: two or three looms, or spinning-frames, were as much as one girl was required to tend, more than that being considered "double work."
The inmates of what may be called these literary house. holds were omnivorous readers of books, and were also subscribers to the few magazines and literary newspapers; and it was their habit, after reading their copies, to send them by mail or stage-coach to their widely scattered homes, where they were read all over a village or a neighborhood; and thus was current literature introduced into by and lonely places.
From an article in The Lowell Offering, ("Our Household," signed H.T.,) I am able to quote a sketch of one factory boarding-house interior. The author said, "In our house there are eleven boarders, and in all thirteen members of the family. I will class them according to their religious tenets as follows: Calvinist Baptist, Unitarian, Congregational, Catholic, Episcopalian, and Mormonite, one each; Universalist and Methodist, two each; Christian Baptist, three. Their reading is from the following sources: They receive regularly fifteen newspapers and periodicals; these are, the Boston Daily Times, the Herald of Freedom, the Signs of the Times, and the Christian Herald, two copies each; the Christian Register, Vox Populi, Literary Souvenir, Boston Pilot, Young Catholic's Friend, Star of Bethelehem, and The Lowell Offering, three copies each. A magazine, one copy. We also borrow regularly the Non-Resistant, the Liberator, the Lady's Book, the Ladies ' Pearl, and the Ladies' Companion. We have also in the house what perhaps cannot be found anywhere else in the city of Lowell,-a Mormon Bible."
Novels were not very popular with us, as we inclined more to historical writings and to poetry. But such books as "Charlotte Temple," "Eliza Wharton," "Maria Monk," "The Arabian Nights," "The Mysteries of Udolpho," "Abellino, the Bravo of Venice," or "The Castle of Otranto," were sometimes taken from the circulating library, read with delight, and secretly lent from one young girl to another.
Our religious reading was confined to the Bible, Baxter's "Saints' Rest," "The Pilgrim's Progress," "The Religious Courtship," "The Widow Directed," and Sunday-school books.
It was fortunate for us that we were obliged to read good books, such as histories, the English classics, and the very few American novels that were then in existence.
Source: Harriet Jane Hanson Robinson. Loom and Spindle; or, Life among the Early Mill Girls. T. Y Crowell & Company, 1898.
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Harriet Jane Hanson Robinson (1825-1911) was born in Boston, one of 4 children of William and Harriet Hanson. When she was six years old, her father died. To support the children, her mother moved to Lowell, Massachusettes, to manage one of the boarding houses there operated for the girls who worked in the mills. When she was 10, Harriet began working in the mills intermittently from 1835 to 1848. She left at 23 to marry.
Excerpts from Loom and Spindle
The first factory for the manufacture of cotton cloth in the United States was erected in Beverly, Mass., in 1787, and in 1790 Samuel Slater established the cotton industry in Pawtucket, R.I.; but the first real effort to establish the enterprise was in Lowell, where a large wooden building was erected at the Wamesit Falls, on the Concord River, in 1813.
The history of Lowell, Mass., is not identical with that of other manufacturing places in New England, and for two reasons: first, because here were gathered together a larger number of factory people, and among them were the first who showed any visible sign of mental cultivation; and, second, because it was here that the practice of what was called " The Lowell factory system " went into operation, a practice which included the then new idea, that corporations should have souls, and should exercise a paternal influence over the lives of their operatives...
In 1832, Lowell was little more than a factory village. Five "corporations" were started, and the cotton mills belonging to them were building. Help was in great demand and stories were told all over the country of the new factory place, and the high wages that were offered to all classes of workpeople; stories that reached the ears of mechanics' and farmers' sons and glave new life to lonely and dependent women in distant towns and farmhouses .... Troops of young girls came from different parts of New England, and from Canada, and men were employed to collect them at so much a head, and deliver them at the factories...
The early millgirls were of different ages. Some were not over ten years old; a few were in middle life, but the majority were between the ages of sixteen and twentyfive. The very young girls were called "doffers." They "doffed," or took off, the full bobbins from the spinningframes, and replaced them with empty ones. These mites worked about fifteen minutes every hour and the rest of the time was their own. When the overseer was kind they were allowed to read, knit, or go outside the millyard to play. They were paid two dollars a week. The working hours of all the girls extended from five o'clock in the morning until seven in the evening, with one halfhour each, for breakfast and dinner. Even the doffers were forced to be on duty nearly fourteen hours a day. This was the greatest hardship in the lives of these children. Several years later a tenhour law was passed, but not until long after some of these little doffers were old enough to appear before the legislative committee on the subject, and plead, by their presence, for a reduction of the hours of labor...
The most prevailing incentive to labor was to secure the means of education for some male member of the family. To make a gentleman of a brother or a son, to give him a college education, was the dominant thought in the minds of a great many of the better class of millgirls. I have known more than one to give every cent of her wages, month after month, to her brother, that he might get the education necessary to enter some profession. I have known a mother to work years in this way for her boy. I have known women to educate young men by their earnings, who were not sons or relatives. There are many men now living who were helped to an education by the wages of the early millgirls.
It is well to digress here a little, and speak of the influence the possession of money had on the characters of some of these women. We can hardly realize what a change the cotton factory made in the status of the working women. Hitherto woman had always been a money saving rather than a money earning, member of the community. Her labor could command but small return. If she worked out as servant, or "help," her wages were from 50 cents to $1 .00 a week; or, if she went from house to house by the day to spin and weave, or do tailoress work, she could get but 75 cents a week and her meals. As teacher, her services were not in demand, and the arts, the professions, and even the trades and industries, were nearly all closed to her.
As late as 1840 there were only seven vocations outside the home into which the women of New England had entered. At this time woman had no property rights. A widow could be left without her share of her husband's (or the family) property, an " incumbrance" to his estate. A father could make his will without reference to his daughter's share of the inheritance. He usually left her a home on the farm as long as she remained single. A woman was not supposed to be capable of spending her own, or of using other people's money. In Massachusetts, before 1840, a woman could not, legally, be treasurer of her own sewing society, unless some man were responsible for her. The law took no cognizance of woman as a moneyspender. She was a ward, an appendage, a relict. Thus it happened that if a woman did not choose to marry, or, when left a widow, to remarry, she had no choice but to enter one of the few employments open to her, or to become a burden on the charity of some relative.
The life in the boarding-houses was very agreeable. These houses belonged to the corporation, and were usually kept by widows (mothers of mill-girls), who were often the friends and advisers of their boarders.
Each house was a village or community of itself. There fifty or sixty young women from different parts of New England met and lived together. When not at their work, by natural selection they sat in groups in their chambers, or in a corner of the large dining-room, busy at some agreeable employment; or they wrote letters, read, studied, or sewed, for, as a rule, they were their own seamstresses and dressmakers.
The boarding-houses were considered so attractive that strangers, by invitation, often came to look in upon them, and see for themselves how the mill-girls lived. Dickens, and his "American Notes," speaks with surprise of their home life. He says, "There is a piano in a great many of boardinghouses, and nearly all the young ladies sub- scribed to circulating libraries." There was a feeling of esprit de corps among these households; any advantage secured to one of the number was usually shared by others belonging to her set or group. Books were exchanged, letters from home were read, and "pieces," intended for the Improvement Circle, were presented for friendly criticism.
There was always a best room in the boarding-house, to entertain callers in; but if any of the girls had a regular gentleman caller, a special evening was set apart each week to receive him. This room was furnished with a carpet, sometimes with a piano, as Dickens says, and with the best furniture, including oftentimes the relics of household treasures left of the old-time gentility of the housemother.
This mutual acquaintanceship was of great advantage. They discussed the books they read, debated religious and social questions, compared their thoughts and experiences, and advised and helped one another. And so their mental growth went on, and they soon became educated far beyond what their mothers or their grandmothers could have been. The girls also stood by one another in the mills; when one wanted to be absent half a day, two or three others would tend an extra loom or frame apiece, so that the absent one might not lose her pay. At this time the mule and spinning-jenny had not been introduced: two or three looms, or spinning-frames, were as much as one girl was required to tend, more than that being considered "double work."
The inmates of what may be called these literary house. holds were omnivorous readers of books, and were also subscribers to the few magazines and literary newspapers; and it was their habit, after reading their copies, to send them by mail or stage-coach to their widely scattered homes, where they were read all over a village or a neighborhood; and thus was current literature introduced into by and lonely places.
From an article in The Lowell Offering, ("Our Household," signed H.T.,) I am able to quote a sketch of one factory boarding-house interior. The author said, "In our house there are eleven boarders, and in all thirteen members of the family. I will class them according to their religious tenets as follows: Calvinist Baptist, Unitarian, Congregational, Catholic, Episcopalian, and Mormonite, one each; Universalist and Methodist, two each; Christian Baptist, three. Their reading is from the following sources: They receive regularly fifteen newspapers and periodicals; these are, the Boston Daily Times, the Herald of Freedom, the Signs of the Times, and the Christian Herald, two copies each; the Christian Register, Vox Populi, Literary Souvenir, Boston Pilot, Young Catholic's Friend, Star of Bethelehem, and The Lowell Offering, three copies each. A magazine, one copy. We also borrow regularly the Non-Resistant, the Liberator, the Lady's Book, the Ladies ' Pearl, and the Ladies' Companion. We have also in the house what perhaps cannot be found anywhere else in the city of Lowell,-a Mormon Bible."
Novels were not very popular with us, as we inclined more to historical writings and to poetry. But such books as "Charlotte Temple," "Eliza Wharton," "Maria Monk," "The Arabian Nights," "The Mysteries of Udolpho," "Abellino, the Bravo of Venice," or "The Castle of Otranto," were sometimes taken from the circulating library, read with delight, and secretly lent from one young girl to another.
Our religious reading was confined to the Bible, Baxter's "Saints' Rest," "The Pilgrim's Progress," "The Religious Courtship," "The Widow Directed," and Sunday-school books.
It was fortunate for us that we were obliged to read good books, such as histories, the English classics, and the very few American novels that were then in existence.
Source: Harriet Jane Hanson Robinson. Loom and Spindle; or, Life among the Early Mill Girls. T. Y Crowell & Company, 1898.
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Thursday, January 14, 2010
Investigation into Conditions at Lowell, Massachusettes
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Massachusetts House Investigation into Labor Conditions 1845
The Special Committee to which was referred sundry petitions relating to the hours of labor, have considered the same and submit the following Report:
... On the 13th of February, the Committee held a session to hear the petitioners from the city of Lowell. Six of the female and three of the male petitioners were present, and gave in their testimony.
... Miss Sarah G. Bagely said she had worked in the Lowell Mills eight years and a half, six years and a half on the Hamilton Corporation, and two years on the Middlesex. She is a weaver, and works by the piece. She worked in the mills three years befo re her health began to fail. She is a native of New Hampshire, and went home six weeks during the summer. Last year she was out of the mill a third of the time. She thinks the health of the operatives is not so good as the health of females who do house-w ork or millinery business. The chief evil, so far as health is concerned, is the shortness of time allowed for meals. The next evil is the length of time employed -not giving them time to cultivate their minds. She spoke of the high moral and intellectual character of the girls. That many were engaged as teachers in the Sunday schools. That many attended the lectures of the Lowell Institute; and she thought, if more time was allowed, that more lectures would be given and more girls attend. She thought tha t the girls generally were favorable to the ten hour system. She had presented a petition, same as the one before the Committee, to 132 girls, most of whom said that they would prefer to work but ten hours. In a pecuniary point of view, it would be better , as their health would be improved. They would have more time for sewing. Their intellectual, moral and religious habits would also be benefited by the change. Miss Bagely said, in addition to her labor in the mills, she had kept evening school during th e winter months, for four years, and thought that this extra labor must have injured her health.
... From Mr. Clark, the agent of the Merrimack Corporation, we obtained the following table of the time which the mills run during the year.
Begin work.
From 1st May to 31st August, at 5o clock.
From 1st September to 30th April, as soon as they can see.
Breakfast.
From 1st November to 28th February, before going to work.
From 1st March to 31st of March, at 7 ¼ o'clock.
From 1st April to 19th September, at seven o'clock.
From 20th September to 31st October, at 71/2 o'clock. Return in h alf an hour.
Dinner.
Through the year at 12 ½ o'clock.
From 1st May to 31st August, return in 45 minutes.
From October, at 7 ½ o'clock.
Return in half an hour.
Dinner.
Through the year at l2 ½ o'clock.
From 1st May to 31st August, return in 45 minutes.
From 1st September to 30th April, return in 30 minutes.
Quit work.
From 1st May to 31st August, at 7 o'clock.
From 1st September to 19th September, at dark.
From 20th September to 19th March, at 7 ½ o'clock.
From 20th March to 30th April, at dark.
Lamps are never lighted on Saturday evenings. The above is the time which is kept in all the mills in Lowell, with a slight difference in the machine shop; and it makes the average daily time throughout the year, of running the mills, to be twelve hour s and ten minutes.
There are four days in the year which are observed as holidays, and on which the mills are never put in motion. These are Fast Day, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day. These make one day more than is usually devoted to pastime in any o ther place in New England.
A Description of Factory Life by an Investigator in 1846
...We have lately visited the cities of Lowell and Manchester, and have had an opportunity of examining the factory system more closely than before. We had distrusted the accounts, which we had heard from persons engaged in the Labor Reform, now beginning to agitate New England; we could scarcely credit the statements made in relation to the exhausting nature of the labor in the mills, and to the manner in which the young women, the operatives, lived in their boarding-houses, six sleeping in a room, poorl y ventilated.
We went through many of the mills, talked particularly to a large number of the operatives, and ate at their boarding-houses, on purpose to ascertain by personal inspection the facts of the case. We assure our readers that very little information is po ssessed, and no correct judgments formed, by the public at large, of our factory system, which is the first germ of the Industrial or Commercial Feudalism, that is to spread over our land.
In Lowell live between seven and eight thousand young women, who are generally daughters of farmers of the different States of New England; Some of them are members of families that were rich the generation before.
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 a re a few minutes behind the time, and effectual means are taken to stimulate to punctuality. This is the morning commencement of the industrial discipline- (should we not rather say industrial tyranny?) which is established in these Associations of this m oral 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 boarding-houses and return to the factory, and that through the hot sun, or the rain and cold. A meal eaten under such circumstances must be quite unfavorable to digestion and health, as any medical man will inform us. At seven o'clock in the evening the factory bell sounds the close of the days work.
Thus thirteen hours per day of close attention and monotonous labor are exacted from the young women in these manufactories. . . So fatigued-we should say, exhausted and worn out but we wish to speak of the system in the simplest language-are numbers o f the girls, that they go to bed soon after their evening meal? and endeavor by a comparatively long sleep to resuscitate their weakened frames for the toils of the coming day. When Capital has got thirteen hours of labor daily out of a being, it can get nothing more. It could be a poor speculation in an industrial point of view to own the operative; for the trouble and expense of providing for times of sickness and old age could more than counterbalance the difference between the price of wages and the e xpense of board and clothing. The far greater number of fortunes, accumulated by the North in comparison with the South, shows that hireling labor is more profitable for Capital than slave labor.
Now let us examine the nature of the labor itself, and the conditions under which it is performed. Enter with us into the large rooms, when the looms are at work. The largest that we saw is in the Amoskeag Mills at Manchester. It is four hundred feet l ong, and about seventy broad; there are five hundred looms, and twenty-one thousand spindles in it. 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 a n atrocious violation of one of the faculties of the human soul, the sense of hearing. After a while we became somewhat inured to it, and by speaking quite close to the ear of an operative and quite loud, we could hold a conversation, and make the inquiri es we wished.
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. This gives us some id ea of the application required during the thirteen hours of daily laborer. 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. On entering the room, although the day was warm, we remarked that the windows were down; we asked the reason, and a young woman answered very naively, and without seeming to be in the least aware that this privation of fresh air was anything else than perfectly n atural, that "when the wind blew, the threads did not work so well." After we had been in the room for fifteen or twenty minutes, we found ourselves, as did the persons who accompanied us, in quite a perspiration, produced by a certain moisture which we o bserved in the air, as well as by the heat.
The young women sleep upon an average six in room; three beds to a room. There is no privacy, no retirement here; it is almost impossible to read or write alone, as the parlor is full and so many sleep in the same chamber. A young woman remarked to us , that if she had a letter to write, she did it on the head of a band-box, sitting on a trunk, as there was not space for a table. So live and toil the young women of our country in the boarding-houses and manufactories, which the rich and influential of our land have built for them.
The Editor of the Courier and Enquirer has often accused the Associationists of wishing to reduce men "to herd together like beasts of the field." We would ask him whether he does not find as much of what may be called "herding together in these modern industrial Associations, established by men of his own kidney as he thinks would exist in one of the Industrial Phalanxes, which we propose.
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Massachusetts House Investigation into Labor Conditions 1845
The Special Committee to which was referred sundry petitions relating to the hours of labor, have considered the same and submit the following Report:
... On the 13th of February, the Committee held a session to hear the petitioners from the city of Lowell. Six of the female and three of the male petitioners were present, and gave in their testimony.
... Miss Sarah G. Bagely said she had worked in the Lowell Mills eight years and a half, six years and a half on the Hamilton Corporation, and two years on the Middlesex. She is a weaver, and works by the piece. She worked in the mills three years befo re her health began to fail. She is a native of New Hampshire, and went home six weeks during the summer. Last year she was out of the mill a third of the time. She thinks the health of the operatives is not so good as the health of females who do house-w ork or millinery business. The chief evil, so far as health is concerned, is the shortness of time allowed for meals. The next evil is the length of time employed -not giving them time to cultivate their minds. She spoke of the high moral and intellectual character of the girls. That many were engaged as teachers in the Sunday schools. That many attended the lectures of the Lowell Institute; and she thought, if more time was allowed, that more lectures would be given and more girls attend. She thought tha t the girls generally were favorable to the ten hour system. She had presented a petition, same as the one before the Committee, to 132 girls, most of whom said that they would prefer to work but ten hours. In a pecuniary point of view, it would be better , as their health would be improved. They would have more time for sewing. Their intellectual, moral and religious habits would also be benefited by the change. Miss Bagely said, in addition to her labor in the mills, she had kept evening school during th e winter months, for four years, and thought that this extra labor must have injured her health.
... From Mr. Clark, the agent of the Merrimack Corporation, we obtained the following table of the time which the mills run during the year.
Begin work.
From 1st May to 31st August, at 5o clock.
From 1st September to 30th April, as soon as they can see.
Breakfast.
From 1st November to 28th February, before going to work.
From 1st March to 31st of March, at 7 ¼ o'clock.
From 1st April to 19th September, at seven o'clock.
From 20th September to 31st October, at 71/2 o'clock. Return in h alf an hour.
Dinner.
Through the year at 12 ½ o'clock.
From 1st May to 31st August, return in 45 minutes.
From October, at 7 ½ o'clock.
Return in half an hour.
Dinner.
Through the year at l2 ½ o'clock.
From 1st May to 31st August, return in 45 minutes.
From 1st September to 30th April, return in 30 minutes.
Quit work.
From 1st May to 31st August, at 7 o'clock.
From 1st September to 19th September, at dark.
From 20th September to 19th March, at 7 ½ o'clock.
From 20th March to 30th April, at dark.
Lamps are never lighted on Saturday evenings. The above is the time which is kept in all the mills in Lowell, with a slight difference in the machine shop; and it makes the average daily time throughout the year, of running the mills, to be twelve hour s and ten minutes.
There are four days in the year which are observed as holidays, and on which the mills are never put in motion. These are Fast Day, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day. These make one day more than is usually devoted to pastime in any o ther place in New England.
A Description of Factory Life by an Investigator in 1846
...We have lately visited the cities of Lowell and Manchester, and have had an opportunity of examining the factory system more closely than before. We had distrusted the accounts, which we had heard from persons engaged in the Labor Reform, now beginning to agitate New England; we could scarcely credit the statements made in relation to the exhausting nature of the labor in the mills, and to the manner in which the young women, the operatives, lived in their boarding-houses, six sleeping in a room, poorl y ventilated.
We went through many of the mills, talked particularly to a large number of the operatives, and ate at their boarding-houses, on purpose to ascertain by personal inspection the facts of the case. We assure our readers that very little information is po ssessed, and no correct judgments formed, by the public at large, of our factory system, which is the first germ of the Industrial or Commercial Feudalism, that is to spread over our land.
In Lowell live between seven and eight thousand young women, who are generally daughters of farmers of the different States of New England; Some of them are members of families that were rich the generation before.
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 a re a few minutes behind the time, and effectual means are taken to stimulate to punctuality. This is the morning commencement of the industrial discipline- (should we not rather say industrial tyranny?) which is established in these Associations of this m oral 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 boarding-houses and return to the factory, and that through the hot sun, or the rain and cold. A meal eaten under such circumstances must be quite unfavorable to digestion and health, as any medical man will inform us. At seven o'clock in the evening the factory bell sounds the close of the days work.
Thus thirteen hours per day of close attention and monotonous labor are exacted from the young women in these manufactories. . . So fatigued-we should say, exhausted and worn out but we wish to speak of the system in the simplest language-are numbers o f the girls, that they go to bed soon after their evening meal? and endeavor by a comparatively long sleep to resuscitate their weakened frames for the toils of the coming day. When Capital has got thirteen hours of labor daily out of a being, it can get nothing more. It could be a poor speculation in an industrial point of view to own the operative; for the trouble and expense of providing for times of sickness and old age could more than counterbalance the difference between the price of wages and the e xpense of board and clothing. The far greater number of fortunes, accumulated by the North in comparison with the South, shows that hireling labor is more profitable for Capital than slave labor.
Now let us examine the nature of the labor itself, and the conditions under which it is performed. Enter with us into the large rooms, when the looms are at work. The largest that we saw is in the Amoskeag Mills at Manchester. It is four hundred feet l ong, and about seventy broad; there are five hundred looms, and twenty-one thousand spindles in it. 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 a n atrocious violation of one of the faculties of the human soul, the sense of hearing. After a while we became somewhat inured to it, and by speaking quite close to the ear of an operative and quite loud, we could hold a conversation, and make the inquiri es we wished.
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. This gives us some id ea of the application required during the thirteen hours of daily laborer. 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. On entering the room, although the day was warm, we remarked that the windows were down; we asked the reason, and a young woman answered very naively, and without seeming to be in the least aware that this privation of fresh air was anything else than perfectly n atural, that "when the wind blew, the threads did not work so well." After we had been in the room for fifteen or twenty minutes, we found ourselves, as did the persons who accompanied us, in quite a perspiration, produced by a certain moisture which we o bserved in the air, as well as by the heat.
The young women sleep upon an average six in room; three beds to a room. There is no privacy, no retirement here; it is almost impossible to read or write alone, as the parlor is full and so many sleep in the same chamber. A young woman remarked to us , that if she had a letter to write, she did it on the head of a band-box, sitting on a trunk, as there was not space for a table. So live and toil the young women of our country in the boarding-houses and manufactories, which the rich and influential of our land have built for them.
The Editor of the Courier and Enquirer has often accused the Associationists of wishing to reduce men "to herd together like beasts of the field." We would ask him whether he does not find as much of what may be called "herding together in these modern industrial Associations, established by men of his own kidney as he thinks would exist in one of the Industrial Phalanxes, which we propose.
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1848 Rules for the Girls at Lowell, Massachusettes
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Factory Rules from the Handbook to Lowell, 1848
REGULATIONS TO BE OBSERVED by all persons employed in the factories of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company. The overseers are to be always in their rooms at the starting of the mill, and not absent unnecessarily during working hours. They are to see that all those employed in their rooms, are in their places in due season, and keep a correct account of their time and work. They may grant leave of absence to those employed under them, when they have spare hands to supply their places, and not otherwise, exc ept in cases of absolute necessity.
All persons in the employ of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, are to observe the regulations of the room where they are employed. They are not to be absent from their work without the consent of the over-seer, except in cases of sickness, and then t hey 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; and are to observe the regulations of their boarding-house.
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 and be liable to prosecution.
Payment will be made monthly, including board and wages. The accounts will be made up to the last Saturday but one in every month, and paid in the course of the following week.
These regulations are considered part of the contract, with which all persons entering into the employment of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, engage to comply.
JOHN AVERY, Agent.
Boarding House Rules from the Handbook to Lowell, 1848
REGULATIONS FOR THE BOARDING-HOUSES of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company. The tenants of the boarding-houses are not to board, or permit any part of their houses to be occupied by any person, except those in the employ of the company, without special per mission.
They will be considered answerable for any improper conduct in their houses, and are not to permit their boarders to have company at unseasonable hours.
The doors must be closed at ten o'clock in the evening, and no person admitted after that time, without some reasonable excuse.
The keepers of the boarding-houses must give an account of the number, names and employment of their boarders, when required, and report the names of such as are guilty of any improper conduct, or are not in the as are guilty of any improper conduct, or are not in the regular habit of attending public worship.
The buildings, and yards about them, must be kept clean and in good order; and if they are injured, other-wise than from ordinary use, all necessary repairs will be made, and charged to the occupant.
The sidewalks, also, in front of the houses, must be kept clean, and free from snow, which must be removed from them immediately after it has ceased falling; if neglected, it will be removed by the company at the expense of the tenant.
It is desirable that the families of those who live in the houses, as well as the boarders, who have not had the kine pox, should be vaccinated, which will be done at the expense of the company, for such as wish it.
Some suitable chamber in the house must be reserved, and appropriated for the use of the sick, so that others may not be under the necessity of sleeping in the same room.
JOHN AVERY, Agent.
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Factory Rules from the Handbook to Lowell, 1848
REGULATIONS TO BE OBSERVED by all persons employed in the factories of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company. The overseers are to be always in their rooms at the starting of the mill, and not absent unnecessarily during working hours. They are to see that all those employed in their rooms, are in their places in due season, and keep a correct account of their time and work. They may grant leave of absence to those employed under them, when they have spare hands to supply their places, and not otherwise, exc ept in cases of absolute necessity.
All persons in the employ of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, are to observe the regulations of the room where they are employed. They are not to be absent from their work without the consent of the over-seer, except in cases of sickness, and then t hey 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; and are to observe the regulations of their boarding-house.
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 and be liable to prosecution.
Payment will be made monthly, including board and wages. The accounts will be made up to the last Saturday but one in every month, and paid in the course of the following week.
These regulations are considered part of the contract, with which all persons entering into the employment of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, engage to comply.
JOHN AVERY, Agent.
Boarding House Rules from the Handbook to Lowell, 1848
REGULATIONS FOR THE BOARDING-HOUSES of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company. The tenants of the boarding-houses are not to board, or permit any part of their houses to be occupied by any person, except those in the employ of the company, without special per mission.
They will be considered answerable for any improper conduct in their houses, and are not to permit their boarders to have company at unseasonable hours.
The doors must be closed at ten o'clock in the evening, and no person admitted after that time, without some reasonable excuse.
The keepers of the boarding-houses must give an account of the number, names and employment of their boarders, when required, and report the names of such as are guilty of any improper conduct, or are not in the as are guilty of any improper conduct, or are not in the regular habit of attending public worship.
The buildings, and yards about them, must be kept clean and in good order; and if they are injured, other-wise than from ordinary use, all necessary repairs will be made, and charged to the occupant.
The sidewalks, also, in front of the houses, must be kept clean, and free from snow, which must be removed from them immediately after it has ceased falling; if neglected, it will be removed by the company at the expense of the tenant.
It is desirable that the families of those who live in the houses, as well as the boarders, who have not had the kine pox, should be vaccinated, which will be done at the expense of the company, for such as wish it.
Some suitable chamber in the house must be reserved, and appropriated for the use of the sick, so that others may not be under the necessity of sleeping in the same room.
JOHN AVERY, Agent.
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1827 New England Fair But No Women !
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On the 17th of October, I drove...to the village of Brighton, within a mile or two of Boston, where the great annual cattle show of the State of Massachusetts is held. This Fair, as it may be called, was established some years ago by the people of Boston, while the farmers of the State, from far and near, sent their cattle, fruit, home manufactures, newly invented agricultural implements, and any thing else they wished to show off, to this grand exhibition.
In process of a very short time, however, the country folks became jealous of Brighton; and each county or town got up its own little independent cattle show,—like colonies deserting the parent firm, and setting up shop for themselves! But there was still enough left of the original Show to interest a stranger. Besides a ploughing match with 20 teams of oxen, there were various trials of strength, hy cattle drawing loaded carts up a steep hill.
The numerous pens where the bullocks and sheep were enclosed, afforded also a high treat, from the variety of the breeds, and the high condition, of the animals exposed. And lastly, we were shown the rooms in which the specimens of domestic manufactures were displayed: most of these goods, which appeared excellent in quality, gave indication of native industry, well worthy of encouragement.
In spite of all these objects of interest, I felt ill at ease, and though the expression be a strong one, it is not too strong, when I say that I was struck to the heart, with what seemed to me the cruel spectacle of such a numerous assemblage of people, on such a fine sunny day, in as pretty a little valley as ever was seen, close to a romantic village, and within four miles of a great and populous city like Boston, and yet amidst all this crowd there were no women!
Literally and truly, amongst several thousand persons, I counted, during the whole day, only nine females ! I wandered round and round the grassy knolls, in search of some signs of life and merriment,—some of those joyous bursts of mirth which I had been wont to hear in other lands on similar occasions.
But my eye could discover nothing to rest upon but groups of idle men, smoking segars, and gaping about, with their hands in their pockets, or looking listlessly at the penned up cattle, or following one another in quiet, orderly crowds, up the hill, after the loaded carts I spoke of, glad, apparently, of the smallest excitement to carry them out of themselves.
But not a woman was to be seen. Neither were there any groups of lads and lasses romping on the grass;—no parties of noisy youths playing at football for the amusement of the village maidens ;—no scampering and screaming of the children amongst the trees ; for, alas ! the little things appeared nearly as solemn and soberly disposed as their elders.
But in all the numerous booths placed over the ground, parties were hard at work with the whisky or gin bottle. In some, companies of ten or a dozen people might be seen working away at hot joints and meat pies—all very ordinary sights, I grant, at a fair in any country; but the peculiarity which struck me was the absence of talking, or laughing, or any hilarity of look or gesture.
I never beheld any thing in my whole life, though I have been at many funerals, nearly so ponderous or so melancholy as this gloomy, lumbering, weary sort of merry-making. I felt my spirits crushed down, and as it were humiliated, when, suddenly, the sound of a fiddle struck my ear, literally the very first notes of music I had heard, out of a drawing-room, in the whole country. Of course I ran instantly to the spot, and what was there ?—four men dancing a reel!
I spoke to several gentlemen on the field about this strange, and to European eyes, most unwonted separation of the sexes. But I got little else than ridicule for my "pains. Some of my friends smiled, some laughed, and one gentleman in reply to my expressions of surprise that females should be excluded from a scene every way innocent and suitable to them, exclaimed, " Ah, sir, this question of yours only adds another example of the impossibility of making any stranger understand our manners."
This may or may not be true; but a stranger has eyes and can see; and long before this holiday, I had been struck in every part of the country through which I had passed, with this strong line of demarcation between the sexes. At Stockbridge, it is true, a considerable number of women were present at the oration; but they were carefully placed on one side of the church, and during the whole day there was no more intercourse between them and the men, than if they had belonged to different races.
At this cattle show at Brighton, however, the exclusion was still more complete, for not even one female entered the church, though an agricultural discourse was there delivered, which the most delicate-minded person on earth might have listened to with pleasure and advantage.
These, and a great number of other circumstances—some minute, some important, but all tending the same way, and varied in every possible shape, and conspicuous in all parts of the country—naturally claimed my attention irresistibly as something very unusual, and well deserving of a stranger's notice. I lost no fair opportunity, therefore, of conversing with intelligent persons on the subject, being naturally anxious to reach some explanation of so remarkable a distinction between America and any other Christian country I was acquainted with.
The result of all my observations and enquiries is, that the women do not enjoy that station in society which has been allotted to them elsewhere; and consequently much of that important and habitual influence which, from the peculiarity of their nature, they alone can exercise over society in more fortunately arranged communities, seems to be lost.
In touching upon so delicate a subject, it is right to state at once, and in the most explicit terms, that I never had, for one instant, the least reason to suppose that there was any wish on the part of the men to depress the other sex, or indeed any distinct knowledge of the fact.
On the contrary, I conscientiously believe that there exists universally among the men a sincere and strong desire, not only to raise women up, but to maintain them on the fairest level with themselves. But I conceive that the political and moral circumstances now in full action in America, are too strong to be counterbalanced even by these laudable endeavours.
Source: Basil Hall. Travels in North America, in the years 1827 and 1828, Volume 2.
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On the 17th of October, I drove...to the village of Brighton, within a mile or two of Boston, where the great annual cattle show of the State of Massachusetts is held. This Fair, as it may be called, was established some years ago by the people of Boston, while the farmers of the State, from far and near, sent their cattle, fruit, home manufactures, newly invented agricultural implements, and any thing else they wished to show off, to this grand exhibition.
In process of a very short time, however, the country folks became jealous of Brighton; and each county or town got up its own little independent cattle show,—like colonies deserting the parent firm, and setting up shop for themselves! But there was still enough left of the original Show to interest a stranger. Besides a ploughing match with 20 teams of oxen, there were various trials of strength, hy cattle drawing loaded carts up a steep hill.
The numerous pens where the bullocks and sheep were enclosed, afforded also a high treat, from the variety of the breeds, and the high condition, of the animals exposed. And lastly, we were shown the rooms in which the specimens of domestic manufactures were displayed: most of these goods, which appeared excellent in quality, gave indication of native industry, well worthy of encouragement.
In spite of all these objects of interest, I felt ill at ease, and though the expression be a strong one, it is not too strong, when I say that I was struck to the heart, with what seemed to me the cruel spectacle of such a numerous assemblage of people, on such a fine sunny day, in as pretty a little valley as ever was seen, close to a romantic village, and within four miles of a great and populous city like Boston, and yet amidst all this crowd there were no women!
Literally and truly, amongst several thousand persons, I counted, during the whole day, only nine females ! I wandered round and round the grassy knolls, in search of some signs of life and merriment,—some of those joyous bursts of mirth which I had been wont to hear in other lands on similar occasions.
But my eye could discover nothing to rest upon but groups of idle men, smoking segars, and gaping about, with their hands in their pockets, or looking listlessly at the penned up cattle, or following one another in quiet, orderly crowds, up the hill, after the loaded carts I spoke of, glad, apparently, of the smallest excitement to carry them out of themselves.
But not a woman was to be seen. Neither were there any groups of lads and lasses romping on the grass;—no parties of noisy youths playing at football for the amusement of the village maidens ;—no scampering and screaming of the children amongst the trees ; for, alas ! the little things appeared nearly as solemn and soberly disposed as their elders.
But in all the numerous booths placed over the ground, parties were hard at work with the whisky or gin bottle. In some, companies of ten or a dozen people might be seen working away at hot joints and meat pies—all very ordinary sights, I grant, at a fair in any country; but the peculiarity which struck me was the absence of talking, or laughing, or any hilarity of look or gesture.
I never beheld any thing in my whole life, though I have been at many funerals, nearly so ponderous or so melancholy as this gloomy, lumbering, weary sort of merry-making. I felt my spirits crushed down, and as it were humiliated, when, suddenly, the sound of a fiddle struck my ear, literally the very first notes of music I had heard, out of a drawing-room, in the whole country. Of course I ran instantly to the spot, and what was there ?—four men dancing a reel!
I spoke to several gentlemen on the field about this strange, and to European eyes, most unwonted separation of the sexes. But I got little else than ridicule for my "pains. Some of my friends smiled, some laughed, and one gentleman in reply to my expressions of surprise that females should be excluded from a scene every way innocent and suitable to them, exclaimed, " Ah, sir, this question of yours only adds another example of the impossibility of making any stranger understand our manners."
This may or may not be true; but a stranger has eyes and can see; and long before this holiday, I had been struck in every part of the country through which I had passed, with this strong line of demarcation between the sexes. At Stockbridge, it is true, a considerable number of women were present at the oration; but they were carefully placed on one side of the church, and during the whole day there was no more intercourse between them and the men, than if they had belonged to different races.
At this cattle show at Brighton, however, the exclusion was still more complete, for not even one female entered the church, though an agricultural discourse was there delivered, which the most delicate-minded person on earth might have listened to with pleasure and advantage.
These, and a great number of other circumstances—some minute, some important, but all tending the same way, and varied in every possible shape, and conspicuous in all parts of the country—naturally claimed my attention irresistibly as something very unusual, and well deserving of a stranger's notice. I lost no fair opportunity, therefore, of conversing with intelligent persons on the subject, being naturally anxious to reach some explanation of so remarkable a distinction between America and any other Christian country I was acquainted with.
The result of all my observations and enquiries is, that the women do not enjoy that station in society which has been allotted to them elsewhere; and consequently much of that important and habitual influence which, from the peculiarity of their nature, they alone can exercise over society in more fortunately arranged communities, seems to be lost.
In touching upon so delicate a subject, it is right to state at once, and in the most explicit terms, that I never had, for one instant, the least reason to suppose that there was any wish on the part of the men to depress the other sex, or indeed any distinct knowledge of the fact.
On the contrary, I conscientiously believe that there exists universally among the men a sincere and strong desire, not only to raise women up, but to maintain them on the fairest level with themselves. But I conceive that the political and moral circumstances now in full action in America, are too strong to be counterbalanced even by these laudable endeavours.
Source: Basil Hall. Travels in North America, in the years 1827 and 1828, Volume 2.
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The Girls of Lowell, Massachusettes 1827
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Bobbin Girl by Winslow Homer ,Lowell National Historical Park
Young women in Lowell, Massachusettes 1827
On the 12th of October, we made an expedition from Boston to the largest manufacturing establishment in New England, or, I suppose, in America, at Lowell, on the banks of the Merrimack. This river had been allowed to dash unheeded over the Falls in that neighbourhood, from all time, until the recent war gave a new direction to industry, and diverted capital heretofore employed in commerce or in agriculture, into the channel of manufactures. A few years ago, the spot which we now saw covered with huge cotton mills, smiling villages, canals, roads, and bridges, was a mere wilderness, and, if not quite solitary, was inhabited only by painted savages...
The stuffs manufactured at Lowell, mostly of a coarse description, are woven entirely by power looms, and are intended, I was told, chiefly for home consumption. Every thing is paid for by the piece, but the people work only from daylight to dark, having half an hour to breakfast and as long for dinner.
The whole discipline, ventilation, and other arrangements, appeared to be excellent; of which the best proof was the healthy and cheerful look of the girls, all of whom, by the way, were trigged out with much neatness and simplicity, and wore high tortoise-shell combs at the back of their heads.
I was glad to learn that the most exemplary purity of conduct existed universally amongst these merry damsels—a class of persons not always, it is said, in some other countries, the best patterns of moral excellence. The state of society, indeed, readily explains this superiority: in a country where the means of obtaining a livelihood are so easy, every girl who behaves well is so sure of being soon married.
In this expectation, they all contrive, it seems, to save a considerable portion of their wages; and the moment the favoured swain has attained the rank of earning a dollar a-day, the couple are proclaimed in church next Sunday, to a certainty. The fortune, such as it is, thus comes with the bride; at least she brings enough to buy the clothes, furniture, and the other necessaries of an outfit.
Generally, however, these good folks, as well as many of the more wealthy class of the community, do not think of setting up an establishment of their own at first, but live at boardinghouses. This apparently comfortless mode of life, is undoubtedly far the most economical; besides which, it saves the mistress of the family from the wear and tear of domestic drudgery, always unavoidably great in a country where menial service is held to be disgraceful.
What happens when a parcel of youngsters make their appearance I forgot to enquire; but before that comes about to any great extent, the parties have probably risen in the world; —for every thing in America relating to population, seems to be carried irresistibly forward by a spring-tide of certain prosperity. There is plenty of room—plenty of food—and plenty of employment ; so that, by the exercise of a moderate share of diligence, the young couple may swell their establishment to any extent they please, without those doubts and fears, those anxious misgivings, which attend the setting out of children in older and more thickly peopled countries...
On the 13th October, at six o'clock in the morning, I was awakened by the bell which tolled the people to their work, and on looking from the window, saw the whole space between the ' Factories' and the village speckled over with girls, nicely dressed, and glittering with bright shawls and showy-coloured gowns, and gay bonnets, all streaming along to their business, with an air of lightness, and an elasticity of step, implying an obvious desire to get to their work.
Source: Basil Hall. Travels in North America, in the years 1827 and 1828, Volume 2.
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Bobbin Girl by Winslow Homer ,Lowell National Historical ParkYoung women in Lowell, Massachusettes 1827
On the 12th of October, we made an expedition from Boston to the largest manufacturing establishment in New England, or, I suppose, in America, at Lowell, on the banks of the Merrimack. This river had been allowed to dash unheeded over the Falls in that neighbourhood, from all time, until the recent war gave a new direction to industry, and diverted capital heretofore employed in commerce or in agriculture, into the channel of manufactures. A few years ago, the spot which we now saw covered with huge cotton mills, smiling villages, canals, roads, and bridges, was a mere wilderness, and, if not quite solitary, was inhabited only by painted savages...
The stuffs manufactured at Lowell, mostly of a coarse description, are woven entirely by power looms, and are intended, I was told, chiefly for home consumption. Every thing is paid for by the piece, but the people work only from daylight to dark, having half an hour to breakfast and as long for dinner.
The whole discipline, ventilation, and other arrangements, appeared to be excellent; of which the best proof was the healthy and cheerful look of the girls, all of whom, by the way, were trigged out with much neatness and simplicity, and wore high tortoise-shell combs at the back of their heads.
I was glad to learn that the most exemplary purity of conduct existed universally amongst these merry damsels—a class of persons not always, it is said, in some other countries, the best patterns of moral excellence. The state of society, indeed, readily explains this superiority: in a country where the means of obtaining a livelihood are so easy, every girl who behaves well is so sure of being soon married.
In this expectation, they all contrive, it seems, to save a considerable portion of their wages; and the moment the favoured swain has attained the rank of earning a dollar a-day, the couple are proclaimed in church next Sunday, to a certainty. The fortune, such as it is, thus comes with the bride; at least she brings enough to buy the clothes, furniture, and the other necessaries of an outfit.
Generally, however, these good folks, as well as many of the more wealthy class of the community, do not think of setting up an establishment of their own at first, but live at boardinghouses. This apparently comfortless mode of life, is undoubtedly far the most economical; besides which, it saves the mistress of the family from the wear and tear of domestic drudgery, always unavoidably great in a country where menial service is held to be disgraceful.
What happens when a parcel of youngsters make their appearance I forgot to enquire; but before that comes about to any great extent, the parties have probably risen in the world; —for every thing in America relating to population, seems to be carried irresistibly forward by a spring-tide of certain prosperity. There is plenty of room—plenty of food—and plenty of employment ; so that, by the exercise of a moderate share of diligence, the young couple may swell their establishment to any extent they please, without those doubts and fears, those anxious misgivings, which attend the setting out of children in older and more thickly peopled countries...
On the 13th October, at six o'clock in the morning, I was awakened by the bell which tolled the people to their work, and on looking from the window, saw the whole space between the ' Factories' and the village speckled over with girls, nicely dressed, and glittering with bright shawls and showy-coloured gowns, and gay bonnets, all streaming along to their business, with an air of lightness, and an elasticity of step, implying an obvious desire to get to their work.
Source: Basil Hall. Travels in North America, in the years 1827 and 1828, Volume 2.
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Saturday, December 12, 2009
Slaves - Labor
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The Senate and House of Representatives of the States of South Carolina. "MANY OWNERS of slaves, and others who have the management of slaves, do confine them so closely at hard labor that they have not sufficient time for natural rest." Brevard's Digest of the Laws of South Carolina, 243.''
History of Carolina.—Vol. i, page 120. "So laborious is the task of raising, beating, and cleaning rice, that had it been possible to obtain European servants in sufficient numbers, thousands and tens thousands MUST HAVE PERISHED.''
Hon. Alenxander Smyth, a slaveholder, and member of Congress from Virginia, in his speech on the "Missouri question,'' Jan. 28, 1820. "Is it not obvious that the way to render their situation more comfortable, is to allow them to be taken where there is not the same motive to force the slave to INCESSANT TOIL that there is in the country where cotton, sugar, and tobacco are raised for exportation. It is proposed to hem in the blacks where they are HARD WORKED, that they may be rendered unproductive and the race be prevented from increasing * * * The proposed measure would be EXTREME CRUELTY to the blacks. * * * You would * * * doom them the HARD LABOR.''
"Travels in Louisiana,'' translated from the French by John Davies, Esq.—Page 81. "At the rolling of sugars, an interval of from two to three months, they work both night and day. Abridged of their sleep, they SCARCE RETIRE TO REST DURING THE WHOLE PERIOD.''
The Western Review, No. 2,—article "Agriculture of Louisiana.'' "The work is admitted to be severe for the hands, (slaves,) requiring when the process is commenced to be pushed night and day .''
W. C. Gildersleeve, Esq., a native of Georgia, elder of the Presbyterian church, Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania. "Overworked I know they (the slaves) are.''
Mr. Asa A. Stone, a theological student, near Natchez, Mississippi, in 1834 and 1835. "Every body here knows overdriving to be one of the most common occurrences, the planters do not deny it, except, perhaps, to northerners.''
Philemon Bliss, Esq., a lawyer of Elyria, Ohio, who lived in Florida in 1834 and 1835. "During the cotton-picking season they usually labor in the field during the whole of the daylight, and then spend a good part of the night in ginning and baling. The labor required is very frequently excessive, and speedily impairs the constitution.''
Hon. R. J. Turnbull of South Carolina, a slaveholder, speaking of the harvesting of cotton, says: "All the pregnant women even, on the plantation, and weak and sickly negroes incapable of other labor, are then in requisition.''
Asa A Stone, theological student, a classical teacher near Natchez, Mississippi, 1835. "It is a general rule on all regular plantations, that the slaves be in the field as soon as it is light enough for them to see to work, and remain there until it is so dark that they cannot see."
Mr. Cornelius Johnson, of Farmington, Ohio, who lived in Mississippi a part of 1837 and 1838. "It is the common rule for the slaves to be kept at work fifteen hours in the day, and in the time of picking cotton a certain number of pounds is required of each. If this amount is not brought in at night, the slave is whipped, and the number of pounds lacking is added to the next day's job; this course is often repeated from day to day.''
W. C. Gildersleeve, Esq., Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, a native of Georgia. "It was customary for the overseers to call out the gangs long before day, say three o'clock, in the winter, while dressing out the crops; such work as could be done by fire light (pitch pine was abundant,) was provided.''
Mr. William Leftwich, a native of Virginia and son of a slaveholder—he has recently removed to Delhi, Hamilton County Ohio. "From dawn till dark, the slaves are required to bend to their work.''
Mr. Nehemiah Caulkins, Waterford, Connnecticul., a resident in North Carolina eleven winters. "The slaves are obliged to work from daylight till dark, as long as they can see.''
Mr. Eleazar Powel, Chippewa, Beaver county, Pennsylvania, who lived in Mississippi in 1836 and 1837. "The slaves had to cook and eat their breakfast and be in the field by daylight, and continue there till dark.''
Philemon Bliss, Esq., a lawyer in Elyria, Ohio, who resided in Florida in 1834 and 1835. "The slaves commence labor by daylight in the morning, and do not leave the field till dark in the evening.''
Travels in Louisiana, page 87 "Both in summer and winter the slave must be in the field by the first dawning of day.''
Mr. Henry E. Knapp, member of a Christian church in Farmington, Ohio, who lived in Mississippi in 1837 and 1838. "The slaves were made to work, from as soon as they could see in the morning, till as late as they could see at night. Sometimes they were made to work till nine o'clock at night, in such work as they could do, as burning cotton stalks, &c.''
Mr. Cornelius Johnson, Farmington, Ohio, who lived in Mississippi in the years 1837 and 38, says: “On all the plantations where I was acquainted, the slaves were kept in the field till dark; after which, those who had to grind their own corn, had that to attend to, get their supper, attend to other family affairs of their own and of their master, such as bringing water, washing clothes, &c. &c., and be in the field as soon as it was sufficiently light to commence work in the morning.”
Mr. George Westgate, of Quincy, Illinois, who has spent several years in the south western slave states, says: “Their time, after full dark until four o'clock in the morning is their own; this fact alone would seem to say they have sufficient rest, but there are other things to be considered; much of their making, mending and washing of clothes, preparing and cooking food, hauling and chopping wood, fixing and preparing tools, and a variety of little nameless jobs must be done between those hours.”
Philemon Bliss, Esq. of Elyria, Ohio, who resided in Florida in 1834 and 5, gives the following testimony: “After having finished their field labors, they are occupied till nine or ten o'clock in doing chores, such as grinding corn, (as all the corn in the vicinity is ground by hand,) chopping wood, taking care of horses, mules, &c., and a thousand things necessary to be done on a large plantation. If any extra job is to be done, it must not hinder the 'niggers' from their work, but must be done in the night.”
W. C. Gildersleeve, Esq., a native of Georgia, an elder of the Presbyterian Church at Wilkesbarre, says: “The corn is ground in a handmill by the slave after his task is done—generally there is but one mill on a plantation, and as but one can grind at a time, the mill is going sometimes very late at night.”
American Slavery As It Is
Theodore Weld
New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1839
.
The Senate and House of Representatives of the States of South Carolina. "MANY OWNERS of slaves, and others who have the management of slaves, do confine them so closely at hard labor that they have not sufficient time for natural rest." Brevard's Digest of the Laws of South Carolina, 243.''
History of Carolina.—Vol. i, page 120. "So laborious is the task of raising, beating, and cleaning rice, that had it been possible to obtain European servants in sufficient numbers, thousands and tens thousands MUST HAVE PERISHED.''
Hon. Alenxander Smyth, a slaveholder, and member of Congress from Virginia, in his speech on the "Missouri question,'' Jan. 28, 1820. "Is it not obvious that the way to render their situation more comfortable, is to allow them to be taken where there is not the same motive to force the slave to INCESSANT TOIL that there is in the country where cotton, sugar, and tobacco are raised for exportation. It is proposed to hem in the blacks where they are HARD WORKED, that they may be rendered unproductive and the race be prevented from increasing * * * The proposed measure would be EXTREME CRUELTY to the blacks. * * * You would * * * doom them the HARD LABOR.''
"Travels in Louisiana,'' translated from the French by John Davies, Esq.—Page 81. "At the rolling of sugars, an interval of from two to three months, they work both night and day. Abridged of their sleep, they SCARCE RETIRE TO REST DURING THE WHOLE PERIOD.''
The Western Review, No. 2,—article "Agriculture of Louisiana.'' "The work is admitted to be severe for the hands, (slaves,) requiring when the process is commenced to be pushed night and day .''
W. C. Gildersleeve, Esq., a native of Georgia, elder of the Presbyterian church, Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania. "Overworked I know they (the slaves) are.''
Mr. Asa A. Stone, a theological student, near Natchez, Mississippi, in 1834 and 1835. "Every body here knows overdriving to be one of the most common occurrences, the planters do not deny it, except, perhaps, to northerners.''
Philemon Bliss, Esq., a lawyer of Elyria, Ohio, who lived in Florida in 1834 and 1835. "During the cotton-picking season they usually labor in the field during the whole of the daylight, and then spend a good part of the night in ginning and baling. The labor required is very frequently excessive, and speedily impairs the constitution.''
Hon. R. J. Turnbull of South Carolina, a slaveholder, speaking of the harvesting of cotton, says: "All the pregnant women even, on the plantation, and weak and sickly negroes incapable of other labor, are then in requisition.''
Asa A Stone, theological student, a classical teacher near Natchez, Mississippi, 1835. "It is a general rule on all regular plantations, that the slaves be in the field as soon as it is light enough for them to see to work, and remain there until it is so dark that they cannot see."
Mr. Cornelius Johnson, of Farmington, Ohio, who lived in Mississippi a part of 1837 and 1838. "It is the common rule for the slaves to be kept at work fifteen hours in the day, and in the time of picking cotton a certain number of pounds is required of each. If this amount is not brought in at night, the slave is whipped, and the number of pounds lacking is added to the next day's job; this course is often repeated from day to day.''
W. C. Gildersleeve, Esq., Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, a native of Georgia. "It was customary for the overseers to call out the gangs long before day, say three o'clock, in the winter, while dressing out the crops; such work as could be done by fire light (pitch pine was abundant,) was provided.''
Mr. William Leftwich, a native of Virginia and son of a slaveholder—he has recently removed to Delhi, Hamilton County Ohio. "From dawn till dark, the slaves are required to bend to their work.''
Mr. Nehemiah Caulkins, Waterford, Connnecticul., a resident in North Carolina eleven winters. "The slaves are obliged to work from daylight till dark, as long as they can see.''
Mr. Eleazar Powel, Chippewa, Beaver county, Pennsylvania, who lived in Mississippi in 1836 and 1837. "The slaves had to cook and eat their breakfast and be in the field by daylight, and continue there till dark.''
Philemon Bliss, Esq., a lawyer in Elyria, Ohio, who resided in Florida in 1834 and 1835. "The slaves commence labor by daylight in the morning, and do not leave the field till dark in the evening.''
Travels in Louisiana, page 87 "Both in summer and winter the slave must be in the field by the first dawning of day.''
Mr. Henry E. Knapp, member of a Christian church in Farmington, Ohio, who lived in Mississippi in 1837 and 1838. "The slaves were made to work, from as soon as they could see in the morning, till as late as they could see at night. Sometimes they were made to work till nine o'clock at night, in such work as they could do, as burning cotton stalks, &c.''
Mr. Cornelius Johnson, Farmington, Ohio, who lived in Mississippi in the years 1837 and 38, says: “On all the plantations where I was acquainted, the slaves were kept in the field till dark; after which, those who had to grind their own corn, had that to attend to, get their supper, attend to other family affairs of their own and of their master, such as bringing water, washing clothes, &c. &c., and be in the field as soon as it was sufficiently light to commence work in the morning.”
Mr. George Westgate, of Quincy, Illinois, who has spent several years in the south western slave states, says: “Their time, after full dark until four o'clock in the morning is their own; this fact alone would seem to say they have sufficient rest, but there are other things to be considered; much of their making, mending and washing of clothes, preparing and cooking food, hauling and chopping wood, fixing and preparing tools, and a variety of little nameless jobs must be done between those hours.”
Philemon Bliss, Esq. of Elyria, Ohio, who resided in Florida in 1834 and 5, gives the following testimony: “After having finished their field labors, they are occupied till nine or ten o'clock in doing chores, such as grinding corn, (as all the corn in the vicinity is ground by hand,) chopping wood, taking care of horses, mules, &c., and a thousand things necessary to be done on a large plantation. If any extra job is to be done, it must not hinder the 'niggers' from their work, but must be done in the night.”
W. C. Gildersleeve, Esq., a native of Georgia, an elder of the Presbyterian Church at Wilkesbarre, says: “The corn is ground in a handmill by the slave after his task is done—generally there is but one mill on a plantation, and as but one can grind at a time, the mill is going sometimes very late at night.”
American Slavery As It Is
Theodore Weld
New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1839
.
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