The Lowell Textile Mills
The Lowell textile mills were a new transition in American history that explored working and labor conditions in the new industrial factories in American. To describe the Lowell Textile mills it requires a look back in history to study, discover and gain knowledge of the industrial labor and factory systems of industrial America. These mass production mills looked pretty promising at their beginning but after years of being in business showed multiple problems and setbacks to the people involved in them.
Lowell mills were located in Lowell, Massachusetts and specialized in manufacturing cotton cloth. The strong currents from the surrounding streams of water powered the mills machinery. More often then not, a mill was a community's largest employer and mill owners frequently had other business investment in the neighborhood such as general stores, real estate, and residential properties (Inventing America p.391).
Finding workers for Lowell was not much of a problem. Workers were attracted for the great cultural opportunities available at Lowell.
"Besides the obvious attraction of a place of labor people saw the mills to constitute a great social experiment, with moral gymnasiums where employees would not only earn wages but also experience moral and spiritual growth" (Inventing America p394). Lowell mills tried to base their manufacturing differently then Europe. The operatives in the manufacturing cities of Europe were notoriously of the lowest character for intelligence and morals (Lucy Larcom: Among Lowell Mills Girls). Lowell wanted to give workers opportunities to make great friendships and enjoy a fulfilled church life.
The mills filled with girls from smaller towns who had good country morals and stayed away from the unpleasant urban conditions. These women workers were given the name mills girls. In 1836, Lowell boasted twenty mills with 6,000 workers: 85 percent of Lowell's labor force consisted of single women between the ages of fifteen and twenty-nine (Inventing America p.394).
In the early years while the profits were high working conditions looked promising to the mill girls in their brief opening experiences of factory work. Jobs required little skill because the machinery was mostly self-acting. It looked very pleasant at first, the rooms were so light, spacious, and clean, the girls so pretty and neatly dressed, and the machinery so brightly polished or nicely painted (Harriet Farley, Letters from Susan, Letter Second). Lowell employees worked hard and were paid well in cash for there work.
In the mid 1830's competition increases and technological improvements expanded the capacity of textile machinery, prices and profits began to fall (Inventing America p.195). Lowell companies were forced to make changes to improve profits and unfortunately the alterations affected the worker the most. Workers were force to work at a faster pace to keep up with new machinery. After a few years of this the output per worker nearly doubled, while wages increased only slightly (Inventing America p.195). This was the beginning of the new Lowell.
Longer hours were instituted tiring the workers and making the days go longer. A usually working day consisted of twelve to fourteen hours of work. Along with the longer hours health problems were being discovered at the work place. The machinery in the mills was dangerous and loud. Female workers in Lowell's massive textile mills frequently wrote home about colleagues who had lost fingers, limbs, and sometimes even their lives by becoming entangled in the gears and moving parts of textile machinery (Inventing American p.401). No health insurance existed leaving employees high and dry after serious injury. The intense grinding of heavy machinery at fast speeds was hazardous for workers. Workers complained of their legs aching so that they might fall off and it wasn't uncommon for girls to faint on the job because of the impure air(The Conditions of the Operatives). They almost say that when they have worked here a year or two they have to procure shoes a size larger than before they came (Harriet Farley, Letters from Susan, Letter Second). After working in a noisy mill for several months, workers frequently complained of headaches, sinus infections, and breathing problems (Inventing America p.402). Little to their knowledge the dirty air in the mills lead to serious complications, one of which was byssinosis, or brown lung disease, an often fatal affliction. Time loose minutes/ fixed clock conditions of operation.
Living conditions were restricted and limited but provided spiritual opportunities for the workers. Company regulations required girls to "board in the company's boarding houses," "attend public worship … and to conform strictly to the rules of the Sabbath," and to refrain from "frivolous and useless conversation (Inventing America p.394). Boarding houses were dormitories owned and located close to mills. At first mill girls enjoyed the peaceful life of the boarding houses but soon it seem like the company was not only fixated on controlling and regulating every aspect of there working life but their leisure life also. Boarding house keepers and overseers were to be held responsible to a superintendent who of necessary must be a person of character and dignity for the welfare of those under their charge; and no immoral person was to be admitted to employment in the mills (Lucy Larcom: Among Lowell Mills Girls). The women were limited to a ten o'clock curfew in the evening and no one was to be admitted after that time without some reasonable excuse (Boarding house regulations).
As profits started falling and hazardous working conditions were being discovered Lowell mills started generating dilemma between the labor force and corporate headquarters. The first sign of trouble at Lowell occurred in February 1834, when 800 women waked off their jobs to protest a 12.5 percent wage reduction (Inventing America p.395). Overall the strike failed but the women gained a sense of pride for standing up for their poor management. Nevertheless owners keep making cuts to increase profits and more Strikes followed some achieving something and some failing.
Lowell women needed a way to respond to they constant demands for production. If there are any losses to be sustained, or any diminution of profits likely to affect the dividends, the difference must always be made up by the hard working female operatives, who are occasionally very pathetically told that the factories are only kept running at all from motives of pure charity towards them (An Appeal to consistency). Many female workers shared that feeling. In December 1844, they founded the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association with the intent of mitigating the ill effect of factory work through political action (Inventing America p.395). Lowell Female Labor Reform Association goals were to change the long fourteen to twelve hour workdays to ten hours a day. Pamphlets stating the problems the women had with their demanding factory masters were also published by the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association. After multiple battles between factory masters and workers labors unions women begin leaving Lowell mills and were replaced with Irish immigrants. As more and more Irish immigrant arrived in Lowell, crowed slums began to replace the once beautiful kept, company-owned boardinghouses (Inventing America p398). Lowell mills started losing
their morals and honesty and along with that left the workers that expected that.
Lowell textile mills were one of America's first experiments with women being involved in industrial labor and the factory system. In it's beginning years it looked promising. After workers faced poor dangerous working conditions along with strict and limiting housing that couldn't be fixed by poor labor relations Lowell Mills went down hill. I feel there are many reasons Lowell mill's works left but a quote from the book tell it all for me. In the mid-1840s, a mill superintendent reflected a growing sentiment among manufacturers when he stated, I regard me work people just as I regard my machinery. So long as they can do my work for what I choose to pay them, I keep them, getting out of them all I can (Inventing America p.398).
