Lowell Mill Research Paper

For one, since women were seen as the property of men and as dependent beings, working was not something they would usually do. Thus, working in mills was already something different. However, working in the textile mills were tough. They worked in harsh conditions, in which they worked long hours and had low pay. According to Vera Shlackman, “all the learning I now have gained without instruction, having obtained alone and that too I have labored twelve hours a day”(59), this shows how long they worked for in the mills each day, twelve hours a day. This also shows how despite the fact the mills state that “women working in Lowell’s mills, moreover, could avail themselves of certain education services”(Schug et al. 147), they kept the mill girl’s education at a certain level, in which Vera Shlakman had to resort in teaching herself. To add on, the mill girls had low pay. According to Mark C. Schug, Jean Caldwell, and Tawni Hunt, “the weekly wage for young women in Lowell’s mills was $2.50, of which $1.25 was deducted to pay for room and board. This amounted to pay of less than four cents per hour”(147), showing how low their pay was and how little choices they had, to the point they stayed in these mills. This brings us to the second change. According to the text, these working women were starting to lead industrial strikes. “They walked off their jobs in the the textile

In 1836 writers for a newspaper called The Harbinger had the opportunity to examine the life of factory workers. People had come forward and shared information about the poor conditions in the factories but they could not verify any of it. The writers wanted to provide readers of The Harbinger with a credible account of the day to day life of worker so they went to factories in Lowell, Massachusetts and Manchester, New Hampshire. While at the factories the writers inspected the boarding houses, interviewed female operatives, and even ate meals in the boarding houses to help understand the life of the average worker.

It was the fire, that caught America by surprise, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire. Killing 145 workers, the workers were young immigrant women looking for jobs, some even as young as 13 were employed. Usually the workers would work 12 to 14 hour shifts a day, 6 days a week, getting payed only four to five dollars a week. The company was owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris. The book “Uprising” by Margaret Peterson Haddix is a historical fiction that teaches students about how working in a factory was. This book is about these three young girls named Yetta, Bella, and Jane began to realize the factory owners were cheating them and not paying the right amount they were told. So they went on strike and kept fighting for what they believed

Wages were very low for the amount of work people were expected to do. People would only make anywhere from $1.25-$1.50 for the entire 10-12 hour workday. Not only were these wages extremely low, but employees often lived in expensive company housing which left barely any money for the other necessities of life. Nobody was satisfied with the wages during this time period but another struggle was the long hours. People worked 60-80 hour work weeks in the hot overcrowded factories, only doing one monotonous job. Lastly, the boss was very distant from the work crowd and there was little to no contact between the two groups. Also, the workers were very controlled by the foreman. The doors were locked on all floors to prevent theft during the day and bathroom breaks would be monitored by a floor manager. Overall, during the late 1800’s everyone was overworked and underpaid and this led to many troubles as years went on.

Conditions of factories were not safe for anyone, let alone a small child. Due to these conditions many children died before their prime. Many children “began work at age 5, and generally died before they were 25” (www.victorianweb.org), America was beginning to lose an entire generation due to these working conditions that so many had to endure. Children were hired at an alarming rate. “In 1870, the first time census reported child workers, there were 750,000 workers in the United States age 15 and under, not including those who worked on family farms or in other family businesses” (“Child Labor in America”), these numbers were not something that was looked over, it astonished many. “A cotton manufactory of 5 or 6000 spindles will employ those 200 children” (Bremner 232). The workforce would continuously grow, hiring more and more children each day. Factories were good for using children as a means of their productivity. “Textile factories, for the most part […] were in the forefront of this industrial revolution, and children formed an essential component of the new industrial workforce” (Bremner 232). Many times without these children working some of these factories would not have survived through the revolution.

To begin with, workers who had been at the mill for a long time lost energy and couldn’t work as fast or as much. Katherine Patterson states, “It ain’t right for this place to suck the strength of their youth then cast them off like dry husks to the wind”. This expresses that the mill made the girls weaker day by day. To add on, the mill made the girls work like slaves under harsh working conditions. As stated in “Lyddie”, “her body wouldn’t have cooperated even if she’d had the desire to go”. She slept out Sunday morning and forced herself up for dinner. This shows that she was so tired from working, she couldn’t even move. However before she started working, Lyddie was a strong farm girl who stared down a bear. To conclude, the mill drastically changed Lyddie, she went from being very strong to someone who could barely

Woman along with the children were affected while working during the industrial revolution. During 1834 and 1836 Harriet Martineau, a British feminist and abolitionist, visited America and enthusiastically embraced the social implications of the Industrial Revolution, (DTA, 223). Martineau compared the lifestyle of women to slaves and said the United States contradicted the principles of the Declaration of Independence. She did believe though with some progress that it could become New England’s new industrial order. One of the Mill factories Martineau visited, Waltham Mill, was a prime example of the scheduled lifestyle of women mill workers. Women Mill workers of all ages worked at Waltham Mill, which I compared to a boarding school because of their strict schedules. The ladies had a time to wake up, to be at work, to eat, and to go to school. A lot of women did not mind the harsh conditions they lived and worked in because they fought for their equality of rights for a long time now.

In the mid-1800s lots of things were being made by machine. For example: clothing, shoes, watches, guns, and farming machines were made. In 1840 the workday was 11 ½ hours. The workers were very tired and they most likely would have accidents. Workers and even children were hurt a lot by the machines. In the summer they were hot and in the winter they were cold, because there was not air conditioning or a heater in the factories. There were no laws to help the working conditions, and even to protect them. The owners didn't care about the workers, they cared about the money. Children would work six days a week and 12 hours or more a day. In the factories it was really hard and dangerous. Children would work the machines

According to the document, the Lowell girls lacked “the means of health and comfort” and “bathing-rooms fitted in the basement of each mill” (Document E). Those were just two of the many complaints about what should and need to have been fixed about the Mills. There were also complaints of the lack of proper house ventilation and the fact that the girls barely got any time for their breakfast and lunch breaks and their passing times. None of the workers at the Lowell Mills had adequate working conditions and were not treated very fair for the work they were doing for the

This was a little bit on the extreme, children who operated in factories work 12-14 hours with 1 hour break. Not only were these children subject to long hours, but also, they were in horrible conditions. Large, heavy, and dangerous equipment was very common for children to be using or working near. Many accidents occurred injuring or killing children on the job. Not until Florence Kelly helped win the passage of the Illinois Factory Act in 1893. The law prohibited child labor and limited women’s working hours. The law became a model for other

Mortality rates were decreasing rapidly. This was not only an effect of the poor living conditions, but also of the high pollution that was being created by the factories. Conditions for adult and children in the factory during the Industrial Revolution were unrelenting in its enforcement of tough rules, long hours and its unsanitary and, sometimes, dangerous environment. According to author, the mill work that Sam and the other children did was dangerous nor particularly difficult. Children of the Industrial Revolution perhaps suffered more than the adults also “some of the children had their hands terribly lacerated by the carding machine”. Owners realized that children were easier to train and control and they were forced to work as young as eight years old. They worked for many hours in factories and were denied their education. At such a young age, education and the support of family would have been instrumental in the development of such an impressionable mind. The innocence of what it means to be a child was exploited by the business owners who wished only to gain more

Next, in Document D in the rules and regulations, it states that free vaccinations were provided for the workers, keeping them and their roommates healthy. Also, to make sure that they were healthy and well rested they were told that at 10:00 pm, all lights must be out and there should be silence. To keep their workers from missing work, vaccinations were provided for them. Not only did it benefit the mills, but was fair that the girls got these, ensuring that they would not get a disease or become ill. Also, to ensure that their workers could function and their bodies were rested, the mills made sure that the workers got enough sleep. The time that they chose was reasonable and fair considering that the workers would have to get up earlier in the morning. In addition, from the letters in Document E, workers were provided working and clean looms/machines during the months they worked. The girls were also allowed to leave during the summer to visit their families back home. Working conditions for the girls were tried to be kept organized and clean, as well as repaired for the girls to

Lowell factories started to be made so the owners needed workers; the owners chose to use girls to work in the factories. Women got paid less during that time period so it would be cheaper for the owners. The women who worked in the mills were called mill girls, they were usually 15 to 35 years old. Mill girls worked 12 hours for 6 days a week, and lived in boarding houses. The textile corporations of Lowell paid higher wages than textile cities even though the work was difficult and tiring and that it was bad for their health. The mill girls protested the wage cuts few have succeeded.

Unlike today, children of the 1800’s were given jobs that have dangerous machines that can chop “little fingers, arms and legs”. They were also forced to work for long hours which vary from 10 to 14 hours each day! The children in Lowell worked in ”very dangerous places” that can lead to “injuries and even deaths.” Through the 10 to 14 hours of labor “factories put out fumes and toxins.” This is being supported by the article; Childhood Lost: Child Labor During the Industrial Revolution. In the novel, Lyddie decided to work and not break the rules of working in the mills. Throughout the novel, she decided not to sign the petition that limits the amount of hours of working in the Lowell Mills. Finally, Lyddie decided to fight back and went to

Source L signifies that there was no age limit for people to start working. Usually a “family works together…father, mother, sons and daughters”. Many children started work at the age of 5. Some children were even set out to carry out very inappropriate jobs, such as picking up pieces of left over cotton from under working machines. It shows that employees are happy working together and no harm has been caused towards them. This is very dangerous and would result in causing major injury. However this source has been written by “William Ecroyd” the founder of the Ecroyd factory. We cannot trust this source to a great extent because Ecroyd may just want to give his mill a good name and may be mendacious about what he is writing.