Lowell's Female Workers

Before the machines were invented there were only women to do the job. Let's suppose that a woman could make one skirt a day before the invention and after the change in technology she could make 50. The good part of the lowell mill girls was that it could make hundreds a day. But the bad part of technology was that the workers did not have a job and the workers would not have enough money to buy food for their family. Also the bosses could just buy more slaves to pick the cotton. Without a doubt, technology in the 1800s machines could mass produce.

Women’s history in the United States has always been represented as a struggle for rights. Wealth and status were tied to either their fathers or husbands. In the early 1900s, women were afforded the traditional roles of society. The majority of women worked in the home. If they were of the 18% young or poor women, they also worked in factories as laborers, manufacturing items for the booming industrial revolution (U.S. Department of Labor, 1980). During this time period the workplace was not in compliance with current safety standards. There was no minimum wage yet, work conditions were horrible and they worked long hours, “In 1900, the average workweek in manufacturing was 53 hours,” (Fisk, 2003). Women took “pink

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.

Women working men’s jobs were not as welcomed in society as they were in factories. People held on to the belief that women should be house wives and not have to do much in the way of work. The man should provide for the family, and the women should take care of the family. Many of the women who worked were lower class and had to help provide for their families, or were the only providers for their families. Women who worked men’s jobs were looked down upon and thought to be no better than dirt. Although women working in factories were still women, men did not show them the same respect as they did a woman working as a secretary or teacher.

With the center of production moving from households to mass-production, women in America had to alter their way of life. A great number of women followed labor opportunities to the mills, factories, and workshops. For the first time in history, large numbers of women left their homes to participate in the public world. “Mill Girls” were typically young, unmarried women who lived together in boarding houses provided by the factory for which they worked. Lucy Larcom recalls,

The author uses quotes from a variety of people, all of which corroborate the idea the working conditions women faced in Lowell changed from being a positive model of a work environment in a factory setting to a dismal work environment in less than 10 years. (check the time range). Since the quotes were from a wide demographic of individuals, they are fairly reliable because they represent more than one view about Lowell. Klein also discussed the Lowell Offering as a source of information and its impact on the perception of the manufacturer to describe the standard of living in Lowell. The women working in the factory contributed stories to the Lowell Offering. At first, their writing showed that they were interested in bettering themselves by being willing to write for a

They seeked to work with men in various different trades, professions. and commerce [Document 7]. In addition to women changing the American industrial landscape, manufacturing revolutionized it. At the beginning of the time period, artisanship was mainly how people manufactured goods. They would use their skill from the comfort of their home, with their family [Document 5]. Rising out of innovation, however, was the birth of large manufacturing plants [Document 5]. This produced a cheaper, and faster way to manufacture products; at the expense of weaker, more limited and dependent workers [Document 2]. With this new work class coming to lead the American industrial system, it increased inequality between the worker, and the

1. The first essay clearly shows the impact that an ideology of domesticity on women in New England in the 1830’s. The writer at first calls this time period a “paradox in the “progress” of women’s history in the United States”. During this time apparently two contradictory views on women’s relations to society clashed, unusually, those two being domesticity, which essentially limited women, giving them a “sex-specific” role that they must abide to, this mostly being present at the home with their husbands and whatever kids they may or may not have had at that time, and feminism, which essentially tried to remove this domesticity, trying to remove sex-specific limits on women’s opportunities and

1. As evidenced by the formation of the Lowell Female Reform Association in 1844, female workers in New England

The industrial revolution swept through Europe and North America during the 19th century, affecting the class structure, economy, government, and even the religious practices of everyone who lived in or did commerce with these new "industrialized nations." It made the modern age possible, but it was not without its "growing pains." The position of women before the industrial revolution was often equivalent to chattel, and then as now, they were expected to take naturally to housework and child rearing. The history of working women in the Industrial Revolution is rife with accounts of abuse and tragedy, but overall it improved their position in capitalist societies. Below, I will explain the

Beginning in the mid eighteenth century, much of Europe underwent a sustained series of changes in the way goods are produced known as the industrial revolution. During this movement, technological advancements greatly impacted the coal, heavy metals and textile industries as machines replaced hands as the main mechanism of operation. Consequently, a worker’s level of skill soon lost value and factories that demanded individuals performing menial tasks at a fast rate dotted the landscape. Females became more prominent in the workplace, especially because their smaller hands were better suited for textile factories and their smaller bodies allowed for easier movement in coalmines. Middle class males viewed female workers as a threat to morality, family structure and gender roles while the women saw their employment as a necessary means to provide for themselves and their families. This difference can best be explained by a cultural worldview that increasingly emphasized science and inherent differences between the two sexes. Furthermore, the firsthand accounts depicted by the females stand as the most reliable illustrations of work in the nineteenth century because they take into account the needs of the working class.

The Lowell System was fair towards its female workers in the early 1800s. In the early 1800s, Francis Cabot Lowell created the “Lowell System”. This recruited young, unmarried women from local farms to work in textile mills. The first textile mill was opened in 1814 in Waltham, Massachusetts. To begin with, as stated in Document A, women were paid monthly wages and were provided a room in a boardinghouse. They shared this room with three other girls. The girls were also all given three meals a day in a common room. Unlike at home, the women were paid for all of the hard work that they did. They were also provided a room to stay in that had two beds and a fire place in it for warmth. At home, the girls had to share a bed with their siblings and now had a lot more space to live in. The meals

During the 1800s in the United States of America, women were nothing more than the inferior gender whose sole job was to raise children and to take care of the house, however the occurrence of the Market Revolution within 1800-1850 was able to widen the range of duties women were allowed to perform. This idea of the growth of the female role is strongly demonstrated by three main events and causes of the Market Revolution. The first being the creation of the Lowell-Waltham system, where teenage girls were influenced to work in factories in return for a place to live, food and money. The Lowell-Waltham system had a monumental impact in contributing to the duties of women. The second event was the Second Great Awakening, the spiritual enlightenment helped heed some of the preconceive notions about the weakness of women.

“I shall not stay here… Up before day, at the clang of a bell and out the mill by the bell - just as though we were so many living machines” (Hopkinson 37). Many girls, between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five, worked at textile mills during the Industrial Revolution for eleven to twelve hours a day, with little time to catch their breath and fresh air. The Industrial Revolution started in Europe in the eighteenth century and spread to America during the nineteenth century. Eli Whitney’s invention of interchangeable parts and mass production helped lead the American Industrial Revolution, which started after the War of 1812 and peaked during the 1870’s. During this time period, many factories, mills, and factory cities were constructed, one of which was Lowell, Massachusetts, and employed women because their salaries were lower and therefore cost less. The conditions of the mills and boarding houses that the girls lived in were unpleasant and crowded, and they could easily become ill. Eventually, after the height of the Industrial Revolution, women fought for their rights and better conditions in their workplaces. The Industrial Revolution changed women’s roles in society, as it made jobs that were filled by girls, put them in challenging settings, and united them to work for change in the workforce.

A woman’s work in eighteenth and even nineteenth century can be described by a familiar proverb – a woman’s work is never done. Nowadays, we have a chance to get acquainted with their lifestyles due to the diaries that some of these women wrote during their lives. A number of scientific researchers are based on these dairy’s entries. Even when there is not much information about women’s work on early America, Martha Ballard’s diary is a valuable source for such a study. She recorded her arduous work and domestic life with homemade ink, in Maine between 1785 and 1812. She was fifty years old when she began writing her diary on January 1st, 1785. During this period of history, Americans were attempting to build a new nation. The ratification of the Constitution in 1780, gave them enough stability to expand their manufacturing, trade and farming.