The first article was chapter three, “The Lowell Work Force, 1836, and the Social Origins of Women Workers” from the book, Women at Work: The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826-1860, written by Thomas Dublin. It paralleled nicely with the article I chose which was, “‘I Think Less of the Factory than of my Native Dell’ Labor, Nature, and the Lowell ‘Mill Girls’” from Environmental History, by Chad Montrie. The article, “The Lowell Work Force” primarily discussed what type of people, predominately women, worked in the Lowell mill. The information was neither new nor surprising for me. I had been to the Lowell Mill museum before and most the information there was in the article. The women were young women, from farming families, not yet married and mostly native-born women, not immigrants. What did surprise me was why they chose to work. I would have guessed that they worked to earn wages to send home to help support their families, yet, that was rarely the case. Moving away did lighten the family burden; however, that is not why these women left. They moved to work in a factory so they could earn wages and use them for nonessential things, things that they wanted, not needed. For many, the appeal of this might have been from the fact that growing up on a farm with limited money, clothes were always homespun and they had few, if any, frivolous things. For example, “Sally Rice left home to ‘earn something of my own,’ which was obviously not
Who where the mill girls? The mill girls helped show that they can and will fight for better working conditions. The mill girls age 11-30 came from their farms in the early 1800’s to gain money for their family. They had a hard time in textile mills and in their boarding homes.
“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.
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
As the Industrial Revolution spread across the western world, America found itself amidst the innovations the revolution brought. One of these social changes was the increase of women in the workforce. This led to the positive experience of The Lowell Mills system that enabled more opportunities for women to become more independent by giving them more control in their lives, more chances to use their intellect, and an overall different change of the life path a woman can take.
The transport in Melbourne has changed and developed throughout the years. Transport is a predominant part of the Melbourne city, and is relied upon by millions. Transport in Melbourne consists of extensive networks and a wide variety of transport services available to the public, including:
of the employees. This workforce allowed these owners to pay a low wage since they were young girls who otherwise where not generally employed in society previously. Many of these workers were young women who had little or no hope of getting married or finding a job. Men were heading out west, so young women needed to find work. Many of them came to work to help pay off the family debts, or to save money for education, or save money for a younger siblings education. This brought on a new era for women. Through the Industrial Revolution, girls in Lowell, and furthermore the country, had a changing role in society by speaking on working regulations, women’s rights, and having a paying job.
In the 19th century, women would work in the Lowell mills and were called Lowell Girls. For the time period, it was very beneficial for young women to work at these mills. They were able to do things that they couldn’t do at home. There were advantages and disadvantages for the girls to be working in the factory.
With all these, they also had the responsibility to be a housewife and take care of the household. Women in US. History also talks about the Lowell Mill Girls. Francis Cabot Lowell perfectly learned the power of looming in the early 19th century. He then opened a factory and higher around ten thousand girls to work for him.
With the dawn of America’s Industrial Revolution in the 1820s, the first urban factories emerged, providing the first non-domestic job opportunities for women. Some factories embraced
Women that worked in factories had terrible working conditions with low wages. Middle-class and working-class women fought for better working conditions and to get higher wages. The Women’s Trade Union League was a partnership with middle class and working class women to fight for their rights in a working environment. During the 20th century it unionized women workers and supported women’s strikes. The trade union helped the women with anything they needed. Middle class and upper class donated money for legal representation, speaking to the press, and participated in picket lines.
1.Historian Nancy Scott focuses on the New England women’s gender roles. A two-fold role, Domesticity and Feminism. A paradox in “progress” of women’s history in the United States of 1830’s. “New England women in 1835 endured subordination to men in marriage and society, profound disadvantage in education and in the economy, denial of access to official power in the churches that they populated, and virtual impotence in politics. A married woman had no legal existence apart from her husband’s”. Women had no voting and inheritance rights. Widows and single women with property had to submit to taxation without being represented. In economy they had second-class position. Those who worked earned one-fourth to one-half to men for
Women were always faced specifically in history by men until they became equal to them. In the story “The yellow wallpaper” the author Charlotte Perkins Gilman says some things about the way women were treated by men back then in the 19th century. Women’s roles and place in the 19th century American society are very humiliating, rational for this society and weird. Women back then were treated as “something” not as “someone” that is to say useless beings, that do not have brains.
Firstly, the Industrial Revolution affected women in the working and poor classes by allowing them to work in factories and mills. Before this time, women in the working class were primarily working unpaid jobs such as cooking and cleaning around the house for the family, but the industrial revolution gave women the chance to be paid and work outside of their homes (Frader, “Effects of the Industrial Revolution”, BCP). Most women obtained jobs in the textile industry. According to Dr. Christopher Wells, a professor of U.S cultural history at Macalester University, explained that ,“The town of Lowell, MA, for example, was incorporated in 1826 and soon hosted over 30 different mills.” (Wells, “Industrializing Women”, Teaching History). In the Lowell Mills, women expected to work at least thirteen hour days of constant and tiring labor in which women accounted for three-fourths of the workers in the mill. (Wells, “Industrializing Women”, Teaching History). Women factory workers typically made around $3.00 to $3.50 per week which was much greater than most women could earn in their hometowns (Dublin, “Women and
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.
The mill girls lived in these boarding houses in Biddeford Maine. They had this mother that was in charge of the boarding house. Most of the time these house wives would accomplish anything with help from the girls. They would save up their money for each other, sometimes for themselves, and the house. These women could make dresses, clothing, food, feed the chickens, and make milk and butter. These girls started working at the mills at the age of 13. These women and sometimes the girls would help pay for their brothers to go to college. Women worked as hard as men but they didn’t make as much money. The women that were in the mills didn’t get treated fairly like the men. About 800 women got recruited from the mills because they thought