F a c t o r y G i r l s

1. FactoryGirls By: Erin Leech and Sarah Moore

2. Rules Living Conditions Work Conditions Wages, Ages, Hours, and Types Pictures Protests Personal Accounts Harriet Hanson Sarah Bagely Poetry, Songs, and Lyrics Bibliography Table of Contents

3. Rules

4. 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 a ll 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, except 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 t he 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. Factory Rules from the Handbook to Lowell, 1848

5. Living Conditions

6. Bedrooms in boarding houses offered little or no privacy, usually between four and six women shared a room, and sometimes two women had to share a double bed. • These dwellings housed 20 to 40 people and contained a kitchen, a dining room and parlor, a keeper’s quarters, and up to ten bedrooms. Row after row of boardinghouse blocks visually distinguished Lowell from earlier New England mill towns. • This type of communal living encouraged close bonds between the women, and helped the new girls adjust to new city lives. • Room and board costs, which ranged from $1.25 to $1.50 per week during the 1830s and 1840s, were deducted from wages. For this amount, workers received three meals a day, limited laundry service, and a bed in a shared room. • Many of the workers saved money and gained economic independence. The city’s shops and religious institutions, along with its educational and recreational activities, gave the girls exciting social lives they never would have experienced living on a farm or in a small village. • Living in a boarding house was hugely different than life on a farm. They had to share rooms and beds, they had to say prayers with their three meals a day, and they all dined together in a common room. They created strong bonds and those bonds helped them adjust to their news lives in a boarding house. • The boarding houses were also later used to hold meetings on protests.

7. Working Conditions

8. *The working conditions were often times not good. The girls worked between 60 and 80 hours a week. *In return for monthly cash wages, female workers in Lowell agreed to regulations that varied little from company to company: work for at least a year live in a company boardinghouse, attend church. Many worked for a year and went back to the farm, some repeating this pattern two or three times. *Supervisors believed that the breeze through open windows would cause the threads to break more often so windows were always shut tight. Cotton dust and fabric particles filled the uncirculated air, causing many workers to develop tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases. Lighting was insufficient and workers often could not see well enough to avoid injury from the constantly running, high-speed machines. *Even at the pinnacle of its renown, however, conditions in Lowell had begun to deteriorate. In 1834, an economic downturn led to the mills' first wage cuts. In the 1840s, managers instituted a speedup, requiring higher and higher output for the same hourly wage. *The women formed the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association and tried to appeal to their employers and then to the state legislature through petitions. They wanted better and safer living and working conditions. *Lowell's early mills used power looms, and operations combined the spinning of yarn and the weaving of cloth. To operate the equipment, Lowell employed women and girls. *The Lowell girls worked on machines, usually they were in charge of multiple machines. The machinery operated at high speeds. The demands of textile mills took tolls on worker’s health and safety as the years went by.

9. Wages, Age, Hours, and Types of Factories

10. In the mid 1830’s, the average work week was six, twelve hour days. The mills were closed to observe four holidays during the year: Fast Day, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. • Six days a week earned a factory girl between $5 and $9. At the same time the average factory worker was making about $18. • They were between fifteen to thirty years old, but might be as young as ten years old. Farm life, especially for unwed daughters, was very tough as well--the work never stopped, and for many young women the social life in the "dormitories" was preferable to the isolation of rural life • The factories made textiles, rubber products, chemicals, machine parts, foodstuffs, shoes, and plastics.

11. Pictures

13. Protests

14. Even at the pinnacle of its renown, however, conditions in Lowell had begun to deteriorate. In 1834, an economic downturn led to the mills' first wage cuts. In the 1840s, managers instituted a speedup, requiring higher and higher output for the same hourly wage. The women formed the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association and tried to appeal to their employers and then to the state legislature through petitions. • Lowell’s textile corporations paid higher wages than those in other cities, but the work was hard and the working conditions were often unhealthy. • They threatened labor reformers with firing or blacklisting the girls who protested. They protested twice in the 1830s. • In the 1840s they banded together to fight for 10 hour days. Very few of these strikes succeeded. • A prominent figure in leading protests was Sarah Bagely, she created the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association. • One of the first strikes of cotton-factory operatives that ever took place in this country was that in Lowell, in October, 1836. When it was announced that the wages were to be cut down, great indignation was felt, and it was decided to strike, en masse. his was done. The mills were shut down, and the girls went in procession from their several corporations to the “grove” on Chapel Hill, and listened to “incendiary” speeches from early labor reformers. • And after a time, as the wages became more and more reduced, the best portion of the girls left and went to their homes, or to the other employments that were fast opening to women, until there were very few of the old guard left; and thus the status of the factory population of New England gradually became what we know it to be to-day.

15. Personal Accounts

16. Harriet Robinson

17. Harriet Hanson Robinson worked in the Lowell Mills at age ten until she married at twenty-three. Months after her fathers death, Harriet's mother moved to Lowell to get support from her family to help raise her four children. Harriet's mother took in boarders in their house in Lowell to make money. At age ten, when it was obvious that not enough money was being earned, Harriet went to work in the Lowell Mills. She worked 14-hour days for six days each week and was paid $2 for her labor. • In October of 1836, it was made clear to the mill girls that the wages were going to be cut. Harriet and many mill girls became upset and decided to take part in a strike. Harriet and many other girls were unsure about walking out. Harriet realized she should support her fellow workers and join in the strike. Once she took part, the others followed after her. • Harriet wrote an autobiography to tell people about her life as a female factory worker in the textile mills of Lowell, Mass.

18. Sarah Bagely

19. Sarah Bagely began work in a Lowell factory in 1836 and by 1844 had begun had organized the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association (LFLRA) to protect deteriorating working conditions. he organization quickly grew to include five hundred workers, and Bagley served as its first president. During the legislative hearings in February 1845, she argued in favor of the ten-hour day, which by then was a full-fledged cause among workers. Bagley testified that in addition to suffering physically from their long hours in the mills, female workers lacked sufficient time to improve their minds, an activity she considered essential for laborers in a republic. When the legislature ruled against the women, Bagley was farsighted enough to recognize that male and female workers needed to cooperate to advance their cause and sought affiliation with the New England Workingmen's Association. As one of the editors of that organization's Voice of Industry, she developed a "female department," under the title, "As is Woman, so is the Race." Little is known of Bagley after she left both the LFLRA and the mills in 1846 and went to work as a telegraph operator, perhaps the first woman to hold that job. Although her time in public life was brief, Bagley raised issues relating to the health of workers and their need for sufficient leisure to fulfill civic duties that remain important today, as is her insistence that women are entitled to "be heard and our rights acknowledged . . . ."

20. Poetry, Songs, and Lyrics

21. Poem that Concluded Lowell Women Workers’ 1834 Petition to Manufacturers Let oppression shrug her shoulders, And a haughty tyrant frown, And little upstart Ignorance, In mockery look down. Yet I value not the feeble threats Of Tories in disguise, While the flag of Independence O’re our noble nation flies. 1836 Song Lyrics Sung by Protesting Workers at Lowell Oh! Isnt it a pity, such a pretty girl as I Should be sent to the factory to pine away and die? Oh! I cannot be a slave, I will not be a Slave, For I’m so fond of liberty, That I cannot be a slave.

22. Bibliography

23. Factory Rules from the Handbook to Lowell, 1848, http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/lowell.html • Texts about Lowell Mill Girls, www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/americanstudies/lavender/lowetext.html#1834poem • A Year in Fashion, 1912, http://www.costumegallery.com/Delineator/May_1912/factory/factory1.htm • The Factory Girls, http://www.homestead.com/homefront/factorygirls.html • The Boarding House System, http://www.nps.gov/lowe/loweweb/Lowell_History/boardinghouse.htm • Working Conditions, http://www.nps.gov/lowe/loweweb/Lowell_History/working_conditions.htm • Time Table of the Lowell Mills, http://www.si.edu/lemelson/centerpieces/whole_cloth/u2ei/u2images/act9/time_tbl.html • Lowell Mill Girls, http://www.historychannel.com/ • Harriet Robinson, http://web.bryant.edu/~history/h364proj/sprg_00/amp5/hr.html • A People’s History of the United States, Harper Collins, By Howard Zinn, Copyright 1999 • http://womenshistory.about.com/cs/worklowellmill/ • http://web.bryant.edu/~history/h364proj/summ_99/hutchinson/*http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/jackson/mill/people.html • http://www.sun-associates.com/mercer/handouts/millgirls.html • http://womenshistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nps.gov%2Flowe%2Floweweb%2FLowell%2520History%2FMillgirls.htm