The Changing Workplace

1 One American's StoryReforming American Society259In 1841 a brief narrative appeared in the Lowell Offering, the firstjournal written by and for female mill workers. A young girlwho toiled in the mill identified only by the initials wrote about the decision of Susan Miller to save her family sfarm by working in the Lowell, Massachusetts, textile mills. At first, Susan found the factory work dispiriting, but shemade friends, and was proud of the wages she sent Every morning the bells pealed forth the same clangor, andevery night brought the same feeling of fatigue. But Susan felt ..that she could bear it for a while. There are few who look uponfactory labor as a pursuit for life. It is but a temporary vocation; and most of thegirls resolve to quit the Mill when some favorite design is accomplished. Money istheir object not for itself, but for what it can perform.

2 Lowell Offering, 1841 Just a few decades earlier, work outside the home might not have been anoption for girls like Susan. At the same time that women s roles began to expand,changes occurred in the way goods were Changes WorkBefore Susan and other girls began to leave the farms for New England s textilemills, women had spun and sewn most of their families clothing from raw fact, in the early 19th century almost all clothing manufacturing was producedat home. Moving production from the home to the factory split families, creatednew communities, and transformed traditional relationships between employersand employees. The textile industry pioneered the new manufacturing techniquesthat would affect rules and behavior required of most American & NamesTerms & NamesMAIN IDEAMAIN IDEAWHY IT MATTERS NOWWHY IT MATTERS NOW cottage industry master journeyman apprentice strike National Trades UnionA growing industrial workforce faced problems arisingfrom manufacturing underthe factory system.

3 The National Trades Union wasthe forerunner of America s laborunions today . A young workerfrom the mills inWaltham, orLowell, ChangingWorkplacep0259-265aspe-0208s4 10/16/02 4:02 PM Page 259 RURAL MANUFACTURINGU ntil the 1820s, only thefirst step in the manufactureof clothing the spinningof cotton into thread hadbeen mechanized widely inAmerica. People then fin-ished the work in a cottageindustrysystem in whichmanufacturers provided thematerials for goods to beproduced at home. Thoughwomen did most of thiswork, men and childrensometimes helped too. Theparticipants in this cottageindustry brought the fin-ished articles to the manufacturer, who paid them by the piece and gave themnew materials for the next batch of entrepreneurs like Patrick Jackson, Nathan Appleton, and Francis Cabot Lowell opened their weaving factories in Waltham and later Lowell,Massachusetts (see Chapter 7, page 213), their power looms replaced the cottageindustries.

4 Mechanizing the entire process and housing the tools in the same placeslashed the production time, as well as the cost, of textile manufacture. By the1830s, the company that Lowell and his partners had formed owned eight factoriesin Massachusetts with over 6,000 employees, at an investment of over $6 FACTORIEST extiles led the way, but other areas of manufacture also shift-ed from homes to factories. In the early 19th century, skilled artisans had typicallyproduced items that a family could not make for itself furniture and tools, forexample. As in cottage industries, the artisans usually worked in shops attachedto their own homes. The most experienced artisans had titles: a master might beassisted by a journeyman,a skilled worker employed by a master, and assistedby an apprentice,a young worker learning a craft. Master artisans and theirassistants traditionally handcrafted their products until the 1820s, when manu-facturers began using production processes that depended on the use of inter-changeable rapid spread of factory production revolutionized industry.

5 The cost ofmaking household items and clothing dramatically dropped. In addition, newmachines allowed unskilled workers to perform tasks that once had employedtrained artisans. Unskilled artisans shifted from farm work to boring and repeti-tive factory work and to the tight restrictions imposed by factory were these restrictions more rigid than in the factory town of Lowell, Worker to Factory WorkerUnder the strict control of female supervisors, a work force consisting almostentirely of unmarried farm girls clustered in Lowell and the other mill townsthat soon dotted New England. At their boarding houses, the mill girls livedunder strict curfews. The girls behavior and church attendance was closely mon-itored, but despite this scrutiny, most mill girls found time to enjoy the companyof their coworkers.

6 By 1828 women made up nine-tenths of the work force in theNew England mills, and four out of five of the women were not yet 30 years Families usedspinning wheelsto spin yarn,which they woveinto cloth onhome looms. Theysold their cloth tolocal IDEAMAIN IDEAAA nalyzingEffectsHow didfactor y productionchange Americanmanufacturing?A. AnswerFactory produc-tion reduced thecost of makingand repairinggoods. It al-lowed unskilledlaborers to han-dle tasks thathad requiredskilled workers. GEOGRAPHYSKILLBUILDERR egion:Footwear :Thethree cities arelocated on ornear rivers. Therivers were nat-ural highwaysfor shippinggoods, providedwaterpower tooperate machin-ery, and allowedfor quick dispos-al of 10/16/02 4:02 PM Page 260 Reforming American Society261 WabashRiverMonongahela RiverAlleghenyRiverSchuylkillRiverOhioHu dsonRiverRiverMississippiRiverMissouriRi verATLANTICOCEANC hesapeakeBayDelawareBayLakeSuperiorLakeM ichiganLakeHuronLake ErieLakeOntarioBaltimoreClevelandBuffalo CincinnatiPittsburghPhiladelphiaLouisvil leRichmondWashington, YorkBostonBrooklynNewarkDetroitChicagoSt .

7 With over 100,000 populationFlourTextilesClothing and footwearIron and copper oreCoal TimberMachinery and equipmentWeaponryCanalRailroadFC0050100 kilometers50100 milesNorthern Cities and Industry, 1830 1850 GEOGRAPHY SKILLBUILDER1. Region In areas where the textile industr ywas strong, what other industr y was alsoprominent? How did the sites of New York City,Philadelphia, and Cincinnati encouragetheir growth as industrial towns?This depiction of Lowell,Massachusetts, in 1834 shows thefactories along the river banks. p0259-265aspe-0208s4 10/16/02 4:02 PM Page 261 THE LOWELL MILLMill owners hired females becausethey could pay them lower wages than men who did simi-lar jobs. To the girls in the mills, though, textile workoffered better pay than their only alternatives: teaching,sewing, and domestic work. In an 1846 letter to her fatherin New Hampshire, 16-year-old Mary Paul expressed hersatisfaction with her situation at PERSONALVOICEMARY PAUL I am at work in a spinning room tending four sides ofwarp which is one girl s work.

8 The overseer tells me thathe never had a girl get along better than I do.. I have a very good boarding place, have enough to eat.. Thegirls are all kind and obliging.. I think that the factory is the best place for me and if any girl wants employment, I advise them to come to Lowell. quoted in Women and the American ExperienceLike Mary Paul, who eventually left factory work topursue other work, most female workers stayed at Lowell foronly a few years. Harriet Hanson Robinson, a mill girl wholater became involved in the abolition and women s rightsmovements, applauded the mill girls influence in carrying new fashions, new books, new ideas back to their AT LOWELLThe workday at Lowell began at5 , Mary Paul wrote her father, with a bell ringing forthe folks to get up. At seven they are called to the mill. Athalf past twelve we have dinner, are called back again atone and stay until half past seven.

9 These hours probably didn t seem long to farm girls,but heat, darkness, and poor ventilation in the factoriescontributed to discomfort and illness. Overseers wouldnail windows shut to seal in the humidity they thoughtprevented the threads from breaking, so that in the sum-mer the weaving rooms felt like ovens. In the winter, pun-gent smoke from whale-oil lamps blended with the cottondust to make breathing conditions continued to deteriorate in the forced workers to increase their pace. Between1836 and 1850, Lowell owners tripled the number of spin-dles and looms but hired only 50 percent more workers to operate them. Factoryrules tightened too. After gulping a noon meal, workers now had to rush back tothe weaving rooms to avoid fines for lateness. Mill workers began to organize. In1834, the Lowell mills announced a 15 percent wage cut.

10 Eight hundred mill girlsconducted a strike,a work stoppage in order to force an employer to respond AT LOWELLU nder the heading UNION IS POWER, the Lowell Millsstrikers of 1834 issued a proclamation declaring that they would not return towork unless our wages are continued to us as they have been. For its part, thecompany threatened to recruit local women to fill the strikers jobs. Criticized bythe Lowell press and clergy, most of the strikers agreed to return to work atreduced wages. The mill owners fired the strike 1836, Lowell mill workers struck again, this time over an increase in theirboard charges that was equivalent to a percent pay cut. Twice as many262 CHAPTER8 BNOWNOWTHENTHENMAIN IDEAMAIN IDEABA nalyzingCausesWhat factorscontributed to theworsening condi-tions workersendured at Lowellbeginning in the1830s?B. AnswerManagers madeworkers workfaster and gavethem less freetime.