The+Lowell+Mills

those are the notes Francis Cabot Lowell
 * Lowell, Massachusetts
 * Late 1800’s

Intentions vs. Results
 * **Intentions**
 * Cheap, easy labor
 * Fair working conditions
 * Would promote women as workers
 * Increase workforce
 * Women could help support their families
 * **Results**


 * Oppression of female workforce


 * Degradation of working women


 * Women not trained to improved


 * Sought out by managers to be stable for decades to continue work


 * Would never improve their lives


 * Strengthening of female workforce


 * Female worker’s guilds

Factori
 * Looms


 * http://www.ehow.com/how_2154105_use-loom.html


 * Used for textile manufacturing


 * Each girl would have to attend to two or three looms at a time


 * Would require constant activity from the girl


 * No breaks in work


 * Dark and damp

Working Women
 * Referred to as bobbin girls
 * Started off as girls


 * Hoped to support family and to compose a sort of dowry/ have money in case of marriage.


 * Could not move up in life because of lack of education


 * Lower class women


 * Not especially literate


 * Would work for cheap


 * $2-3 per week


 * Would work long hours


 * Poor working conditions as manufacturing progressed


 * Women became fed up with conditions


 * Strikes ensued

And a haughty tyrant frown, And I itt le upstart Ignorance, In mockery look down. Yet I value not the feeble threats Of Tories in disguise, While the flag of Independence O'er our noble nation flies.
 * "Oh! isn’t 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."
 * Let oppression shrug her shoulders,

Evolution of Lowell Girls
 * Started off good


 * Conditions were tolerable


 * Women were surprisingly literate


 * Still not great working conditions


 * Women treated better than slaves, but not by much


 * Deriorated


 * Women kicked out due to misconduct and wage disagreements


 * Pay cuts


 * 1834


 * 1836


 * $2-3 per week


 * Worsening working conditions


 * Longer hours


 * Some worked 12+ hour days


 * Ten hours was considered a short work da


 * Oppressive mill managers


 * Became better


 * Strikes forced better conditions


 * Conditions improved


 * Hous decreased


 * Wage increased

Positives vs. Negatives
 * Positives


 * Promoted northern textile industry


 * Helped trengthen American industry in general


 * Generated revenue for north


 * Reinforced women’s place in the workforce


 * No longer fit the “housewife stereotype”


 * Mainly as a result of the strikes


 * Women gained the ability to acquire a respectable job


 * Started women on path towards equality


 * “They called their labor "freedom," but what they meant by freedom was the newfound--and short-lived--chance to earn a dollar or two or three every week. It wasn't much, but for those hardworking Yankee females, it was a start on the long road to independence.”


 * Negatives


 * Degraded women


 * Pre-strikes


 * Showed primitive and abusive nature towards low-level factory workers


 * Conditions were terrible


 * Hindered evolution of women (& women’s rights)


 * Pre-strikes


 * Women were stuck in lower class


 * Lack of literacy/education presented towards them prevented progress

Outcome
 * Women's Rights


 * Strikes


 * Shoed power of women


 * Helped women’s claim towards a more equal workforce


 * he rhetoric used by the strikers is impressive and important. They linked their action expressly to the tradition of the Revolutionary War, to the efforts of their patriotic ancestors to win independence from England. These women expressed their pride and their sense of independence as they talked of being "daughters of freemen".


 * "We learn that extraordinary excitement was occasioned at Lowell, last week, by an announcement that the wages paid in some of the departments would be reduced 15 percent on the 1st of March. The reduction principally affected the female operatives, and they held several meetings, or caucuses, at which a young woman presided, who took an active part in persuading her associates to give notice that they should quit the mills, and to induce them to 'make a run' on the Lowell Bank and the Savings Bank, which they did. On Friday morning, the young woman referred to was dismissed, by the Agent...and on leaving the office...waved her calash in the air, as a signal to the others, who were watching from the windows, when they immediately 'struck' and assembled about her, in despite of the overseers.”

-From the Boston Transcript
 * Evolution of industry


 * Lowell girls became obsolete


 * People realized that they could no longer work the less dominant class for cheap


 * Factories developed


 * In light of the strikes and the apparent problems, people made a constant push towards advancing their industry and making manufacturing easier


 * To compete with Britain


 * To keep their citizens happy


 * To strengthen the economy

http://www.lowellmillwomen.com/about.html http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5714 http://faculty.uml.edu/sgallagher/Mill_girls.htm http://www.ehow.com/how_2154105_use-loom.html