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The Lowell did provide great inspiration and a beacon of what women can do, but it also had inhumane work conditions that countered the good it was doing. When respected figures visited the mills, it was noted that the visitors only were presented with the nicely dressed operatives.
Resistance was led by the young women known as mill girls. With the mid-nineteenth-century growth in immigration and social changes post-Civil War, mill owners began to recruit immigrants, who often arrived with skills and were willing to work for lower wages. By mid-century, the Waltham-Lowell system proved unprofitable and collapsed.
Additionally, Lowell devised a factory community: women were required to live in company-owned dormitories adjacent to the mill that were run by older women chaperones called "matrons". In addition to working 80 hours a week, the women had to adhere to strict moral codes (enforced by the matrons) as well as attend religious services and ...
Lowell was a planned mill town. Under the Lowell System, the company recruited young women (15-35) from New England farms to work in the mills. The companies built boardinghouses managed by older women, often widows to provide meals and safe places to live.
In 1837, at the age of 31, Bagley first appeared in Lowell, Massachusetts, working at the Hamilton Mills.She worked initially as a weaver and then as a dresser, and by 1840 she had saved enough money to make a deposit on the house which her parents and siblings were living in. [5] Bagley was dissatisfied with working conditions however and published one of her first pieces of writing ...
The majority of women operatives fighting for labor reform in the 1840s also stood against slavery, denouncing it the many letters, articles and poetry in Voice; indeed, the women of Lowell became known as the "Pretty Friends of the Slave", and the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association participated officially in several antislavery meetings. [31]
“The Lost Women of Mill Street” (300 pages, softcover) costs $14.99 from Blue Mug Press. ... Greg Donley, author of “A Small Book About Design Craft and Practice,” signs his work from 7 to ...
The mill owners recruited young Yankee farm girls from the surrounding area to come work the machines at Waltham. The mill girls, as they came to be known, lived in boarding houses provided by the company and were supervised by older women, and were subject to strict codes of conduct. They worked approximately eighty hours per week.