List of Sources
Student Source 1East Chelmsford Map, 1821
Student Source 21850's New England Map
Student Source 3Lowell Map, 1845
Student Source 4Nathan Appleton's Memoirs
Student Source 5Mill Poster
Student Source 6Boott Cotton Mills Maps, 1835-present
Student Source 7Time Table of the Lowell Mills, 1851
Student Source 8Boardinghouse Regulations, 1846
Student Source 9Boott Mills Boardinghouses, 1830's
Student Source 10 Suffolk Manufacturing Company Regulations, 1835
Student Source 11 A Mill Superintendent Seeks Farm Women for Lowell Mill Work
Student Source 12 Mary Paul's Letters to Her Father
Student Source 13 Lucy Larcom's Memoirs
Student Source 14 Eliza Adams Describes Her New Life in Lowell
Student Source 15 Harriet Hanson Robinson's Memoirs
Student Source 16Arvilla Galusha's Letters to Her Mother in Berkshire, Vermont
Student Source 17 Daniel Spencer Gilman's Letters to Family in Canada
Student Source 18Business Cards, Tickets, Advertisements ("Where the Money Went")
Student Source 19 From the Lowell Offering
Student Source 20 A Weaver's Letter to a Boston Newspaper, November 9, 1844
Student Source 21 A Letter from Sarah Bagley
Student Source 22 Factory Tracts
Student Source 23 Statistics of Lowell Manufactures, 1842
Student Source 24CorporationHospital Records, Lowell, 1844
Student Source 4
Nathan Appleton Remembers the "Origin of Lowell"
[In the early decades of the nineteenth century] there was little demand for female labor, as household manufacture was superseded by the improvements in machinery. Here was in New England a fund of labor, well educated and virtuous.
Notes:
• Nathan Appleton was one of the founders of the Lowell mills. In Introduction of the Power Loom and Origin of Lowell (1858), he describes how he and other "Boston Associates" walked around in East Chelmsford one snowy day in 1821, imagining the industrial city they would eventually create.
Words to Know:
superseded: replaced
virtuous: good (in a moral sense)
Think About:
• Nathan Appleton is here referring to labor, to a "fund" of workers, as an essential element of industrial development. What other elements are necessary to start a factory system?
Student Source 11
A Mill Superintendent Seeks to Hire Farm Women for the Lowell Mills
Lowell July 27 1847Jesse Huse Esq.
Dr. Sir,
Understanding that you intend to visit a section of the States of Vermont & New-York, I will thank you to engage for the Merrimack company any smart, active & healthy girls whom you may happen to meet who would like to come to Lowell. We can give employment to from 50 to 100 girls at the usual wages paid in this place. Our custom is to pay to new hands one dollar per week, & board in the Weaving & Dressing Rooms, & one dollar & a half, & board, in the Carding & Spinning Rooms, until they can tend the Machines without assistance. After that they are paid for all the work they can get off; & of course some earn more & some less, according to their industry & skill. The wages vary from one dollar & a half, to 3 dollars a week, averaging perhaps 2 dollars to 2.25 per week. . . . We can employ none under 15 years of age, & those of weakly or sickly constitutions should not be encouraged to come. . . . You will please engage only such persons as sustain a good character; and as you may think will prove useful hands to the Company . . .
Yrs. very truly
John Clark
Supt. Merk. Mf. Co.
Notes:
• Supt. Merk. Mf. Co. = Superintendent, Merrimack Manufacturing Company
Words to Know:
constitutions: bodies, or sometimes minds
Think About:
• Describe the kind of worker the mill superintendent wants to hire.
• What kind of workers does he NOT want to hire? Why not?
• If you were a farmer with lots of bills to pay, and Jesse Huse came to your farm to talk about all the jobs available in Lowell (and the money your daughters could make), what would you think? What would you think if you were a teenage daughter on this farm and wanted to help Dad pay the bills--and you wanted a little freedom of your own?
Student Source 12
Mary Paul's Letters to Her Father
Mary Paul left her home in Barnard, VT, in 1845 when she was 15 years old. She first took a job helping a farming family in the nearby town of Bridgewater, VT, but before long she decided to come to Lowell. Through her letters, we can find out why she left Vermont for Lowell and what her Lowell experience was like.
Mary Paul Decides to Leave Vermont and Work in Lowell
Saturday, Sept. 13th, 1845Dear Father
. . . I want you to consent to let me go to Lowell if you can. . . . I could earn more to begin with than I can any where about here. I am in need of clothes which I cannot get if I stay about here. . .
Mary Paul Arrives in Lowell
Lowell Nov 20th 1845Dear Father
An opportunity now presents itself which I improve in writing to you. I started for this place . . . Thursday. . . . Went to a boardinghouse and staid until Monday night. On Monday [I] . . . found a place in the spinning room and the next morning I went to work. I like very well have 50 cts first payment increasing every payment as I get along in work have a first rate overseer and a very good boarding place. I work on the Lawrence Corporation. Mill is No 2 spinning room. . . . It cost me $3.25 to come. Stage fare was $3.00. . . . Had 2.50 left with which I got a bonnet and some other small articles. . . . You must write as soon as you receive this. Tell Henry I should like to hear from him. If you hear anything from William write for I want to know what he is doing. I shall write to Uncle Millers folks the first opportunity. . . . I guess that Henry could get into the mill and I think that Julius might get in too. Tell all friends that I should like to hear from them.
excuse bad writing and mistakes
This from your own daughter
Mary
Notes:
• William is Mary's brother (living in Tennessee); Uncle Miller and Aunt Nancy lived in Woodstock, Vermont; and Henry and Julius are Mary's brothers.
Words to Know:
boardinghouse: a long, large building built and owned by a mill corporation. Workers lived and ate in the boardinghouses. ("Board" is another name for "meals.")
Think About:
• What do you notice about Mary's relatives as far as where they live? What changes seem to have occurred in this family?
• The chart below is based on the payroll records (in Thomas Dublin's Farm to Factory) of the mill Mary first worked in, the Lawrence Manufacturing Company.
PAYROLL for one monthDATE: Nov. 20, 1845.
EMPLOYEE / WAGE EARNED PER DAY / WEEKLY WAGE / WEEKLY ROOM AND BOARDMary Paul / $0.30 / $1.80 / $1.25
• Compare what Mary Paul paid for stage fare with what she earned per week (above) during her first month in the mill.
Mary Paul Becomes a Successful but Busy Doffer
Lowell Dec 21st 1845Dear Father
I get along very well with my work. I can doff as fast as any girl in our room. I think I shall have frames before long. The usual time allowed for learning is six months but I think I shall have frames before I have been in three as I get along so fast. I think that the factory is the best place for me and if any girl wants employment I advise them to come to Lowell. I have little time to devote to writing. . . . There are half a dozen letters which I ought to write to day but I have not time. Tell Harriet I send my love to her and all of the girls. Give my love to Mrs. Clement. Tell Henry this will answer for him and you too for this time.
This from
Mary S Paul
Notes: Typically, the first job assignment for a new "mill girl," especially a young worker like Mary Paul, was to replace bobbins in a spinning room. As she gained skill and speed, she might be reassigned to tend spinning frames as a "spinner."
Words to Know:
doffer: a mill worker who removes full bobbins from a spinning frame. "Doff" is short for "doing off."
frames: large spinning machines that could fill many bobbins of thread at once
Think About: What clues in this letter show that Mary still feels strong ties to loved ones back home? What do you think people reading this letter will conclude about Mary's feelings about her new life and work?
Mary Paul Tends Spinning Frames; Describes Pay, Boardinghouse, Schedules
Lowell April 12th 1846Dear Father
I received your letter with much pleasure. . . . You wanted to know what I am doing. I am at work in a spinning room and tending four sides of warp which is one girls work. The overseer tells me that he never had a girl get along better than I do and that he will do the best he can by me. . . . I was paid nine shillings a week last payment and am to have more this one though we have been out considerable for backwater which will take off a good deal. . . . I have a very good boarding place have enough to eat and that which is good enough. The girls I room with are all from Vermont and good girls too. Now I will tell you about our rules at the boarding house. We . . . have to go to bed about 10. o'clock At half past 4 in the morning the bell rings for us to get up and at five for us to go into the mill. At seven we are called out to breakfast are allowed half an hour between bells and the same at noon till the first of May when we have three quarters [of an hour] till the first of September. We have dinner at half past 12 and supper at seven. . . . I believe I have written all so I will close for I have a letter to write to William this afternoon.
Yours affectionately
Mary S Paul
P.S. Give my love to all that enquire for me and tell them to write me a long long letter.
Notes:
• In the spinning room, Mary tended machines that made warp thread for the looms. (Warp threads run from the front to the back of a loom.) Each frame Mary tended had 128 spindles. It was common at the time for a spinner to tend four frames.
• Mary was most likely paid in American money. Nine shillings = $1.50.
• Mary is not including room and board (food) expenses she had to pay.
• Mary mentions that mill workers ate breakfast before going to work. The winter bell schedule was different from schedules at other times of the year. In other seasons, Mary and her fellow workers went straight to work when the morning bell rang. A later bell announced it was time for a morning breakfast break at the boardinghouse.
Words to Know:
warp: the yarn attached to the loom and through which the bobbin passes during weaving
backwater: a situation that occurs when water cannot flow away from a waterwheel fast enough and therefore slows down the wheel
Think About:
• Compare the daily schedule in this April letter with the October bell schedule in Student Source 7: Time Table of the Lowell Mills. Why did the corporations have different bell schedules for different seasons?
• Why was backwater was common in the spring season? How could backwater (or its opposite, drought) affect Mary, her family, and local businesses?
Mary Changes Jobs, Becomes a Warper
Lowell Nov 5th 1848Dear Father
Doubtless you have been looking for a letter from me all the week past. . . . I was unable to get my old place in the cloth room on the Suffolk or on any other corporation. . . . So I went to my old overseer on the Tremont Cor[poration] . . . and I went to work last Tuesday--warping--the same work I used to do.
It is very hard indeed and sometimes I think I shall not be able to endure it. I never worked so hard in my life but perhaps I shall get used to it. . . . The wages are to be reduced on the 20th of this month. . . . The companies pretend they are losing immense sums every day and therefore they are obliged to lessen the wages, but this seems perfectly absurd to me for they are constantly making repairs and it seems to me that this would not be if there were really any danger of their being obliged to stop the mills.
It is very difficult for any one to get into the mill on any corporation. All seem to be very full of help. I expect to be paid about two dollars a week but it will be dearly earned. . . .
Write soon. Yours affectionately
Mary S Paul
P.S. Do not forget to direct [letters to me] to No. 5 Tremont Cor and tell all others to do the same.
Notes:
• Again, Mary is not including room and board when she says she expects to be paid about $2.00 a week.
• Warpers connected broken or disconnected threads as they were being wound onto a beam. Warping was one of the hardest jobs in the mill, because it involved hours of standing, careful attention, and frequent connecting of threads; therefore, warpers' wages were usually high, averaging $2.25 a week in 1845.
• Mary worked at the Lawrence Corporation until October of 1846, when she left Lowell. She returned in 1848.
Words to Know:
obliged: compelled by moral, legal or physical force, forced by necessity
Think About:
• Mary hopes to make $2.00 a week but will have to pay about $1.50 for room and board. What could cause her to make less than $2.00? What happens if she does make less, and how does she feel?
• How important is Mary's family to her? Support your answer with details from Mary's letters.
Student Source 13
Lucy Larcom's Memoirs
Running through the heart of the Lowell High School campus is a lovely green stretch of land along the Merrimack Canal. This long, narrow park, the Lucy Larcom Parkway, was named after Lowell "mill girl" Lucy Larcom. After her years as a mill worker and as then as a teacher, Lucy became famous as a poet.
Below, Lucy explains that after her father died, her mother had such a hard time supporting the family that Lucy went to work in a Lowell mill. At age 11, she was a doffer or "bobbin girl."
Her difficulties were increasing, and I thought it would be a pleasure to feel that I was not a trouble or burden or expense to anybody. So I went to my first day's work in the mill with a light heart. The novelty of it made it seem easy, and it really was not hard, just to change the bobbins on the spinning-frames every three quarters of an hour or so, with half a dozen other girls who were doing the same thing. . . .
And for a little while it was only a new amusement; I liked it better than going to school and "making believe" I was learning when I was not. And there was a great deal of play mixed with it. We were not occupied more than half the time. The intervals were spent frolicking around among the spinning-frames, teasing and talking to the older girls, or entertaining ourselves with games and stories in a corner, or exploring, with the overseer's permission, the mysteries of the carding-room, the dressing-room, and the weaving-room.
I never cared much for machinery. The buzzing and hissing and whizzing of pulleys and rollers and spindles and flyers around me often grew tiresome. I could not see into their complications, or feel interested in them. But in a room below us we were sometimes allowed to peer in through a sort of blind door at the great waterwheel that carried the works of the whole mill. It was so huge that we could only watch a few of its spokes at a time, and part of its dripping rim, moving with a slow, measured strength through the darkness that shut it in.
When Lucy left the mill for her required three months of schooling, she found she enjoyed the school experience so much that she hated to return to the mill. She writes:
The little money I could earn--one dollar a week, besides the price of my board--was needed in the family and I must return to the mill. . . . I went back to my work, but now without enthusiasm. I had looked through an open door that I was not willing to see shut upon me.
I began to reflect upon life rather seriously for a girl of twelve or thirteen. What was I here for? What could I make of myself? Must I submit to the current and do just what everybody else did?
Lucy tried her hand at painting, but felt she lacked artistic talent. Then she considered becoming a writer, especially of "verses" (poetry). Finally she decided to become a teacher, with writing as a possible later career. She explains:
This was the plan that indefinitely shaped itself in my mind as I returned to my work in the spinning-room, and which I followed out . . . during the next six or seven years,--to learn all I could, so that I should be fit to teach or to write, as the way opened. And it turned out that fifteen or twenty of my best years were given to teaching.
Notes:
• "Memoirs" are writings in which the writer looks back upon his or her life. The selections above are from Lucy Larcom's book of memoirs, A New England Girlhood: Outlined from Memory (1889). When Larcom wrote New England Girlhood, she was 65 years old.