In the early 19th century, America was encountering many social and economic changes that helped mold and shape it into a nation. In addition to these changes, factory systems were on the rise and the population was rapidly expanding. Men typically worked in the fields, and women tended to the gardens using food preservation methods; however, when men began moving west to work on the frontier, the young women were left at home making them prime targets as workers for the factories. Putting women to work outside the home was in complete contrast to the traditional work women performed. Because women were skilled in operating textile machines and were willing to operate the machines for low wages, they were the primary workers in Lowell’s factories. According to the article “Lowell Mills” in the Encyclopedia of U.S. History in, “…many young women were eager to work in the mills, viewing it as a chance to be independent or to provide income for their families. The Lowell System created a sense of community among the women, and the solidarity between the women provided a basis and strength for the protests that were to come.
In “What Was the Lowell System?”, Rebecca Beatrice Brooks states that, “The Lowell System was a labor production model invented by Francis Cabot Lowell in Massachusetts in the 19th century.” Lowell, Massachusetts, named after Francis Cabot Lowell, was originally planned to be a town of textile manufacture. Lowell gained the idea for the textile mills on a trip to Britain; its many textile mills inspired him to build improved versions in the United States. He designed them so that every step of manufacturing raw cotton into finished cloth could be completed under the same roof with the help of a water-driven power loom. Francis Cabot Lowell formed an association of wealthy investors known as the Boston Associates. They then hired machinists to build waterwheels to power the machines in the factory and power looms to perform the weaving process. The first mill was built in Waltham, Massachusetts next to the Charles River in 1814. Francis Cabot Lowell died in 1817, but his colleagues continued out his work building larger and more improved mills (“Lowell Mill Girls”). The Lowell System was extremely revolutionary for its time; it was faster and more efficient and became the model for many future manufacturing industries that were to come. According to Brooks, “The Lowell System was not only more efficient but was also designed to minimize the dehumanizing effects of industrial labor by paying in cash, hiring young adults instead of children, offering employment for only a few years, and by providing educational opportunities to help workers move on to better jobs, such as school, teachers, nurses, and etc.” It was an upgraded version of the mills in New England. (“What Was the Lowell System?”)
Cotton was delivered to the mills in bales and traveled throughout the entire factory going through each different step of the manufacturing process in each room until the cloth was finished. These machines only produced a single type of cloth and were easy to operate; therefore, young women could manage them. The operators fed the thread into the machines, and the machines performed the work. If there was a malfunction or the threads broke, the processed was stopped. Even though the machines were easy to operate, being a mill worker was not always easy. For the entire process to go smoothly, the machines had to be running at a steady pace, and all machines had to be going at the same time. Work was repetitive, hours were long, and wages were low, but the young women were willing to step up to the tasks (“Lowell Mills”).
The young women who operated the looms in the mills typically came from farming backgrounds and were referred to as mill girls or factory girls. Women viewed working in the mills as a chance to experience freedom and independence and saw it as an opportunity to earn their own income and education. The women were unmarried and ranged in age from fifteen to thirty-five. They earned between $2.40 and $3.20 a week and were provided a room. Single women living alone feared for their safety and avoided any circumstance that may ruin their reputation, so the Boston Associates established industrial communities for the workers. According to Robert McNamara in “Lowell Mills”, “The company set up boardinghouses to provide safe places for the women employees to live, and also imposed a strict moral code.” The young women were under strict rules and looked after by older women who were hired to run the boardinghouses. Church attendance was required, curfews were imposed, chaperones were required for male visitors, but women could choose how they wanted to spend their evening hours. They could participate in reading groups, attend night school, or read on their own; however, because work days were so long, many women were exhausted by the time the work day ended. Some of the women from the mills even worked to publish a journal called the Lowell Offering. The Lowell girls had a major impact on the factory system and shifted the outlook of women in the 19th century.
In the 1830s, overproduction caused the price of the finished cloth to drop tremendously; therefore, wages were cut, and work duties were increased (“What Was the Lowell System?”). Because it forced the women to work harder at a faster pace for less income, they began to protest. In 1834, the mills girls formed a labor union called the Factory Girls Association and traveled to several mills encouraging other women to join; however, their efforts were unsuccessful. In 1836, they organized a second strike that made a bigger impact, but the mill management still had enough power and resources to win over the women. Even though these were hard defeats, the women refused to give up. In 1845, the mill girls along with other Massachusetts formed the Female Labor Reform Association. The Female Labor Reform Association took political action to press for reducing work hours to ten instead of twelve or more. They even published “Factory Tracts” that exposed the harsh conditions of the mills. Laws were passed in the women’s favor; however, the mills just ignored them. The only victory they won was hollow, but that was only in short-term (“Lowell Mill Women”).
The Lowell System continued to fail when Irish immigrants began seeking work in the mills. The end of the protests indicated then end of young women working in the mills because no action was taken in response to their strikes. As a result, Irish immigrants became the primary workers in the mills. Reliance on immigrant workers soon turned the Lowell System into a system that exploited lower class people and made them permanently dependent on low wage jobs. Mills continued to use more immigrants and children to perform the labor and the mills eventually closed down. The Lowell System was considered a failure, and the owner’s decided not to update the factories, but instead relocate and build modern mills in the south.
Even though the Lowell System was considered a failed experiment, it was revolutionary and established new and improved patterns of employment and urban development that became the model for many other factories. Many of today’s mills have been influenced and made in the image of the Lowell mills of the 19th century. The Lowell mill girls may not have won much in short-term, but in long-term, they started something that changed this country. According to “Lowell Mill Women Create the First Union of Working Women”, “…they showed that working women didn’t have to put up with injustice in the workplace.” The Lowell System and the Lowell mill girls may not have been successful in their time, but they provided a basis for today’s mills and working women.