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One American's Story
Reforming American Society 259
In 1841 a brief narrative appeared in the Lowell Offering, the first
journal written by and for female mill workers. A young girl
who toiled in the mill—identified only by the initials F.G.A.—
wrote about the decision of “Susan Miller” to save her family’s
farm by working in the Lowell, Massachusetts, textile mills.
At first, Susan found the factory work dispiriting, but she
made friends, and was proud of the wages she sent home.
A PERSONAL VOICE F.G.A.
“ Every morning the bells pealed forth the same clangor, and
every night brought the same feeling of fatigue. But Susan felt. . .
that she could bear it for a while. There are few who look upon
factory labor as a pursuit for life. It is but a temporary vocation; and most of the
girls resolve to quit the Mill when some favorite design is accomplished. Money is
their object—not for itself, but for what it can perform.
”
—Lowell Offering, 1841
Just a few decades earlier, work outside the home might not have been an
option for girls like Susan. At the same time that women’s roles began to expand,
changes occurred in the way goods were manufactured.
Industry Changes Work
Before “Susan” and other girls began to leave the farms for New England’s textile
mills, women had spun and sewn most of their families’ clothing from raw fibers.
In fact, in the early 19th century almost all clothing manufacturing was produced
at home. Moving production from the home to the factory split families, created
new communities, and transformed traditional relationships between employers
and employees. The textile industry pioneered the new manufacturing techniques
that would affect rules and behavior required of most American workers.
Terms & Names
Terms & Names
MAIN IDEA
MAIN IDEA
WHY IT MATTERS NOW
WHY IT MATTERS NOW
•cottage industry
•master
•journeyman
•apprentice
•strike
•National Trades’
Union
A growing industrial work
force faced problems arising
from manufacturing under
the factory system.
The National Trades’ Union was
the forerunner of America’s labor
unions today.
▼
A young worker
from the mills in
Waltham, or
Lowell, 1850.
The Changing
Workplace
p0259-265aspe-0208s4 10/16/02 4:02 PM Page 259
Page 1 of 7
RURAL MANUFACTURING
Until the 1820s, only the
first step in the manufacture
of clothing—the spinning
of cotton into thread—had
been mechanized widely in
America. People then fin-
ished the work in a cottage
industry system in which
manufacturers provided the
materials for goods to be
produced at home. Though
women did most of this
work, men and children
sometimes helped too. The
participants in this cottage
industry brought the fin-
ished articles to the manufacturer, who paid them by the piece and gave them
new materials for the next batch of work.
When 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 cottage
industries. Mechanizing the entire process and housing the tools in the same place
slashed the production time, as well as the cost, of textile manufacture. By the
1830s, the company that Lowell and his partners had formed owned eight factories
in Massachusetts with over 6,000 employees, at an investment of over $6 million.
EARLY FACTORIES
Textiles led the way, but other areas of manufacture also shift-
ed from homes to factories. In the early 19th century, skilled artisans had typically
produced items that a family could not make for itself—furniture and tools, for
example. As in cottage industries, the artisans usually worked in shops attached
to their own homes. The most experienced artisans had titles: a master might be
assisted by a journeyman, a skilled worker employed by a master, and assisted
by an apprentice, a young worker learning a craft. Master artisans and their
assistants traditionally handcrafted their products until the 1820s, when manu-
facturers began using production processes that depended on the use of inter-
changeable parts.
The rapid spread of factory production revolutionized industry. The cost of
making household items and clothing dramatically dropped. In addition, new
machines allowed unskilled workers to perform tasks that once had employed
trained artisans. Unskilled artisans shifted from farm work to boring and repeti-
tive factory work and to the tight restrictions imposed by factory managers.
Nowhere were these restrictions more rigid than in the factory town of Lowell,
Massachusetts.
Farm Worker to Factory Worker
Under the strict control of female supervisors, a work force—consisting almost
entirely of unmarried farm girls—clustered in Lowell and the other mill towns
that soon dotted New England. At their boarding houses, the “mill girls” lived
under strict curfews. The girls’ behavior and church attendance was closely mon-
itored, but despite this scrutiny, most mill girls found time to enjoy the company
of their coworkers. By 1828 women made up nine-tenths of the work force in the
New England mills, and four out of five of the women were not yet 30 years old.
260 C
HAPTER 8
▼
Families used
spinning wheels
to spin yarn,
which they wove
into cloth on
home looms. They
sold their cloth to
local merchants.
A
MAIN IDEA
MAIN IDEA
A
Analyzing
Effects
How did
factory production
change American
manufacturing?
A. Answer
Factory produc-
tion reduced the
cost of making
and repairing
goods. It al-
lowed unskilled
laborers to han-
dle tasks that
had required
skilled workers.
GEOGRAPHY
SKILLBUILDER
Region:
Footwear and
clothing.
Location: The
three cities are
located on or
near rivers. The
rivers were nat-
ural highways
for shipping
goods, provided
waterpower to
operate machin-
ery, and allowed
for quick dispos-
al of waste.
p0259-265aspe-0208s4 10/16/02 4:02 PM Page 260
Page 2 of 7
Reforming American Society 261
W
a
b
a
s
h
R
i
v
e
r
Monongahela
River
Allegheny
River
Schuylkill
River
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d
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ATLANTIC
OCEAN
Chesapeake
Bay
D
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u
r
o
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Lake Erie
L
a
k
e
O
n
t
a
r
i
o
Baltimore
Cleveland
Buffalo
Cincinnati
Pittsburgh
Philadelphia
Louisville
Richmond
Washington, D.C.
New York
Boston
Brooklyn
Newark
Detroit
Chicago
St. Louis
ILLINOIS
INDIANA
MISSOURI
IOWA
WISCONSIN
OHIO
MICHIGAN
KENTUCKY
VIRGINIA
MD.
PENN.
DEL.
N.J.
R.I.
CONN.
MASS.
N.H.
MAINE
VT.
NEW
YORK
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
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C
C
F
F
F
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F
F
F
F
N
S
E
W
Cities with over 100,000 population
Flour
Textiles
Clothing and footwear
Iron and copper ore
Coal
Timber
Machinery and equipment
Weaponry
Canal
Railroad
F
C
0
050100 kilometers
50 100 miles
Northern Cities and Industry, 1830–1850
GEOGRAPHY SKILLBUILDER
1.
Region In areas where the textile industry
was strong, what other industry was also
prominent?
2.
Place How did the sites of New York City,
Philadelphia, and Cincinnati encourage
their growth as industrial towns?
This depiction of Lowell,
Massachusetts, in 1834 shows the
factories along the river banks.
▼
p0259-265aspe-0208s4 10/16/02 4:02 PM Page 261
Page 3 of 7
THE LOWELL MILL
Mill owners hired females because
they could pay them lower wages than men who did simi-
lar jobs. To the girls in the mills, though, textile work
offered better pay than their only alternatives: teaching,
sewing, and domestic work. In an 1846 letter to her father
in New Hampshire, 16-year-old Mary Paul expressed her
satisfaction with her situation at Lowell.
A P
ERSONAL VOICE MARY PAUL
“ I am at work in a spinning room tending four sides of
warp which is one girl’s work. The overseer tells me that
he never had a girl get along better than I do. . . . I have
a very good boarding place, have enough to eat. . . . The
girls 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 Experience
Like Mary Paul, who eventually left factory work to
pursue other work, most female workers stayed at Lowell for
only a few years. Harriet Hanson Robinson, a mill girl who
later became involved in the abolition and women’s rights
movements, applauded the mill girls’ influence in carrying
“new fashions, new books, new ideas” back to their homes.
CONDITIONS AT LOWELL
The workday at Lowell began at
5
A.M
., Mary Paul wrote her father, with a bell ringing “for
the folks to get up. At seven they are called to
the mill. At
half past twelve we have dinner, are called back again at
one and stay until half past seven.”
These hours probably didn’t seem long to farm girls,
but heat, darkness, and poor ventilation in the factories
contributed to discomfort and illness. Overseers would
nail windows shut to seal in the humidity they thought
prevented 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 cotton
dust to make breathing difficult.
Mill conditions continued to deteriorate in the 1830s.
Managers forced workers to increase their pace. Between
1836 and 1850, Lowell owners tripled the number of spin-
dles and looms but hired only 50 percent more workers to operate them. Factory
rules tightened too. After gulping a noon meal, workers now had to rush back to
the weaving rooms to avoid fines for lateness. Mill workers began to organize. In
1834, the Lowell mills announced a 15 percent wage cut. Eight hundred mill girls
conducted a strike, a work stoppage in order to force an employer to respond to
demands.
STRIKES AT LOWELL
Under the heading “UNION IS POWER,” the Lowell Mills
strikers of 1834 issued a proclamation declaring that they would not return to
work “unless our wages are continued to us as they have been.” For its part, the
company threatened to recruit local women to fill the strikers’ jobs. Criticized by
the Lowell press and clergy, most of the strikers agreed to return to work at
reduced wages. The mill owners fired the strike leaders.
In 1836, Lowell mill workers struck again, this time over an increase in their
board charges that was equivalent to a 12.5 percent pay cut. Twice as many
262 C
HAPTER 8
B
N
O
W
N
O
W
T
H
E
N
T
H
E
N
MAIN IDEA
MAIN IDEA
B
Analyzing
Causes
What factors
contributed to the
worsening condi-
tions workers
endured at Lowell
beginning in the
1830s?
B. Answer
Managers made
workers work
faster and gave
them less free
time. Rules
became moe
rigid.
FROM THE ASHES
Malden Mills, the largest employ-
er in Lawrence, Massachusetts
(near Lowell) was devasted by
fire in December 1995, as shown
above.
The mills’ owner, septuagenari-
an Aaron Feuerstein, not only
announced that he intended to
rebuild but pledged to keep his
employees on the payroll during
reconstruction.
To much acclaim for his gen-
erosity, Mr. Feuerstein said:
“Everything I did after the fire
was in keeping with the ethical
standards I’ve tried to maintain
my entire life. . . . Whether I
deserve it or not, I guess I
became a symbol of what the
average worker would like cor-
porate America to be in a time
when the American dream has
been pretty badly injured.”
After it was rebuilt, production
of Malden Mills’ popular synthetic
product—Polartec—doubled.
p0259-265aspe-0208s4 10/16/02 4:02 PM Page 262
Page 4 of 7
women participated as had two years earlier. Only 11 years old at the time of the
strike, Harriet Hanson later recalled the protest.
A PERSONAL VOICE HARRIET HANSON
“ As I looked back at the long line that followed me, I was more proud than I have
ever been since at any success I may have achieved, and more proud than I shall
ever be again until my own beloved State gives to its women citizens the right of
suffrage [voting].
”
—quoted in Women’s America: Refocusing the Past
Again, the company prevailed. It fired the strike leaders and dismissed Harriet
Hanson’s widowed mother, a boarding-house supervisor. Most of the strikers
returned to their spindles and looms.
In the 1840s, the mill girls took their concerns to the political arena. In 1845,
Sarah Bagley founded the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association to petition the
Massachusetts state legislature for a ten-hour workday. The proposed legislation
failed, but the Lowell Association was able to help defeat a local legislator who
opposed the bill.
Workers Seek Better Conditions
Conditions for all workers deteriorated during the 1830s. Skilled artisans, who
had originally formed unions to preserve their own interests, began to ally them-
selves with unskilled laborers. When Philadelphia coal workers struck for a
10-hour day and a wage increase in 1835, for example, carpenters, printers, and
other artisans joined them in what became the first general strike in the
United States.
Although only 1 or 2 percent of U.S. workers were organized, the
1830s and 1840s saw dozens of strikes—many for higher wages, but
some for a shorter workday. Employers won most of these strikes
because they could easily replace unskilled workers with strikebreakers
who would toil long hours for low wages. Many strikebreakers were
immigrants who had fled even worse poverty in Europe.
IMMIGRATION INCREASES
European immigration rose dramatically in the
United States between 1830 and 1860. In the decade 1845–1854 alone nearly
Reforming American Society 263
“ I regard my work
people just as I
regard my
machinery.”
TEXTILE MILL MANAGER, 1840s
▼
Lowell mill
workers often
lived in company-
owned boarding
houses.
C
MAIN IDEA
MAIN IDEA
C
Evaluating
Decisions
Based on the
results, do you
think the decision
to strike at Lowell
was a good one?
Explain.
C. Possible
Answers
Yes: because it
made the work-
ers’ grievances
known.
No: because it
did not bring
about change.
p0259-265aspe-0208s4 10/16/02 4:02 PM Page 263
Page 5 of 7
3 million immigrants were added to the U.S. population
that had numbered just over 20 million. The majority of the
immigrants were German or Irish.
Most immigrants avoided the South because slavery lim-
ited their economic opportunity. What’s more, Southerners
were generally hostile to European, particularly Catholic,
immigrants. German immigrants clustered in the upper
Mississippi Valley and in the Ohio Valley. Most German
immigrants had been farmers in Europe, but some became
professionals, artisans, and shopkeepers in the United States.
A SECOND WAVE
Irish immigrants settled in the large
cities of the East. Nearly a million Irish immigrants had set-
tled in America between 1815 and 1844. Between 1845 and
1854 Irish immigration soared after a blight destroyed the
peasants’ staple crop, potatoes, which led to a famine in
Ireland. The Great Potato Famine killed as many as 1 mil-
lion of the Irish people and drove over 1 million more to
new homes in America.
Irish immigrants faced bitter prejudice, both because
they were Roman Catholic and because they were poor.
Frightened by allegations of a Catholic conspiracy to take
over the country, Protestant mobs in New York,
Philadelphia, and Boston rampaged through Irish neigh-
borhoods. Native-born artisans, whose wages had fallen because of competition
from unskilled laborers and factory production, considered Irish immigrants the
most unfair competition of all. Their willingness to work for low wages under ter-
rible conditions made the desperate Irish newcomers easy prey for employers who
sought to break strikes with cheap labor.
NATIONAL TRADES’ UNION
In their earliest attempts to organize, journeymen
formed trade unions specific to each trade. For example, journeymen shoemakers
264 C
HAPTER 8
This 1848
engraving shows
immigants
arriving in New
York City from
Europe.
E
C
O
N
O
M
I
C
E
C
O
N
O
M
I
C
IRISH IMMIGRANTS STRIKE
Smarting from the hostility
around them, Irish immigrants
soon began to view unions as an
opportunity to advance their
prospects. In fact, Irish dock
workers organized New York
City’s most famous strike of
the 1840s.
When Irish women tailors orga-
nized the Ladies Industrial
Association in New York City in
1845, their leader, Elizabeth Gray,
denounced “tyrant employers.”
Though employers retained
great power through the 1840s,
unions did manage to win a few
victories.
▼
p0259-265aspe-0208s4 10/16/02 4:02 PM Page 264
Page 6 of 7
organized one of the nation’s earliest strikes in 1806. During the
1830s, the trade unions in different towns began to join together to
establish unions for such trades as carpentry, shoemaking, weaving,
printing, and comb making. By means of these unions, the workers
sought to standardize wages and conditions throughout each industry.
In a few cities the trade unions united to form federations. In
1834, for example, journeymen’s organizations from six industries
formed the largest of these unions, the National Trades’ Union,
which lasted until 1837. The trade-union movement faced fierce oppo-
sition from bankers and owners, who threatened the unions by form-
ing associations of their own. In addition, workers’ efforts to organize
were at first hampered by court decisions declaring strikes illegal.
COURT BACKS STRIKERS
In 1842, however, the Massachusetts
Supreme Court supported workers’ right to strike in the case of
Commonwealth v. Hunt. In this case, Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw
declared that Boston’s journeymen bootmakers could act “in such a
manner as best to subserve their own interests.” A prominent
American court finally had upheld the rights of labor. Although by
1860 barely 5,000 workers were members of what would now be called
labor unions, far larger numbers of workers, 20,000 or more, partici-
pated in strikes for improved working conditions and wages.
The religious and social reform movements in the nation in the
mid-19th century went hand in hand with economic changes that
set in place the foundation for the modern American economy.
While some Americans poured their efforts into reforming society,
others sought new opportunities for economic growth and expan-
sion. As the nation adjusted to the newly emerging market economy,
migration west became a popular option.
Reforming American Society 265
D
MAIN IDEA
MAIN IDEA
D
Evaluating
Why was the
national trade
union movement
important?
MAIN IDEA
2. TAKING NOTES
In a chart like the one shown,
name things that contributed to
the changing workplace in the
first half of the 19th century.
Which of these are still part of the
workplace today?
CRITICAL THINKING
3. ANALYZING ISSUES
Do you think the positive effects
of mechanizing the manufacturing
process outweighed the negative
effects? Why or why not?
Think About:
• changes in job opportunities for
artisans, women, and unskilled
male laborers
• changes in employer-employee
relationships
• working conditions in factories
• the cost of manufactured goods
4. EVALUATING DECISIONS
If you were working in a factory during
the mid-1800s, would you be a striker
or a strikebreaker? Support your
choice with details from the text.
5. IDENTIFYING PROBLEMS
How did the influx of new
immigrants from Germany and
Ireland affect circumstances in
the American workplace?
The Changing
Workplace
•cottage industry
•master
•journeyman
•apprentice
•strike
•National Trades’ Union
1. TERMS & NAMES For each term or name, write a sentence explaining its significance.
D. Answer
The movement
was important
because it
united workers
from a variety
of occupations
into one labor
organization.
▼
This trade union banner was made
for the glass cutters organization
around 1840.
p0259-265aspe-0208s4 10/16/02 4:02 PM Page 265
Page 7 of 7
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