Mind Amongst the Spindles. A Miscellany, Wholly Composed by the Factory Girls

Mind Amongst the Spindles. A Miscellany, Wholly Composed by the Factory Girls

In the American state of Massachusetts, one of the New England states, which was colonized by the stern Puritans who were driven from our country by civil and religious persecution, has sprung up within the last thirty years the largest manufacturing town of the vast republic. Lowell is situated not a great distance from Boston, at the confluence of the rivers Merrimac and Concord. The falls of these rivers here afford a natural moving power for machinery; and at the latter end of the year 1813 a small cotton manufacture was here set up, where the sound of labor had not been heard before. The original adventure was not a prosperous one. But in 1826 the works were bought by a company or corporation; and from that time Lowell has gone on so rapidly increasing that it is now held to be "the greatest manufacturing city in America." According to Mr. Buckingham, there are now ten companies occupying or working thirty mills, and giving employment to more than 10,000 operatives, of whom 7,000 are females. The situation of the female population is, for the most part, a peculiar one. Unlike the greater number of the young women in our English factories, they are not brought up to the labor of the mills, amongst parents who are also workers in factories. They come from a distance; many of them remain only a limited time; and they live in boarding houses expressly provided for their accommodation. Miss Martineau,[vi] in her "Society in America," explains the cause not only of the large proportion of females in the Lowell mills, but also of their coming from distant parts in search of employment: "Manufactures can to a considerable degree be carried on by the labor of women; and there is a great number of unemployed women in New England, from the circumstance that the young men of that region wander away in search of a settlement on the land, and after being settled find wives in the south and west." Again, she says, "Many of the girls are in the factories because they have too much pride for domestic service." In October, 1840, appeared the first number of a periodical work entitled "The Lowell Offering." The publication arose out of the meetings of an association of young women called "The Mutual Improvement Society." It has continued at intervals of a month or six weeks, and the first volume was completed in December, 1841. A second volume was concluded in 1842. The work was under the direction of an editor, who gives his name at the end of the second volume,Abel C. Thomas. The duties which this gentleman performed are thus stated by him in the preface to the first volume: "The two most important questions which may be suggested shall receive due attention. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 37471
Author: Martineau, Harriet
Release Date: Sep 18, 2011
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Editor: Knight, Charles, 1791-1873