D. CHILDREN IN FACTORIES

By the 1830's the use of child factory labor was common not only in cotton textile manufacture but also in the printing, dyeing, iron, glass, and shoe industries. Children in factories worked from ten to twelve hours per day for wages ranging from twenty-five to fifty cents.

1. Families at the Slater mills

Letters and misc. 1824-1837, XXVI, Slater Papers, Baker Library, Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration, Boston, Mass.

A m[emorandum] of an agreement made and entered into by and between Jesse S. ––- of Thompson in the County of Windham and State of Connecticut. Labourer on the one part and Slater & Howard of Dudley in the County of Worcester and State of Massachusetts Woolen manufacture on the other part. Witnesseth said S––- on his part agree to work for said Slater & Howard one year from the first day of April next with his family viz my son Joseph at six shilling per week. My son William at ten shillings per week and my son Lyman seventeen shillings per week for myself - four dollars per week the whole amt. . . . to be payable at the expiration of one year. I also agree for myself and family to work faithfully for said Slater & Howard at any branch of business they may think most to their benefit and I also agree for myself and family at all times while in their employ to abide to the order and rules of this said Slater & Howard in their establishment.

Said Slater & Howard agree to pay unto said S for himself and family the above mentioned sums as above . . . at the expiration of one year that is to say after that rate for all the time the said S and family may work. The said Slater & Howard agreed to find a dwelling house for said S and family to dwell in and said S paying said Slater & Howard the sum of twenty-five dollars at the expiration of this contract as witness our hand dated at Dudley February 18th, A.D. 1823.

A memorandum of an agreement made and concluded by and between Josiah Moutton of Stasford, Connecticut and Slater & Howard of Dudley for the time of one year to commence the first day of April next 1827 - the contract to end the first of April 1828. Said Moutton on his part agrees for himself and six children viz my sons Mark, John, James, Josiah & Othniel and daughter Elizabeth for the consideration of six hundred and twenty dollars for their faithful performance according to the order and regulation. Slater & Howard, Establishment.

Said Slater & Howard agree to pay to Josiah Moutton six hundred and twenty dollars for the faithful performance in discharging this duty in the different branches of Slater & Howard Establishment by said Moutton and six children and that I will for myself and family agree to do everything according to direction of Slater & Howard during one year to commence April 1st, 1827 and end April 1828. Witness our hands, dated at Dudley Feb. – 5th A.D. 1827.

George Smith Josiah Moutton

Paul Dodge Slater & Howard

[In a subsequent contract for 1828-29, signed February 23, 1828, the wages were specified for each member of the Moutton family.]

Josaiah $16.00 per month $192.00 per year

Mark 15.87" " 182.00" "

John 8.67 " " 104.00 " "

James 6.50 " " 78.00 " "

Elizabeth 4.70 " " 56.33 " "

Josaiah 4.33 " " 52.00 " "

$58.62 " " $703.33 " "

2. Wanted: white women, boys, and girls

The Federal Union (Milledgeville, Ga.), Sept. 3, 1834.

NOTICE. The Eatonton Manufacturing Company have now the pleasure of informing the public, that their Cotton and Woollen Manufactory will be ready to commence operations in a few days, and will probably be in full operation by the 20th of next month (September). A large supply of Cotton Yarn, from No.3 to No. 20, will be constantly for sale; and, as they expect to weave from six to eight hundred yards of Cloth per day, they will be able to sell that quantity of the various qualities. Their Woollen Manufactory will be very complete; and first, in operation, they will card wool, or card and spin wool, or card, spin and weave Woollen Yarn on Cotton Warp, and make an excellent article for Negroes' winter clothing. . . They. . . wish to hire twenty to thirty suitable laborers to work in the Factory. White women, girls and boys are such as will be wanted, aged ten years or upwards. Entire families may find it to their interest to engage in our service. A good house of entertainment will be kept near the Factory.

Eatonton, August 22, 1833.

The cotton textile mills established in Lowell, Massachusetts during the 1820's employed many young women in their late teens and early twenties who had been recruited from rural families to work for "gain" rather than "bread." [1a] The Lowell girls, although the most publicized of early nineteenth-century New England factory employees, were not typical textile workers. In dress, deportment, and educational aspiration these "ladies of the 1oom," living in boardinghouses supervised by their employers, constituted a distinct element in the labor force. In the 1840's some of them contributed poems, stories, essays, and sketches of factory life to the Lowell Offering. [1b]

1a. On the Lowell system of factory organization see Caroline Ware, Early New England Cotton Manufacture (New York, 1966), p. 60

1b. The Lowell Offering: A Repository of Original Articles Written Exclusively by Females Actively Employed in the Mills, 1841-1845, 5 vols., and the New England Offering: A Magazine of Industry Written by Females Who are or Who Have Been Factory Operatives, 1845-1850, 3 vols., edited by Harriet Farley, were preceded by an earlier periodical, The Operatives' Magazine, 1840-1841, edited by Lydia S. Hall and Abby A. Goddard. See Lucy Larcom, A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Boston and New York), pp. 209-225.

1. The official picture, 1845

Massachusetts, House, "Report on Hours of Labor, 1845," Doc. 50, Documents, 1845 (Boston, 1845), p. 10.

In Lowell, but very few (in some mills none at all) enter into the factories under the age of fifteen. None under that age can be admitted, unless they bring a certificate from the school teacher, that he or she has attended school at least three months during the preceding twelve. Nine-tenths of the factory population in Lowell come from the country. They are farmers' daughters. Many of them come over a hundred miles to enter the mills. Their education has been attended to in the district schools, which are dotted like diamonds over every square mile of New England. Their moral and religious characters have been formed by pious parents, under the paternal roof. Their bodies have been developed, and their constitutions made strong by pure air, wholesome food, and youthful exercise.

After an absence of a few years, having laid by a few hundred dollars, they depart for their homes, get married, settle down in life, and become the heads of families. Such, we believe, in truth, to be a correct statement of the Lowell operatives, and of the hours of labor.

2. The workers' testimony

Massachusetts, House, "Report on Hours of Labor, 1845," pp. 2-3, 5, 6-9.

The first petitioner who testified was Eliza R. Hemmingway. She had worked 2 years and 9 months in the Lowell Factories, 2 years in the Middlesex, and 9 months in the Hamilton Corporations. Her employment is weaving, works by the piece. The Hamilton Mill manufactures cotton fabrics. The Middlesex, woollen fabrics. She is now at work in the Middlesex Mills, and attends one loom. Her wages average from $16 to $23 a month exclusive of board. She complained of the hours for labor being too many, and the time for meals too limited. In the summer season, the work is commenced at 5 o'clock, A.M., and continued till 7 o'clock, P.M., with half an hour for breakfast and three quarters of an hour for dinner. During eight months of the year, but half an hour is allowed for dinner. The air in the room she considered not to be wholesome. There were 293 small lamps and 61 large lamps lighted in the room in which she worked, when evening work is required. These lamps are also lighted sometimes in the morning. - About 130 females, 11 men, and 12 children (between the ages of 11 and 14) work in the room with her. She thought the children enjoyed about as good health as children generally do. The children work but 9 months out of 12. The other 3 months they must attend school. Thinks that there is no day when there are less than six of the females out of the mill from sickness. Has known as many as thirty. She, herself, is out quite often, on account of sickness. There was more sickness in the Summer than in the Winter months: though in the Summer, lamps are not lighted.

Miss Olive J. Clark. - She is employed on the Lawrence Corporation; has been there five years; makes about $1.62 1/2 per week, exclusive of board. She has been home to New Hampshire to school. Her health never was good. The work is not laborious; can sit down about a quarter of the time. About fifty girls work in the spinning-room with her, three of whom signed the petition. She is in favor of the ten hour system, and thinks that the long hours had an effect upon her health. She is kindly treated by her employers. There is hardly a week in which there is not some one out on account of sickness. Thinks the air is bad, on account of the small particles of cotton which fly about. She has never spoken with the agent or overseer about working only ten hours.

Mr. Gilman Gale, a member of the city council, and who keeps a provision store, testified that the short time allowed for meals he thought the greatest evil. He spoke highly of the character of the operatives and of the agents; also of the boarding houses and the public schools. He had two children in the mills who enjoyed good health. The mills are kept as clean and as well ventilated as it is possible for them to be.

Mr. Herman Abbott had worked in the Lawrence Corporation 13 years. Never heard much complaint among the girls about the long hours, never heard the subject spoken of in the mills. Does not think it would be satisfactory to the girls to work only ten hours, if their wages were to be reduced in proportion. Forty-two girls work in the room with him. The girls often get back to the gate before the bell rings.

On Saturday the 1st of March, a portion of the Committee went to Lowell to examine the mills, and to observe the general appearance of the operatives therein employed. They arrived at Lowell after an hour's ride upon the railroad. They first proceeded to the Merrimack Cotton Mills, in which are employed usually 1200 females and 300 males. They were permitted to visit every part of the works and to make whatever inquiries they pleased of the persons employed. They found every apartment neat and clean, and the girls, so far as personal appearance went, healthy and robust, as girls are in our country towns.

The Committee also visited the Massachusetts and Boott Mills, both of which manufacture cotton goods. The same spirit of thrift and cleanliness, of personal comfort and contentment, prevailed there. The rooms are large and well lighted, the temperature comfortable, and in most of the window silIs were numerous shrubs and plants, such as geraniums, roses, and numerous varieties of the cactus. These were the pets of the factory girls, and they were to the Committee convincing evidence of the elevated moral tone and refined taste of the operatives.

The Committee also visited the Lowell and the Middlesex mills; in the first of which carpets are manufactured, and in the second, broadcloths, cassimeres, &c. These being woollen mills, the Committee did not expect to find that perfect cleanliness which can be and has been attained in cotton mills. It would, however, be difficult to institute a comparison between the mills on this point, or to suggest an improvement. Not only is the interior of the mills kept in the best order, but great regard has been paid by many of the agents to the arrangement of the enclosed grounds. Grass plats have been laid out, trees have been planted, and fine varieties of flowers in their season, are cultivated within the factory grounds. In short, every thing in and about the mills, and the boarding houses appeared, to have for its end, health and comfort. The same remark would apply to the city generally. Your committee returned fully satisfied, that the order, decorum, and general appearance of things in and about the mills, could not be improved by any suggestion of theirs, or by any act of the Legislature.

From Mr. Clark, the agent of the Merrimack Corporation we obtained the following table of the time which the mills run during the year.

Begin work. #9; – From 1st May to 31st August, at 5 o'clock.

From 1st September to 30^th April, as soon as they can see.

Breakfast. – From 1st November to 28^th February, before going to work.

From 1st March to 31st of March, at 71/2 o'clock.

From 1st April to 19th September, at 7 o'clock.

From 20th Sept. to 31st October, at 71/2 o'clock. Return in half an hour.

Dinner. – Through the year at 121/2 o'clock.

From 1st May to 31st Aug. return in 45 minutes.

From 1st Sept. to 30th April, return in 30 minutes.

Quit work. – From 1st May to 31st August, at 7 o'clock.

From 1st September to 19^th Sept., at dark.

From 20th Sept. to 19^th March, at 71/2 o'clock.

From 20th March to 30^th April, at dark.

Lamps are never lighted on Saturday evenings. The above is the time which is kept in all the mills in Lowell, with a slight difference in the machine shop; and it makes the average daily time throughout the year, of running the mills, to be 12 hours and ten minutes.

There are four days in the year which are observed as holidays, and on which the mills are never put in motion. These are Fast Day, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day. These make one day more than is usually devoted to pastime in any other place in New England. The following table shows the average hours of work per day, throughout the year, in the Lowell Mills:

2a. The hours of labor on the 1st of March are less than in February, even though the days are a little longer, because 30 minutes are allowed for breakfast from the 1st of March to the 1st of September. [Note in House "Report."]

3. Regulations for workers in the factories of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, Lowell, 1848

Hand-book for the Visitor to Lowell (Lowell, 1848), pp. 42-44.

All persons in the employ of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, are to observe the regulations of the room where they are employed. They are not to be absent from their work without the consent of the overseer, except in cases of sickness, and then they are to send him word of the cause of their absence. They are to board in one of the houses of the company and give information at the counting room, where they board, when they begin, or, whenever they change their boarding place; and are to observe the regulations of their boardinghouse.

Those intending to leave the employment of the company, are to give at least two weeks' notice thereof to their overseer.

All persons entering into the employment of the company, are considered as engaged for twelve months, and those who leave sooner, or do not comply with all these regulations, will not be entitled to a regular discharge.

The company will not employ anyone who is habitually absent from public worship on the Sabbath, or known to be guilty of immorality.

A physician will attend once in every month at the counting-room, to vaccinate all who may need it, free of expense.

Anyone who shall take from the mills or the yard, any yarn, cloth or other article belonging to the company, will be considered guilty of stealing, and be liable to prosecution.

Payments will be made monthly, including board and wages. The accounts will be made up to the last Saturday but one in every month, and paid in the course of the following week.

These regulations are considered part of the contract, with which all persons entering into the employment of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, engage to comply.

John Avery, Agent.

1. The memories of an early mill girl

Harriet Robinson, Loom and Spindle, or Life

Among the Early Mill Girls (Boston, 1898), pp.25-37, 39,60-61.

Harriet Jane Hanson Robinson (18251911), a fighter for women's rights and one of the organizers of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, was ten years old when she went to work in a Lowell mill.

In attempting to describe the life and times of the early mill-girls, it has seemed best for me to write my story in the first person; not so much because my own experience is of importance, as that it is, in some respects, typical of that of many others who lived and worked with me.

Our home was in Boston, in Leverett Court, now Cotting Street, where I was born the year the corner-stone was laid for the Bunker Hill Monument, as my mother told me always to remember.

In 1831, under the shadow of a great sorrow, which had made her four children fatherless, the oldest but seven years of age, - my mother was left to struggle alone; and, although she tried hard to earn bread enough to fill our hungry mouths, she could not do it, even with the help of kind friends. And so it happened that one of her more wealthy neighbors, who had looked with longing eyes on the one little daughter of the family, offered to adopt me. But my mother, who had had a hard experience in her youth in living amongst strangers, said, "No; while I have one meal of victuals a day, I will not part with my children." I always remembered this speech because of the word "victuals," and I wondered for a long time what this good old Bible word meant.

My father was a carpenter, and some of his fellow-workmen helped my mother to open a little shop, where she sold small stores, candy, kindling-wood, and so on, but there was no great income from this, and we soon became poorer than ever.

. . . And so I went to the sewing-school, like any other little girl who was taking lessons in sewing and not as a "charity child"; until a certain day when something was said by one of the teachers, about me, as a "poor little girl," - a thoughtless remark, no doubt, such as may be said to-day in "charity schools." When I went home I told my mother that the teacher said I was poor, and she replied in her sententious manner, "You need not go there again."

Shortly after this my mother's widowed sister, Mrs. Angeline Cudworth, who kept a factory boarding-house in Lowell, advised her to come to that city. She secured a house for her, and my mother, with her little brood and her few household belongings, started for the new factory town.

I had been to school constantly until I was about ten years of age, when my mother, feeling obliged to have help in her work besides what I could give, and also needing the money which I could earn, allowed me, at my urgent request (for I wanted to earn money like the other little girls), to go to work in the mill. I worked first in the spinning-room as a "doffer." The doffers were the very youngest girls, whose work was to doff, or take off, the full bobbins, and replace them with the empty ones.

I can see myself now, racing down the alley, between the spinning-frames, carrying in front of me a bobbin-box bigger than I was. These mites had to be very swift in their movements, so as not to keep the spinning-frames stopped long, and they worked only about fifteen minutes in every hour. The rest of the time was their own, and when the overseer was kind they were allowed to read, knit, or even to go outside the mill-yard to play.

Some of us learned to embroider in crewels, and I still have a lamb worked on cloth, a relic of those early days, when I was first taught to improve my time in the good old New England fashion. When not doffing, we were often allowed to go home, for a time, and thus we were able to help our mothers in their housework. We were paid two dollars a week; and how proud I was when my turn came to stand up on the bobbin-box, and write my name in the paymaster's book, and how indignant I was when he asked me if I could "write." "Of course I can," said I, and he smiled as he looked down on me.

The working-hours of all the girls extended from five o'clock in the morning until seven in the evening, with one-half hour for breakfast and for dinner. Even the doffers were forced to be on duty nearly fourteen hours a day, and this was the greatest hardship in the lives of these children. For it was not until 1842 that the hours of labor for children under twelve years of age were limited to ten per day; but the "ten-hour law" itself was not passed until long after some of these little doffers were old enough to appear before the legislative committee on the subject, and plead, by their presence, for a reduction of the hours of labor.

I do not recall any particular hardship connected with this life, except getting up so early in the morning, and to this habit, I never was, and never shall be, reconciled, for it has taken nearly a lifetime for me to make up the sleep lost at that early age. But in every other respect it was a pleasant life. We were not hurried any more than was for our good, and no more work was required of us than we were able easily to do.

Most of us children lived at home, and we were well fed, drinking both tea and coffee, and eating substantial meals (besides luncheons) three times a day. We had very happy hours with the older girls, many of whom treated us like babies, or talked in a motherly way, and so had a good influence over us. And in the long winter evenings, when we could not run home between the doffings, we gathered in groups and told each other stories, and sung the old-time songs our mothers had sung, such as "Barbara Allen," "Lord Lovell," "Captain Kid," "Hull's Victory," and sometimes a hymn.

And we told each other of our little hopes and desires, and what we meant to do when we grew up. For we had our aspirations; and one of us, who danced the "shawl dance," as she called it, in the spinning-room alley, for the amusement of her admiring companions, discussed seriously with another little girl the scheme of their running away together, and joining the circus. Fortunately, there was a grain of good sense lurking in the mind of this gay little lassie, with the thought of the mother at home, and the scheme was not carried out. There was another little girl, whose mother was suffering with consumption, and who went out of the mill almost every forenoon, to buy and cook oysters, which she brought in hot, for her mother’s luncheon. The mother soon went to her rest, and the little daughter, after tasting the first bitter experience of life, followed her. . . . Many pathetic stories might be told of these little fatherless mill-children, who worked near their mothers, and who went hand in hand with them to and from the mill.

Holidays came when repairs to the great millwheel were going on, or some late spring freshet caused the shutting down of the mill; these were well improved. With what freedom we enjoyed those happy times! My summer playhouse was the woodshed, which my mother always had well filled; how orderly and with what precision the logs were sawed and piled with the smooth ends outwards. . .

The yard which led to the shed was always green, and here many half-holiday duties were performed. We children were expected to scour all the knives and forks used by the forty men-boarders, and my brothers often bought themselves off by giving me some trifle, and I was left alone to do the whole. And what a pile of knives and forks it was! But it was no task, for did I not have the open yard to work in, with the sky over me, and the green grass to stand on, as.I scrubbed away at my "stent"? I don't know why I did not think such long tasks a burden, nor of "my work in the mill as drudgery. Perhaps it was because I expected to do my part towards helping my mother to get our living, and had never heard her complain of the hardships of her life.

On other afternoons I went to walk with a playmate, who, like myself, was full of romantic dreams, along the banks of the Merrimack River, where the Indians had still their tents, or on Sundays, to see the "new converts" baptized. These baptizings in the river were very common, as the tanks in the churches were not considered apostolic by the early Baptists of Lowell.

Sometimes we rambled by the "race-way" or mill-race, which carried the water into the flume of the mill, along whose inclining sides grew wild roses, and the "rock-loving columbine"; and we used to listen to see if we could hear the blue-bells ring, - this was long before either of us had read a line of poetry.

I was a "little doffer" until I became old enough to earn more money; then I tended a spinning-frame for a little while; and after that I learned, on the Merrimack corporation, to be a drawing-in girl, which was considered one of the most desirable employments, as about only a dozen girls were needed in each mill. We drew in, one by one, the threads of the warp, through the harness and the reed, and so made the beams ready for the weaver's loom. I still have the two hooks I used so long, companions of many a dreaming hour, and preserve them as the "badge of all my tribe" of drawing-in girls.

It may be well to add that, although so many changes have been made in mill-work, during the last fifty years, by the introduction of machinery, this part of it still continues to be done by hand, and the drawing-in girl - I saw her last winter, as in my time - still sits on her high stool, and with her little hook patiently draws in the thousands of threads, one by one.

When I look back into the factory life of fifty or sixty years ago, I do not see what is called "a class" of young men and women going to and from their daily work, like so many ants that cannot be distinguished one from another; I see them as individuals, with personalities of their own. This one has about her the atmosphere of her early home. That one is impelled by a strong and noble purpose. The other, - what she is, has been an influence for good to me and to all womankind.

Yet they were a class of factory operatives, and were spoken of (as the same class is spoken of now) as a set of persons who earned their daily bread, whose condition was fixed, and who must continue to spin and to weave to the end of their natural existence. Nothing but this was expected of them, and they were not supposed to be capable of social or mental improvement. That they could be educated and developed into something more than mere work-people, was an idea that had not yet entered the public mind. So little does one class of persons really know about the thoughts and aspirations of another! It was the good fortune of these early mill-girls to teach the people of that time that this sort of labor is not degrading; that the operative is not only "capable of virtue," but also capable of self-cultivation.

At the time the Lowell cotton-mills were started, the factory girl was the lowest among women. In England, and in France particularly, great injustice had been done to her real character; she was represented as subjected to influences that could not fail to destroy her purity and self-respect. In the eyes of her overseer she was but a brute, a slave, to be beaten, pinched, and pushed about. It was to overcome this prejudice that such high wages had been offered to women that they might be induced to become mill-girls, in spite of the opprobrium that still clung to this "degrading occupation." At first only a few came; for, though tempted by the high wages to be regularly paid in "cash," there were many who still preferred to go on working at some more genteel employment at seventy-five cents a week and their board.

2. Mrs. Hanson renounces her rights to her fifteen-year-old daughter's earnings, 1840 Robinson, Loom and Spindle, pp. 67-68.

Be it known that I, Harriet Hanson, of Lowell, in consideration that 'my millor daughter Harriet J. has taken upon herself the whole burden of her own support, and has undertaken and agreed to maintain herself henceforward without expense to me, do hereby release and quitclaim unto her all profits and wages which she may hereafter earn or acquire by her skill or labor in any occupation, - and do hereby disclaim all right to collect or interfere with the same. And I do give and release unto her the absolute control and disposal of her own time according to her own discretion, without interference from me. It being understood that I am not to be chargeable hereafter with any expense on her account.

(signed) Harriet Hanson

July 2, 1840.

3. "It is just like play"

Larcom, A New England Girlhood, pp. 153-155.

Lucy Larcom (1824-1893), who later achieved modest fame as a poetess, was one of eight children in a family left destitute by the death of the father. Lucy worked in the Lowell mills for a few years in the 1840's before becoming a schoolteacher in Illinois.

The older members of the family did everything they could, but it was not enough. I heard it said one day, in a distressed tone, "The children will have to leave school and go into the mill."

There were many pros and cons between my mother and sisters before this was positively decided. The mill-agent did not want to take us two little girls, but consented on condition we should be sure to attend school the full number of months prescribed each year. I, the younger one, was then between eleven and twelve years old.

I listened to all that was said about it, very much' fearing that I should not be permitted to do the coveted work. For the feeling had already frequently come to me, that I was the one too many in the overcrowded family nest. Once, before we left our old home, I had heard a neighbor condoling with my mother because there were so many of us, and her emphatic reply had been a great relief to my mind:

"There isn't one more than I want. I could not spare a single one of my children."

But 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 little girls who were doing the same thing. When I came back at night, the family began to pity me for my long, tiresome day's work, but I laughed and said,

"Why, it is nothing but fun. It is just like play."

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. It impressed me with something of the awe which comes to us in thinking of the great Power which keeps the mechanism of the universe in motion. Even now, the remembrance of its large, mysterious movement, in which every little motion of every noisy little wheel was involved, brings back to me a verse from one of my favorite hymns: –

Our lives through various scenes are drawn,

And vexed by trifling cares,

While Thine eternal thought moves on Thy undisturbed affairs.

There were compensations for being shut in to daily toil so early. The mill itself had its lessons for us. But it was not, and could not be, the right sort of life for a child, and we were happy in the knowledge that, at the longest, our employment was only to be temporary.

4. Conflict between school and mill: "I would go to school again whatever happened"

Larcom, A New England Girlhood, pp. 155-159.

When I took my next three months at the grammar school, everything there was changed, and I too was changed. The teachers were kind, and thorough in their instruction; and my mind seemed to have been ploughed up during that year of work, so that knowledge took root in it easily. It was a great delight to me to study, and at the end of the three months the master told me that I was prepared for high school.

But alas! I could not go. 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. It was a severe disappointment to me, though I did not say so at home. . .

. . . I think the resolution was then formed, inwardly, that I would go to school again, some time, whatever happened. 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 be carried along with the current, and do just what everybody else did? No: I knew I should not do that, for there was a certain Myself who was always starting up with her own original plan or aspiration before me, and who was quite indifferent as to what people generally thought.

Well, I would find out what this Myself was good for, and that she should be!

It was but the presumption of extreme youth...

When I thought what I should best like to do, my first dream – almost a baby's dream – about it was that it would be a fine thing to be a schoolteacher, like Aunt Hannah. Afterward, when I heard that there were artists, I wished I could some time be one. A slate and pencil, to draw pictures, was my first request, whenever a day's ailment kept me at home from school; and I rather enjoyed being a little ill, for the sake of amusing myself in that way. The wish grew up with me; but there were no good drawing-teachers in those days, and if there had been, the cost of instruction would have been beyond the family means. My sister Emilie, however, who saw my taste and shared it herself, did her best to assist me, furnishing me with pencil and paper and paint-box.

If only I could make a rose bloom on paper, I thought I should be happy! or if I could at last succeed in drawing the outline of winter-stripped boughs as I saw them against the sky, it seemed to me that I should be willing to spend years in trying.

I seldom thought seriously of becoming an author. . . although now and then I thought I could feel ideas growing in my mind that it might be worth while to put into a book, - if I lived and studied until I was forty or fifty years old.

5. The factory girl's alma mater

Robinson, Loom and Spindle, pp. 40-46, 50-51.

As the cotton-factory was the means of the early schooling of so large a number of men and women, who, without the opportunity thus afforded, could not have been mentally so well developed, I love to call it their Alma Mater. For, without his incentive to labor, this chance to earn extra money and to use it in their own way, their influence on the times, and also, to a certain extent, on modern civilization, would certainly have been lost.

I had been to school quite constantly until I was nearly eleven years of age, and then, after going into the mill, I went to some of the evening schools that had been established, and which were always well filled with those who desired to improve their scant education, or to supplement what they had learned in the village school or academy. Here might often be seen a little girl puzzling over her sums in Colburn's Arithmetic, and at her side another "girl" of fifty poring over her lesson in Pierpont's National Reader.

The discipline our work brought us was of great value. We were obliged to be in the mill at just such a minute, in every hour, in order to doff our full bobbins and replace them with empty ones. We went to our meals and returned at the same hour every day. We worked and played at regular intervals, and thus our hands became deft, our fingers nimble, our feet swift, and we were taught daily habits of regularity and of industry; it was, in fact, a sort of manual training or industrial school.

Some of us were fond of reading, and we read all the books we could borrow. One of my mother's boarders, a farmer's daughter from "the State of Maine," had come to Lowell to work, for the express purpose of getting books, usually novels, to read, that she could not find in her native place. She read from two to four volumes a week; and we children used to get them from the circulating library, and return them, for her. In exchange for this, she allowed us to read her books, while she was at work in the mill; and what a scurrying there used to be home from school, to get the first chance at the new book!

It was as good as a fortune to us, and all for six and a quarter cents a week! In this way I read the novels of Richardson, Madame D'Arblay, Fielding, Smollett, Cooper, Scott, Captain Marryatt, and many another old book not included in Mr. Ruskin's list of "one hundred good books."

I read and studied also at my work; and as this was done by the job, or beam, if I chose to have a book in my lap, and glance at it at intervals, or even write a bit, nothing was lost to the "corporation."

Lucy Larcom, in her "New England Girlhood," speaks of the windows in the mill on whose sides were pasted newspaper clippings, which she calls "window gems." It was very common for the spinners and weavers to do this, as they were not allowed to read books openly in the mill; but they brought their favorite "pieces" of poetry, hymns, and extracts, and pasted them up over their looms or frames, so that they could glance at them, and commit them to memory. We little girls were fond of reading these clippings, and no doubt they were an incentive to our thoughts as well as to those of the older girls, who went to "The Improvement Circle," and wrote compositions.

1. In the governor's mill, 1835

Stephen A. Knight, "Reminiscences of Seventy-one years in the Cotton Spinning Industry," Transactions of the National Association of Cotton Manufacturers, LXXX (1906), 231-232.

On the first day of April in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five the writer of this paper commenced his labors in a cotton mill as bobbin boy, or, as it was termed in those days, back boy. The mill was in the state of Rhode Island being in the town of Coventry. It was owned by a man who was at one time Governor of Rhode Island, a man who was a progressive and intelligent manufacturer. His mill was "up-to-date" and among the most successful in the country at that time.

My work was to put in the roving on a pair of mules containing 256 spindles. It required three hands, – a spinner, a foreside piecer and a back boy, – to keep that pair of mules in operation. . .

The running time for that mill, on an average, was about fourteen hours per day. In the summer months we went in as early as we could see, worked about an hour and a half, and then had a half hour for breakfast. At twelve o'clock we had another half hour for dinner, and then we worked until the stars were out.

From September 20 until March 20, we went to work at five o'clock in the morning and came out at eight o'clock at night, having the same hours for meals as in the summer time.

For my services I was allowed forty-two cents per week, which, being analyzed, was seven cents per day, or one-half cent per hour.

The proprietor of that mill was accustomed to make a contract with his help on the first day of April, for the coming year. That contract was supposed to be sacred and it was looked upon as a disgrace to ignore the contracts thus made. On one of these anniversaries, a mother with several children suggested to the proprietor that the pay seemed small. The proprietor replied "You get enough to eat, don't you?" The mother said, "Just enough to keep the wolf from the door." He then remarked, "You get enough clothes to wear, don't you?" to which she answered, "Barely enough to cover our nakedness." "Well," said the proprietor, "We want the rest." And that proprietor, on the whole, was as kind and considerate to his help as was any other manufacturer at that time.

The opportunities for an education among the factory help were exceedingly limited, as you can well see, both from the standpoint of time and from the standpoint of money.

2. Andrew Carnegie gets his start in life, 1850

Andrew Carnegie, Autobiography (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920), pp. 31-38.

The great question now was, what could be found for me to do. I had just completed my thirteenth year, and I fairly panted to get to work that I might help the family to a start in the new land. The prospect of want had become to me a frightful nightmare. My thoughts at this period centered in the determination that we should make and save enough of money to produce three hundred dollars a year – twenty-five dollars monthly, which I figured was the sum required to keep us without being dependent upon others. Every necessary thing was very cheap in those days.

The brother of my Uncle Hogan would often ask what my parents meant to do with me, and one day there occurred the most tragic of all scenes I have ever witnessed. Never can I forget it. He said, with the kindest intentions in the world, to my mother, that I was a likely boy and apt to learn; and he believed that if a basket were fitted out for me with knickknacks to sell, I could peddle them around the wharves and make quite a considerable sum. I never knew what an enraged woman meant till then. My mother was sitting sewing at the moment, but she sprang to her feet with outstretched hands and shook them in his face.

"What! my son a peddler and go among rough men upon the wharves! I would rather throw him into the Allegheny River. Leave me!" she cried, pointing to the door, and Mr. Hogan went.

She stood a tragic queen. The next moment she had broken down, but only for a few moments did tears fall and sobs come. Then she took her two boys in her arms and told us not to mind her foolishness. There were many things in the world for us to do and we could be useful men, honored and respected, if we always did what was right.

Soon after this incident my father found it necessary to give up hand-loom weaving and to enter the cotton factory of Mr. Blackstock, an old Scotsman in Allegheny City, where we lived. In this factory he also obtained for me a position as bobbin boy, and my first work was done there atone dollar and twenty cents per week. It was a hard life. In the winter father and I had to rise and breakfast in the darkness, reach the factory before it was daylight, and, with a short interval for lunch, work till after dark. The hours hung heavily upon me and in the work itself I took no pleasure; but the cloud had a silver lining, as it gave me the feeling that I was doing something for my world - our family.

Soon after this Mr. John Hay, a fellow Scotch manufacturer of bobbins in Allegheny City, needed a boy, and asked whether I would not go into his service. I went, and received two dollars per week; but at first the work was even more irksome than the factory. I had to run a small steam-engine and to fire the boiler in the cellar of the bobbin factory. It was too much for me. I found myself night after night, sitting up in bed trying the steam gauges, fearing at one time that the steam was too low and that the workers above would complain that they had not power enough, and at another time that the steam was too high and that the boiler might burst.

But all this it was a matter of honor to conceal from my parents. They had their own troubles and bore them. I must play the man and bear mine. My hopes were high, and I looked every day for some change to take place. What it was to be I knew not, but that it would come I felt certain if I kept on. Besides, at this date I was not beyond asking myself what Wallace would have done and what a Scotsman ought to do. Of one thing I was sure, he ought never to give up.

One day the chance came. Mr. Hay had to make out some bills. He had no clerk, and was himself a' poor 'penman. He asked me what kind of hand I could write, and gave me some writing to do. The result pleased him, and he found it convenient thereafter to let me make out his bills. I was also good at figures; and he soon found it to be to his interest – and besides, dear old man, I believe he was moved by good feeling toward the white-haired boy, for he had a kind heart and was Scotch and wished to relieve me from the engine - to put me at other things, less objectionable except in one feature.

It now became my duty to bathe the newly made spools in vats of oil. Fortunately there was a room reserved for this purpose and I was alone, but not all the resolution I could muster, nor all the indignation I felt at my own weakness, prevented my stomach from behaving in a most perverse way. I never succeeded in overcoming the nausea produced by the smell of the oil. Even Wallace and Bruce proved impotent here. But if I had to lose breakfast, or dinner, I had all the better appetite for supper, and the allotted work was done. A real disciple of Wallace or Bruce could not give up; he would die first.

My service with Mr. Hay was a distinct advance upon the cotton factory, and I also made the acquaintance of an employer who was very kind to me. Mr. Hay kept his books in single entry, and I was able to handle them for him; but hearing that all great firms kept their books in double entry, and after talking over the matter with my companions, John Phipps, Thomas N. Miller, and William Cowley, we all determined to attend night school during the winter and learn the larger system. So the four of us went to a Mr. Williams in Pittsburgh and learned double-entry bookkeeping.

One evening, early in 1850, when I returned home from work, I was told that Mr. David Brooks, manager of the telegraph office, had asked my Uncle Hogan if he knew where a good boy could be found to act as messenger. Mr. Brooks and my uncle were enthusiastic draught-players, and it was over a game of draughts that this important inquiry was made. Upon such trifles do the most momentous consequences hang. A word, a look, an accent, may affect the destiny not only of individuals, but of nations. He is a bold man who calls anything a trifle. Who was it who, being advised to disregard trifles, said he always would if anyone could tell him what a trifle was? The young should remember that upon trifles the best gifts of the gods often hang.

My uncle mentioned my name, and said he would see whether I would take the position. I remember so well the family council that was held. Of course I was wild with delight. No bird that ever was confined in a cage longed for freedom more than I. Mother favored, but father was disposed to deny my wish. It would prove too much for me, he said; I was too young and too small. For the two dollars and a half per week offered it was evident that a much larger boy was expected. Late at night I might be required to run out into the country with a telegram, and there would be dangers to

My uncle mentioned my name, and said he would see whether I would take the position. I remember so well the family council that was held. Of course I was wild with delight. No bird that ever was confined in a cage longed for freedom more than I. Mother favored, but father was disposed to deny my wish. It would prove too much for me, he said; I was too young and too small. For the two dollars and a half per week offered it was evident that a much larger boy was expected. Late at night I might be required to run out into the country with a telegram, and there would be dangers to encounter. Upon the whole my father said that it was best that I should remain where I was. He subsequently withdrew his objection, so far as to give me leave to try, and I believe he went to Mr. Hay and consulted with him. Mr. Hay thought it would be for my advantage, and although, as he said, it would be an inconvenience to him, still he advised that I should try, and if I failed he was kind enough to say that my old place would be open for me.

This being decided, I was asked to go over the river to Pittsburgh and call on Mr. Brooks. My father wished to go with me, and it was settled that he should accompany me as far as the telegraph office, on the corner of Fourth and Wood Streets. It was a bright, sunshiny morning and this augured well. Father and I walked over from Allegheny to Pittsburgh, a distance of nearly two miles from our house. Arrived at the door I asked father to wait outside. I insisted upon going alone upstairs to the second or operating floor to see the great man and learn my fate. I was led to this, perhaps, because I had by that time begun to consider myself something of an American. At first boys used to call me "Scotchie! Schotchie!" and I answered, "Yes, I'm Scotch and I am proud of the name." But in speech and in address the broad Scotch had been worn off to a slight extent, and I imagined that I could make a smarter showing if alone with Mr. Brooks than if my good old Scotch father were present, perhaps to smile at my airs.

I was dressed in my one white linen shirt, which was usually kept sacred for the Sabbath day, my blue roundabout, and my whole Sunday suit. I had at that time, and for a few weeks after I entered the telegraph service, but one linen suit of summer clothing; and every Saturday night, no matter if that was my night on duty and I did not return till near midnight, my mother washed those clothes and ironed them, and I put them on fresh on Sabbath morning. There was nothing that heroine did not do in the struggle we were making for elbow room in the western world. Father's long factory hours tried his strength, but he, too, fought the good fight like a hero and never failed to encourage me.

The interview was successful. I took care to explain that I did not know Pittsburgh, that perhaps I would not do, would not be strong enough; but all I wanted was a trial. He asked me how soon I could come, and I said that I could stay now if wanted. And, looking back over the circumstance, I think that answer might well be pondered by young men. It is a great mistake not to seize the opportunity. The position was offered to me; something might occur, some other boy might be sent for. Having got myself in I proposed to stay there if I could. Mr. Brooks very kindly called the other boy for it was an additional messenger that was wanted - and asked him to show me about, and let me go with him and learn the business. I soon found opportunity to run down to the corner of the street and tell my father that it was all right, and to go home and tell mother that I had got the situation.

And that is how in 1850 I got my first real start in life. From the dark cellar running a steam-engine at two dollars a week, begrimed with coal dirt, without a trace of the elevating influences of life, I was lifted into paradise, yes, heaven, as it seemed to me, with newspapers, pens, pencils, and sunshine about me. There was scarcely a minute in which I could not learn and how little I knew. I felt that my foot was upon the ladder and that I was bound to climb.

Working girls in New York, 1845

1. Umbrella and parasol makers

New York Daily Tribune, Sept. 17, 1845.

There are many large establishments in the City, some of them giving employment to thirty or forty hands each. The youngest girls employed are about fifteen or sixteen years of age. Covering Umbrellas or Parasols requires a good deal of strength and skill, which are required to make the work fit nicely, and girls younger than fifteen are seldom employed in this business.

The girls who work at this business are mostly Americans. There are a few Germans and Irish; but the Americans are considered the best workers. . . There are some places in the City where the girls are required to furnish their own thread. – This to the uninitiated at first would appear to be no great hardship; but when we take into consideration the large numbers of umbrellas made and the few cents apiece these poor girls are allowed for their work on them, this thread becomes quite an important item.

The girls work about ten hours a day. They bring their dinners with them, as they generally live at such a distance from the establishment that it would take up too much of their time to go home and return again. They are paid for their work by the piece. Some of the girls at the establishment are permitted to take their work to their homes and do it there; but these are good and well-tried hands, who have been long employed. . . At the prices usually paid the girls at this trade can make, some of them twenty shillings, some three dollars and some who are extraordinarily smart, four and five dollars a week. There are many who do not earn twenty shillings. These are to be found chiefly among that class who work on the commonest umbrellas made of coarse muslins, cane frames, tin tips, &c. For covering these they get from four to six cents apiece. This is the kind of umbrellas which keep off a shower about as well as a sieve, and generally turn inside out when going round a corner.

2. Milliners

New York Daily Tribune, Sept. 16, 1845.

The condition of the Milliner-girls in respect to mental and physical education, moral and social refinement, and all those graces which create an atmosphere of enchantment around the female sex, must, as a general remark, be deplorable. In the keen and bitter competition which pervades every branch of business the price of labor is kept down to the lowest possible point – although one would suppose that the large profits of Millinery bore so magnificent relations to the cost of labor as to avoid the necessity of such a result. But when or where was the price of labor not cut down as low and as fast as possible? What branch of employers, as a class, have ever come forward to arrest the downward tendency of wages?

The Milliner-girls mostly go to the business very young and with a most deficient common education. While engaged in their apprenticeship they probably board with some poor relative or friend and have to work over-hours to pay for their homely accommodations and meager fare. They have of course no time for study; and we have never heard that their advantages for moral improvement were conspicuous. At the end of their apprenticeship, if they get work, they make $2.50 or $3 per week. Their board and washing cost at least $2 of this and their clothes must also be provided for somehow. What ought we to look for under these circumstances?

It is generally known that there is a class of pretended "Milliner shops" which are only used as a mask for the .most disgraceful practices. The proverbial notoriety of these has served in the minds of some persons to cast a stain upon all women engaged in the Millinery business. But this is cruel and unjust. As a general thing the Milliners are as virtuous as any other class of females exposed to similar trials, hardships and temptations. Let those who look harshly upon the errors and vices of the hard-working classes surround themselves in imagination with poverty, want, weariness, lack of healthful food and sleep, and ponder well on what would be their reflections on beholding the gay and joyous life of vice as it appears outwardly, and they will learn to pity while they do not cease to condemn the unfortunate guilty.

1. Robert Owen on child labor

Robert Owen, Observations on the Effect of the Manufacturing System, 2d ed. (London, 1817), pp. 9-11.

Robert Owen (1771-1858), the British reformer and socialist, agitated for child labor laws in Britain. He believed, however, that children over ten ought to work. Thus, in the utopian community which he founded in New Harmony, Indiana, in 1825, children shared the burden of labor.

In the manufacturing districts it is common for parents to send their children of both sexes at seven or eight years of age, in winter as well as summer, at six o'clock in the morning, sometimes of course in the dark, and occasionally amidst frost and snow, to enter the manufactories, which are often heated to a high temperature, and contain an atmosphere far from being the most favourable to human life, and in which all those employed in them very frequently continue until twelve o'clock at noon, when an hour is allowed for dinner, after which they return to remain, in a majority of cases, till eight o'clock at night.

The children now find they must labour incessantly for their bare subsistence: they have not been used to innocent, healthy, and rational amusements; they are not permitted the requisite time, if they had been previously accustomed to enjoy them. They know not what relaxation means, except by the actual cessation from labour. They are surrounded by others similarly circumstanced with themselves; and thus passing on from childhood to youth, they become gradually initiated, the young men in particular, but often the young females also, in the seductive pleasures of the pot-house and inebriation: for which their daily hard labour, want of better habits, and the general vacuity of their minds, tend to prepare them.

. . . The direct object of these observations is to effect the amelioration and avert the danger. The only mode by which these objects can be accomplished is to obtain an Act of Parliament,

1st. To limit the regular hours of labour in mills of machinery to 12 per day, including one hour and a half for meals.

2nd. To prevent children from being employed in mills of machinery until they shall be 10 years old, or that they shall not be employed more than 6 hours per day until they shall be 12 years old.

3rd. That children of either sex shall not be admitted into any manufactory, – after a time to be named, – until they can read and write in an useful manner, understand the first four rules of arithmetic, and the girls be likewise competent to sew their common garments of clothing.

2. Child labor at Brook Farm

Constitution of Brook Farm, in O. B. Frothingham, Transcendentalism in New England (Boston, 1903), p. 161.

Brook Farm, founded in 1841, was a product of transcendentalism. Its founder, George Ripley, a Boston Unitarian minister, aimed at creating a society which would afford a wholesome and simple life, free of the pressures of a competitive society.

Children over ten years of age shall be provided with employment in suitable branches of industry; they shall be credited for such portions of each annual dividend, as shall be decided by the Association, and on the completion of their education in the Association at the age of twenty, shall be entitled to a certificate of stock to the amount of credits in their favor, and may be admitted as members of the Association.