| Primary
Sources (Lowell Mill
Girls)
Time Table,
Factory and Boarding House Rules, Statistics, Pictorial Map, Song
Time
Table of the Lowell Mills (source:Baker Library, Harvard University)
Factory
Rules from the Handbook to Lowell, 1848, Massachusetts
Investigation into Labor Conditions, Factory Life Description, Boarding
House Rules from the Handbook to Lowell, 1848 (source: The Illinois
Labor History Society)
Statistics
of Lowell Manufacturers, January 1, 1835. Compiled from authentic sources.[Lowell
1835} (source: Library of Congress: American Memory)
Pictorial
Map of the Merrimack Company, Lowell, Massachusetts, c. 1850. (source:
Lowell Historical Society)
Illustrations
of the Lowell Mills and Factories (source: A Virtual Museum of Technology
and Everyday Life: The United States in the Industrial Age by Steve
Meyer)
Tintype
of two female weavers (source: Merrimack Valley Textile Museum)
"Song
of the Spinners" from the Lowell Offering, 1841. (source: Merrimack
Valley Textile Museum)
Writings
in the Lowell Offering
Cover
of the Lowell Offering
Title
page of the Lowell Offering, 1840 (source: Merrimack Valley
Textile Museum)
THE
SPIRIT OF DISCONTENT. [fiction from the Lowell Offering ca1840.]
Sarah
T: Tales of Factory Life, No. 1, Lowell Offering, 1841.
Harriet Farley,
one of the editors of the Lowell Offering, wrote a series of fictitious
"Letters From Susan" in 1844.
"Letters
from Susan," Letter First [fiction], Lowell Offering, 1844
"Letters
from Susan," Letter Second [fiction], Lowell Offering, 1844
(source: Associate Professor of English Deidre Johnson's course on Katherine
Paterson's Lyddie and Lowell, West Chester University, West Chester,
PA)
"Letters
from Susan," Letter Fourth [fiction], Lowell Offering, 1844
"Susan" discusses the reasons why women come to work in Lowell.
(source: Writing by New England Mill Girls, Benita Eisler, ed., (New
York, 1977). Used by permission by Old Sturbridge Village.)
"A
Week in the Mill," Lowell Offering, Vol. V (1845): 217-218.
[selection
from the Lowell Offering, 1844]
"A
Second Peep at Factory Life," Lowell Offering, 1845
(source: Workers and Work in America: 1600 to the Present (Men and
Women in the Early Industrial Era): A Multimedia Course. Gerald Zahavi,
Department of History, University at Albany)
The
Lowell Offering By Harriet H. Robinson New England Magazine 7 (Dec.
1889)
Letters
from Mill Girls
A
Vermont Girl Goes to Lowell (Letters of Mary Paul from 1845-1848)
(source: In An Era of Great Change: A Teaching Packet Exploring Vermont
1820-1850) This site includes the original letters written in Mary Paul's
hand.
Letters
from Mill Girls (source: "Bennett Family, Letters (1839- 1846)"
in New England Mill Village, 1790-1860, Gary Kulik, Roger Parks, Theodore
Z. Penn, eds., (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1982). Used by permission
and edited by Old Sturbridge Village.)
Sally
Rice to Her Parents (source: 'I Can Never Be Happy There Among So
Many Mountains'-The Letters of Sally Rice," Nell W. Kull, Vermont History
38 (Winter, 1970) 1: 49-57. Used by permission and edited by Old Sturbridge
Village.)
Emeline
Larcom's letters to her mother Emeline, sister to Lucy Larcom, also
worked in the Lowell Mills. (source: Workers and Work in America: 1600
to the Present (Men and Women in the Early Industrial Era): A Multimedia
Course. Gerald Zahavi, Department of History, University at Albany)
Visitor
Accounts
The
Harbinger, Female Workers of Lowell, November 14, 1836
Political
Organizing/Labor Reform
Women
operatives organized the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association (LFLRA)
in 1844. Headed by Sarah Bagley, the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association
(LFLRA) was one of the first American labor organizations organized by
and for women. An important part of the campaign was their periodical
Voice of Industry. Another publication, Factory Tracts,
was part of their effort to expose conditions in the mills and advocate
a ten hour day. Male mechanics and other workers in industrial communities
joined the Lowell women operatives' campaign.
Sarah
Bagley's testimony before the Massachusetts House of Representatives
in 1845 describing the labor conditions in the mills. Scroll down
to "Massachusetts Investigation into Labor Conditions Excerpted
from Massachusetts House Document, no. 50, March 1845" to read
the report of Bagley's testimony.
1834
Boston Transcript reports on the Strike
Poem
that Concluded Lowell Women Workers' 1834 Petition to the Manufacturers
1836
Song Lyrics Sung by Protesting Workers at Lowell
(source: Uses of Liberty Rhetoric Among Lowell Mill Girls. Created for
Catherine Lavender's History 286 (American Women's History) web project,
The Department of History, The College of Staten Island of The City
University of New York)
Harriet
Hanson Robinson: The Lowell Mill Girls Go on Strike, 1836 (source:
Harriet Hanson Robinson, Loom and Spindle or Life Among the Early Mill
Girls (New York, T. Y. Crowell, 1898), 83Ð86. Made available online
by History Matters.)
"We
Call On You to Deliver Us From the Tyrant's Chain": Lowell Women
Workers Campaign for a Ten Hour Workday (source: Factory Tracts.
Factory Life As It Is, Number One, [(Lowell, MA, 1845)]. Made available
online by History Matters.)
Petition
to the Massachusetts Legislature [the Ten Hour Movement] (Made available
online by Berwick Academy.)
Recruitment
of Female Operatives: An Account from the 1840s, Voice of Industry,
January 2, 1846
(source: Workers and Work in America: 1600 to the Present (Men and Women
in the Early Industrial Era): A Multimedia Course. Gerald Zahavi, Department
of History, University at Albany)
Industrial
Reform. [The United States Democratic review. / Volume 23, Issue 126,
Dec 1848] (source: Library of Congress: American Memory)
Memoirs
(Lucy Larcom and Harriet Robinson)
Excerpt
from "Among Mill-Girls: A Reminiscence" by Lucy Larcom, Atlantic
Monthly 48, November 1881. (source: The Campaign to End Child Labor,
Jim Zwick, ed.)
Harriet
Robinson "Loom and Spindle" (1836) (source: The University
of Chicago)
Harriet
Robinson: Lowell Mill Girls (source: Harriet H. Robinson, "Early
Factory Labor in New England," in Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics
of Labor, Fourteenth Annual Report (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1883),
pp. 380-82, 387-88, 391-92. Online at Modern History Sourcebook.)
Lucy Larcom
Poems,
by Lucy Larcom (Fields, Osgood, & Company: Boston. 1869.)
An
idyl of work
by Lucy Larcom (J. R. Osgood & Company, 1875.)
(source: University of Michigan, Making of America (MOA) digital library
of primary sources in American social history)
Additional
Online Sources:
Reading
Habits of the Nineteenth-Century New England Mill Girls (Susan Lank
Tolbert)
Lowell
Mill Girls and the Rhetoric of Women's Labor Unrest (Professor Catherine
Lavender's History 286 (American Women's History) web project, The Department
of History, The College of Staten Island of The City University of New
York)
Uses
of Liberty Rhetoric Among Lowell Mill Girls offers a comprehesive
archive of maps, city plans, illustrations and writings by and about
the Lowell mill girls. Each primary source document includes a series
of focus questions. (Created for Catherine Lavender's History 286 (American
Women's History) web project, The Department of History, The College
of Staten Island of The City University of New York)
Mill
Girls: Lowell Mill Girls During the Industrial Revolution I especially
enjoyed this innovative site created by Mary Weingartner's 5th grade
Humanities class at Berwick Academy. Students read Lyddie and
visited the Tsongas Industrial History Center at the Lowell Mills and
were then inspired to create this website. Computer teacher Wendy Harrigton
published the students' graphics and writings.
Harriet
Robinson: A Mill Girl in the Lowell Mills Andrea Paquette and Jackie
Harrington created this website as part of their History of American
Technology class.
Carol
Hurst's Children's Literature Site: Lyddie
For
Further Investigation:
The Working
People Exhibit and Boarding House System (PDF)(Lowell National Historical
Park)
The
Biography of America: The Industrial Revolution (1776-1861) (Annenberg/CPB)
Between
a Rock and a Hard Place: Sweatshops in America (Smithsonian Institution)
Women
at Work 1826-1860 (Thomas Dublin) This study, based on women working
in the cotton textile mills of Lowell, explores the transformation of
women's work in the first half of the 19th century and female workers'
attitudes and responses to these changes.
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