Female workers struck twice in the 1830s. Although the city’s corporations threatened labor reformers with firing or blacklisting, many mill girls protested wage cuts and working conditions. Lowell’s textile corporations paid higher wages than those in other textile cities, but work was arduous and conditions were frequently unhealthy. Typically, mill girls were employed for nine to ten months of the year, and many left the factories during part of the summer to visit back home.Ī weaver stands at a loom on a factory floor Most textile workers toiled for 12 to 14 hours a day and half a day on Saturdays the mills were closed on Sundays. The clanging factory bell summoned operatives to and from the mill, constantly reminding them that their days were structured around work. Male and female workers were expected to observe the Sabbath, and temperance was strongly encouraged.
In the boardinghouses, the keepers enforced curfews and strict codes of conduct. Within the factory, overseers were responsible for maintaining work discipline and meeting production schedules. The men who ran the corporations and managed the mills sought to regulate the moral conduct and social behavior of their workforce. Most pronounced was the control corporations exerted over the lives of their workers. An illustration of the Boott Cotton Mills in the 1850sįor most young women, Lowell’s social and economic opportunities existed within the limits imposed by the powerful textile corporations.
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