AN AMERICAN RAILROAD. LOWELL AND ITS FACTORY SYSTEM
BEFORE leaving Boston, I devoted one day to an excursion to Lowell. I
assign a separate chapter to this visit; not because I am about to
describe it at any great length, but because I remember it as a thing by
itself, and am desirous that my readers should do the same.
I made acquaintance with an American railroad, on this occasion, for the
first time. As these works are pretty much alike all through the States,
their general characteristics are easily described.
There are no first and second class carriages as with us; but there is a
gentleman’s car and a ladies’ car: the main distinction between which is
that in the first, everybody smokes; and in the second, nobody does. As
a black man never travels with a white one, there is also a negro car;
which is a great, blundering, clumsy chest, such as Gulliver put to sea
in, from the kingdom of Brobdingnag. There is a great deal of jolting, a
great deal of noise, a great deal of wall, not much window, a locomotive
engine, a shriek, and a bell.
The cars are like shabby omnibuses, but larger: holding thirty, forty,
fifty, people. The seats, instead of stretching from end to end, are
placed crosswise. Each seat holds two persons. There is a long row of
them on each side of the caravan, a narrow passage up the middle, and a
door at both ends. In the centre of the carriage there is usually a
stove, fed with charcoal or anthracite coal; which is for the most part
red-hot. It is insufferably close; and you see the hot air fluttering
between yourself and any other object you may happen to look at, like the
ghost of smoke.
In the ladies’ car, there are a great many gentlemen who have ladies with
them. There are also a great many ladies who have nobody with them: for
any lady may travel alone, from one end of the United States to the
other, and be certain of the most courteous and considerate treatment
everywhere. The conductor or check-taker, or guard, or whatever he may
be, wears no uniform. He walks up and down the car, and in and out of
it, as his fancy dictates; leans against the door with his hands in his
pockets and stares at you, if you chance to be a stranger; or enters into
conversation with the passengers about him. A great many newspapers are
pulled out, and a few of them are read. Everybody talks to you, or to
anybody else who hits his fancy. If you are an Englishman, he expects
that that railroad is pretty much like an English railroad. If you say
‘No,’ he says ‘Yes?’ (interrogatively), and asks in what respect they
differ. You enumerate the heads of difference, one by one, and he says
‘Yes?’ (still interrogatively) to each. Then he guesses that you don’t
travel faster in England; and on your replying that you do, says ‘Yes?’
again (still interrogatively), and it is quite evident, don’t believe it.
After a long pause he remarks, partly to you, and partly to the knob on
the top of his stick, that ‘Yankees are reckoned to be considerable of a
go-ahead people too;’ upon which _you_ say ‘Yes,’ and then _he_ says
‘Yes’ again (affirmatively this time); and upon your looking out of
window, tells you that behind that hill, and some three miles from the
next station, there is a clever town in a smart lo-ca-tion, where he
expects you have concluded to stop. Your answer in the negative
naturally leads to more questions in reference to your intended route
(always pronounced rout); and wherever you are going, you invariably
learn that you can’t get there without immense difficulty and danger, and
that all the great sights are somewhere else.
If a lady take a fancy to any male passenger’s seat, the gentleman who
accompanies her gives him notice of the fact, and he immediately vacates
it with great politeness. Politics are much discussed, so are banks, so
is cotton. Quiet people avoid the question of the Presidency, for there
will be a new election in three years and a half, and party feeling runs
very high: the great constitutional feature of this institution being,
that directly the acrimony of the last election is over, the acrimony of
the next one begins; which is an unspeakable comfort to all strong
politicians and true lovers of their country: that is to say, to
ninety-nine men and boys out of every ninety-nine and a quarter.
Except when a branch road joins the main one, there is seldom more than
one track of rails; so that the road is very narrow, and the view, where
there is a deep cutting, by no means extensive. When there is not, the
character of the scenery is always the same. Mile after mile of stunted
trees: some hewn down by the axe, some blown down by the wind, some half
fallen and resting on their neighbours, many mere logs half hidden in the
swamp, others mouldered away to spongy chips. The very soil of the earth
is made up of minute fragments such as these; each pool of stagnant water
has its crust of vegetable rottenness; on every side there are the
boughs, and trunks, and stumps of trees, in every possible stage of
decay, decomposition, and neglect. Now you emerge for a few brief
minutes on an open country, glittering with some bright lake or pool,
broad as many an English river, but so small here that it scarcely has a
name; now catch hasty glimpses of a distant town, with its clean white
houses and their cool piazzas, its prim New England church and
school-house; when whir-r-r-r! almost before you have seen them, comes
the same dark screen: the stunted trees, the stumps, the logs, the
stagnant water—all so like the last that you seem to have been
transported back again by magic.
The train calls at stations in the woods, where the wild impossibility of
anybody having the smallest reason to get out, is only to be equalled by
the apparently desperate hopelessness of there being anybody to get in.
It rushes across the turnpike road, where there is no gate, no policeman,
no signal: nothing but a rough wooden arch, on which is painted ‘WHEN THE
BELL RINGS, LOOK OUT FOR THE LOCOMOTIVE.’ On it whirls headlong, dives
through the woods again, emerges in the light, clatters over frail
arches, rumbles upon the heavy ground, shoots beneath a wooden bridge
which intercepts the light for a second like a wink, suddenly awakens all
the slumbering echoes in the main street of a large town, and dashes on
haphazard, pell-mell, neck-or-nothing, down the middle of the road.
There—with mechanics working at their trades, and people leaning from
their doors and windows, and boys flying kites and playing marbles, and
men smoking, and women talking, and children crawling, and pigs
burrowing, and unaccustomed horses plunging and rearing, close to the
very rails—there—on, on, on—tears the mad dragon of an engine with its
train of cars; scattering in all directions a shower of burning sparks
from its wood fire; screeching, hissing, yelling, panting; until at last
the thirsty monster stops beneath a covered way to drink, the people
cluster round, and you have time to breathe again.
I was met at the station at Lowell by a gentleman intimately connected
with the management of the factories there; and gladly putting myself
under his guidance, drove off at once to that quarter of the town in
which the works, the object of my visit, were situated. Although only
just of age—for if my recollection serve me, it has been a manufacturing
town barely one-and-twenty years—Lowell is a large, populous, thriving
place. Those indications of its youth which first attract the eye, give
it a quaintness and oddity of character which, to a visitor from the old
country, is amusing enough. It was a very dirty winter’s day, and
nothing in the whole town looked old to me, except the mud, which in some
parts was almost knee-deep, and might have been deposited there, on the
subsiding of the waters after the Deluge. In one place, there was a new
wooden church, which, having no steeple, and being yet unpainted, looked
like an enormous packing-case without any direction upon it. In another
there was a large hotel, whose walls and colonnades were so crisp, and
thin, and slight, that it had exactly the appearance of being built with
cards. I was careful not to draw my breath as we passed, and trembled
when I saw a workman come out upon the roof, lest with one thoughtless
stamp of his foot he should crush the structure beneath him, and bring it
rattling down. The very river that moves the machinery in the mills (for
they are all worked by water power), seems to acquire a new character
from the fresh buildings of bright red brick and painted wood among which
it takes its course; and to be as light-headed, thoughtless, and brisk a
young river, in its murmurings and tumblings, as one would desire to see.
One would swear that every ‘Bakery,’ ‘Grocery,’ and ‘Bookbindery,’ and
other kind of store, took its shutters down for the first time, and
started in business yesterday. The golden pestles and mortars fixed as
signs upon the sun-blind frames outside the Druggists’, appear to have
been just turned out of the United States’ Mint; and when I saw a baby of
some week or ten days old in a woman’s arms at a street corner, I found
myself unconsciously wondering where it came from: never supposing for an
instant that it could have been born in such a young town as that.
There are several factories in Lowell, each of which belongs to what we
should term a Company of Proprietors, but what they call in America a
Corporation. I went over several of these; such as a woollen factory, a
carpet factory, and a cotton factory: examined them in every part; and
saw them in their ordinary working aspect, with no preparation of any
kind, or departure from their ordinary everyday proceedings. I may add
that I am well acquainted with our manufacturing towns in England, and
have visited many mills in Manchester and elsewhere in the same manner.
I happened to arrive at the first factory just as the dinner hour was
over, and the girls were returning to their work; indeed the stairs of
the mill were thronged with them as I ascended. They were all well
dressed, but not to my thinking above their condition; for I like to see
the humbler classes of society careful of their dress and appearance, and
even, if they please, decorated with such little trinkets as come within
the compass of their means. Supposing it confined within reasonable
limits, I would always encourage this kind of pride, as a worthy element
of self-respect, in any person I employed; and should no more be deterred
from doing so, because some wretched female referred her fall to a love
of dress, than I would allow my construction of the real intent and
meaning of the Sabbath to be influenced by any warning to the
well-disposed, founded on his backslidings on that particular day, which
might emanate from the rather doubtful authority of a murderer in
Newgate.
These girls, as I have said, were all well dressed: and that phrase
necessarily includes extreme cleanliness. They had serviceable bonnets,
good warm cloaks, and shawls; and were not above clogs and pattens.
Moreover, there were places in the mill in which they could deposit these
things without injury; and there were conveniences for washing. They
were healthy in appearance, many of them remarkably so, and had the
manners and deportment of young women: not of degraded brutes of burden.
If I had seen in one of those mills (but I did not, though I looked for
something of this kind with a sharp eye), the most lisping, mincing,
affected, and ridiculous young creature that my imagination could
suggest, I should have thought of the careless, moping, slatternly,
degraded, dull reverse (I _have_ seen that), and should have been still
well pleased to look upon her.
The rooms in which they worked, were as well ordered as themselves. In
the windows of some, there were green plants, which were trained to shade
the glass; in all, there was as much fresh air, cleanliness, and comfort,
as the nature of the occupation would possibly admit of. Out of so large
a number of females, many of whom were only then just verging upon
womanhood, it may be reasonably supposed that some were delicate and
fragile in appearance: no doubt there were. But I solemnly declare, that
from all the crowd I saw in the different factories that day, I cannot
recall or separate one young face that gave me a painful impression; not
one young girl whom, assuming it to be a matter of necessity that she
should gain her daily bread by the labour of her hands, I would have
removed from those works if I had had the power.
They reside in various boarding-houses near at hand. The owners of the
mills are particularly careful to allow no persons to enter upon the
possession of these houses, whose characters have not undergone the most
searching and thorough inquiry. Any complaint that is made against them,
by the boarders, or by any one else, is fully investigated; and if good
ground of complaint be shown to exist against them, they are removed, and
their occupation is handed over to some more deserving person. There are
a few children employed in these factories, but not many. The laws of
the State forbid their working more than nine months in the year, and
require that they be educated during the other three. For this purpose
there are schools in Lowell; and there are churches and chapels of
various persuasions, in which the young women may observe that form of
worship in which they have been educated.
At some distance from the factories, and on the highest and pleasantest
ground in the neighbourhood, stands their hospital, or boarding-house for
the sick: it is the best house in those parts, and was built by an
eminent merchant for his own residence. Like that institution at Boston,
which I have before described, it is not parcelled out into wards, but is
divided into convenient chambers, each of which has all the comforts of a
very comfortable home. The principal medical attendant resides under the
same roof; and were the patients members of his own family, they could
not be better cared for, or attended with greater gentleness and
consideration. The weekly charge in this establishment for each female
patient is three dollars, or twelve shillings English; but no girl
employed by any of the corporations is ever excluded for want of the
means of payment. That they do not very often want the means, may be
gathered from the fact, that in July, 1841, no fewer than nine hundred
and seventy-eight of these girls were depositors in the Lowell Savings
Bank: the amount of whose joint savings was estimated at one hundred
thousand dollars, or twenty thousand English pounds.
I am now going to state three facts, which will startle a large class of
readers on this side of the Atlantic, very much.
Firstly, there is a joint-stock piano in a great many of the
boarding-houses. Secondly, nearly all these young ladies subscribe to
circulating libraries. Thirdly, they have got up among themselves a
periodical called THE LOWELL OFFERING, ‘A repository of original
articles, written exclusively by females actively employed in the
mills,’—which is duly printed, published, and sold; and whereof I brought
away from Lowell four hundred good solid pages, which I have read from
beginning to end.
The large class of readers, startled by these facts, will exclaim, with
one voice, ‘How very preposterous!’ On my deferentially inquiring why,
they will answer, ‘These things are above their station.’ In reply to
that objection, I would beg to ask what their station is.
It is their station to work. And they _do_ work. They labour in these
mills, upon an average, twelve hours a day, which is unquestionably work,
and pretty tight work too. Perhaps it is above their station to indulge
in such amusements, on any terms. Are we quite sure that we in England
have not formed our ideas of the ‘station’ of working people, from
accustoming ourselves to the contemplation of that class as they are, and
not as they might be? I think that if we examine our own feelings, we
shall find that the pianos, and the circulating libraries, and even the
Lowell Offering, startle us by their novelty, and not by their bearing
upon any abstract question of right or wrong.
For myself, I know no station in which, the occupation of to-day
cheerfully done and the occupation of to-morrow cheerfully looked to, any
one of these pursuits is not most humanising and laudable. I know no
station which is rendered more endurable to the person in it, or more
safe to the person out of it, by having ignorance for its associate. I
know no station which has a right to monopolise the means of mutual
instruction, improvement, and rational entertainment; or which has ever
continued to be a station very long, after seeking to do so.
Of the merits of the Lowell Offering as a literary production, I will
only observe, putting entirely out of sight the fact of the articles
having been written by these girls after the arduous labours of the day,
that it will compare advantageously with a great many English Annuals.
It is pleasant to find that many of its Tales are of the Mills and of
those who work in them; that they inculcate habits of self-denial and
contentment, and teach good doctrines of enlarged benevolence. A strong
feeling for the beauties of nature, as displayed in the solitudes the
writers have left at home, breathes through its pages like wholesome
village air; and though a circulating library is a favourable school for
the study of such topics, it has very scant allusion to fine clothes,
fine marriages, fine houses, or fine life. Some persons might object to
the papers being signed occasionally with rather fine names, but this is
an American fashion. One of the provinces of the state legislature of
Massachusetts is to alter ugly names into pretty ones, as the children
improve upon the tastes of their parents. These changes costing little
or nothing, scores of Mary Annes are solemnly converted into Bevelinas
every session.
It is said that on the occasion of a visit from General Jackson or
General Harrison to this town (I forget which, but it is not to the
purpose), he walked through three miles and a half of these young ladies
all dressed out with parasols and silk stockings. But as I am not aware
that any worse consequence ensued, than a sudden looking-up of all the
parasols and silk stockings in the market; and perhaps the bankruptcy of
some speculative New Englander who bought them all up at any price, in
expectation of a demand that never came; I set no great store by the
circumstance.
In this brief account of Lowell, and inadequate expression of the
gratification it yielded me, and cannot fail to afford to any foreigner
to whom the condition of such people at home is a subject of interest and
anxious speculation, I have carefully abstained from drawing a comparison
between these factories and those of our own land. Many of the
circumstances whose strong influence has been at work for years in our
manufacturing towns have not arisen here; and there is no manufacturing
population in Lowell, so to speak: for these girls (often the daughters
of small farmers) come from other States, remain a few years in the
mills, and then go home for good.
The contrast would be a strong one, for it would be between the Good and
Evil, the living light and deepest shadow. I abstain from it, because I
deem it just to do so. But I only the more earnestly adjure all those
whose eyes may rest on these pages, to pause and reflect upon the
difference between this town and those great haunts of desperate misery:
to call to mind, if they can in the midst of party strife and squabble,
the efforts that must be made to purge them of their suffering and
danger: and last, and foremost, to remember how the precious Time is
rushing by.
I returned at night by the same railroad and in the same kind of car.
One of the passengers being exceedingly anxious to expound at great
length to my companion (not to me, of course) the true principles on
which books of travel in America should be written by Englishmen, I
feigned to fall asleep. But glancing all the way out at window from the
corners of my eyes, I found abundance of entertainment for the rest of
the ride in watching the effects of the wood fire, which had been
invisible in the morning but were now brought out in full relief by the
darkness: for we were travelling in a whirlwind of bright sparks, which
showered about us like a storm of fiery snow.