CHILD-LIFE IN THE LOWELL COTTON-MILLS.
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. We lived there until
I was nearly seven years of age, and, although so young, I can remember
very vividly scenes and incidents which took place at that time. We
lived under the shadow of the old jail (near where Wall Street now
runs), and we children used to hear conversation, not meant for small
ears, between the prisoners and the persons in the court who came there
to see them.
All the land on which the North Union Station now stands, with the
railway lines connected with it, and also the site of many of the
streets, particularly Lowell Street, was then a part of the Mill-pond,
or was reclaimed from the Bay. The tide came in at the foot of Leverett
Court, and we could look across the water and see the sailing vessels
coming and going. There the down-east wood-coasters landed their
freight; many a time I have gone “chipping” there, and once a generous
young skipper offered me a stick of wood, which I did not dare to take.
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. Dear me! I can see the small shop now,
with its jars of striped candy, its loaves of bread, the room at the
back where we all lived, and my oldest brother (now a “D.D.”) sawing
the kindling-wood which we sold to the neighbors.
That was a hard, cold winter; and for warmth’s sake my mother and her
four children all slept in one bed, two at the foot and three at the
head,--but her richer neighbor could not get the little daughter; and,
contrary to all the modern notions about hygiene, we were a healthful
and a robust brood. We all, except the baby, went to school every day,
and Saturday afternoons I went to a charity school to learn to sew.
My mother had never complained of her poverty in our hearing, and I
had accepted the conditions of my life with a child’s trust, knowing
nothing of the relative difference between poverty and riches. 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.
We went by the canal-boat, The Governor Sullivan, and a long and
tiresome day it was to the weary mother and her four active children,
though the children often varied the scene by walking on the tow-path
under the Lombardy poplars, riding on the gates when the locks were
swung open, or buying glasses of water at the stopping-places along the
route.
When we reached Lowell, we were carried at once to my aunt’s house,
whose generous spirit had well provided for her hungry relations;
and we children were led into her kitchen, where, on the longest and
whitest of tables, lay, oh, so many loaves of bread!
After our feast of loaves we walked with our mother to the Tremont
Corporation, where we were to live, and at the old No. 5 (which imprint
is still legible over the door), in the first block of tenements then
built, I began my life among factory people. My mother kept forty
boarders, most of them men, mill-hands, and she did all her housework,
with what help her children could give her between schools; for we
all, even the baby three years old, were kept at school. My part in
the housework was to wash the dishes, and I was obliged to stand on a
cricket in order to reach the sink!
My mother’s boarders were many of them young men, and usually farmers’
sons. They were almost invariably of good character and behavior,
and it was a continual pleasure for me and my brothers to associate
with them. I was treated like a little sister, never hearing a word
or seeing a look to remind me that I was not of the same sex as my
brothers. I played checkers with them, sometimes “beating,” and took
part in their conversation, and it never came into my mind that they
were not the same as so many “girls.” A good object-lesson for one who
was in the future to maintain, by voice and pen, her belief in the
equality of the sexes!
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.
Among the ghost stories I remember some that would delight the hearts
of the “Society for Psychical Research.” The more imaginative ones told
of what they had read in fairy books, or related tales of old castles
and distressed maidens; and the scene of their adventures was sometimes
laid among the foundation stones of the new mill, just building.
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. Dear Lizzie
Osborne! little sister of my child-soul, such friendship as ours is not
often repeated in after life! 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.
I cannot tell how it happened that some of us knew about the English
factory children, who, it was said, were treated so badly, and were
even whipped by their cruel overseers. But we did know of it, and used
to sing, to a doleful little tune, some verses called, “The Factory
Girl’s Last Day.” I do not remember it well enough to quote it as
written, but have refreshed my memory by reading it lately in Robert
Dale Owen’s writings:--
“THE FACTORY GIRL’S LAST DAY.
“’Twas on a winter morning,
The weather wet and wild,
Two hours before the dawning
The father roused his child,
Her daily morsel bringing,
The darksome room he paced,
And cried, ‘The bell is ringing--
My hapless darling, haste!’
· · · · · ·
The overlooker met her
As to her frame she crept;
And with his thong he beat her,
And cursed her when she wept.
It seemed as she grew weaker,
The threads the oftener broke,
The rapid wheels ran quicker,
And heavier fell the stroke.”
The song goes on to tell the sad story of her death while her “pitying
comrades” were carrying her home to die, and ends:--
“That night a chariot passed her,
While on the ground she lay;
The daughters of her master,
An evening visit pay.
Their tender hearts were sighing,
As negroes’ wrongs were told,
While the white slave was dying
Who gained her father’s gold.”
In contrast with this sad picture, we thought of ourselves as well
off, in our cosey corner of the mill, enjoying ourselves in our own
way, with our good mothers and our warm suppers awaiting us when the
going-out bell should ring.
Holidays came when repairs to the great mill-wheel 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 play-house 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 catacombs of Paris reminded
me of my old playhouse. And here, in my castle of sawed wood, was
my vacation retreat, where, with my only and beloved wooden doll, I
lunched on slices of apple cut in shape so as to represent what I
called “German half-moon cakes.” I piled up my bits of crockery with
sticks of cinnamon to represent candy, and many other semblances of
things, drawn from my mother’s housekeeping stores.
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.
The North Grammar school building stood at the base of a hilly ridge
of rocks, down which we coasted in winter, and where in summer, after
school-hours, we had a little cave, where we sometimes hid, and played
that we were robbers; and together we rehearsed the dramatic scenes
in “Alonzo and Melissa,” “The Children of the Abbey,” or the “Three
Spaniards;” we were turned out of doors with Amanda, we exclaimed
“Heavens!” with Melissa, and when night came on we fled from our
play-house pursued by the dreadful apparition of old Don Padilla
through the dark windings of those old rocks, towards our commonplace
home. “Ah!” as some writer has said, “if one could only add the fine
imagination of those early days to the knowledge and experience of
later years, what books might not be written!”
Our home amusements were very original. We had no toys, except a few
homemade articles or devices of our own. I had but a single doll,
a wooden-jointed thing, with red cheeks and staring black eyes.
Playing-cards were tabooed, but my elder brother (the incipient D.D.),
who had somehow learned the game of high-low-jack, set about making a
pack. The cards were cut out of thick yellow pasteboard, the spots and
figures were made in ink, and, to disguise their real character, the
names of the suits were changed. Instead of hearts, diamonds, spades,
and clubs, they were called charity, love, benevolence, and faith. The
pasteboard was so thick that all together the cards made a pile at
least two or three feet high, and they had to be shuffled in sections!
He taught my second brother and me the game of high-low-jack; and,
with delightful secrecy, as often as we could steal away, we played in
the attic, keeping the cards hidden, between whiles, in an old hair
trunk. In playing the game we got along very well with the names of the
face-cards,--the “queen of charity,” the “king of love,” and so on; but
the “ten-spot of faith,” and particularly the “two-spot of benevolence”
(we had never heard of the “deuce”) was too much for our sense of
humor, and almost spoiled the “rigor of the game.”
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.