CHARACTERISTICS (CONTINUED).
One of the first strikes of cotton-factory operatives that ever took
place in this country was that in Lowell, in October, 1836. When it
was announced that the wages were to be cut down, great indignation
was felt, and it was decided to strike, _en masse_. This was done.
The mills were shut down, and the girls went in procession from their
several corporations to the “grove” on Chapel Hill, and listened to
“incendiary” speeches from early labor reformers.
One of the girls stood on a pump, and gave vent to the feelings of her
companions in a neat speech, declaring that it was their duty to resist
all attempts at cutting down the wages. This was the first time a woman
had spoken in public in Lowell, and the event caused surprise and
consternation among her audience.
Cutting down the wages was not their only grievance, nor the only cause
of this strike. Hitherto the corporations had paid twenty-five cents a
week towards the board of each operative, and now it was their purpose
to have the girls pay the sum; and this, in addition to the cut in the
wages, would make a difference of at least one dollar a week. It was
estimated that as many as twelve or fifteen hundred girls turned out,
and walked in procession through the streets. They had neither flags
nor music, but sang songs, a favorite (but rather inappropriate) one
being a parody on “I won’t be a nun.”
“Oh! isn’t it a pity, such a pretty girl as I--
Should be sent to the factory to pine away and die?
Oh! I cannot be a slave,
I will not be a slave,
For I’m so fond of liberty
That I cannot be a slave.”
My own recollection of this first strike (or “turn out” as it was
called) is very vivid. I worked in a lower room, where I had heard the
proposed strike fully, if not vehemently, discussed; I had been an
ardent listener to what was said against this attempt at “oppression”
on the part of the corporation, and naturally I took sides with the
strikers. When the day came on which the girls were to turn out, those
in the upper rooms started first, and so many of them left that our
mill was at once shut down. Then, when the girls in my room stood
irresolute, uncertain what to do, asking each other, “Would you?” or
“Shall we turn out?” and not one of them having the courage to lead
off, I, who began to think they would not go out, after all their talk,
became impatient, and started on ahead, saying, with childish bravado,
“I don’t care what you do, _I_ am going to turn out, whether any one
else does or not;” and I marched out, and was followed by the others.
As I looked back at the long line that followed me, I was more proud
than I have ever been since at any success I may have achieved, and
more proud than I shall ever be again until my own beloved State gives
to its women citizens the right of suffrage.
The agent of the corporation where I then worked took some small
revenges on the supposed ringleaders; on the principle of sending the
weaker to the wall, my mother was turned away from her boarding-house,
that functionary saying, “Mrs. Hanson, you could not prevent the older
girls from turning out, but your daughter is a child, and _her_ you
could control.”
It is hardly necessary to say that so far as results were concerned
this strike did no good. The dissatisfaction of the operatives
subsided, or burned itself out, and though the authorities did not
accede to their demands, the majority returned to their work, and the
corporation went on cutting down the wages.
And after a time, as the wages became more and more reduced, the best
portion of the girls left and went to their homes, or to the other
employments that were fast opening to women, until there were very few
of the old guard left; and thus the _status_ of the factory population
of New England gradually became what we know it to be to-day.
Some of us took part in a political campaign, for the first time, in
1840, when William H. Harrison, the first Whig President, was elected;
we went to the political meetings, sat in the gallery, heard speeches
against Van Buren and the Democratic party, and helped sing the great
campaign song beginning:--
“Oh have you heard the news of late?”
the refrain of which was:
“Tippecanoe and Tyler too,
Oh with them we’ll beat little Van, Van,
Van is a used-up man.”
And we named our sunbonnets “log-cabins,” and set our teacups (we
drank from saucers then) in little glass tea-plates, with log-cabins
impressed on the bottom. The part the Lowell mill-girls took in these
and similar events serves to show how wide-awake and up to date many of
these middle-century working-women were.
Among the _fads_ of those days may be mentioned those of the
“water-cure” and the “Grahamite.” The former was a theory of doctoring
by means of cold water, used as packs, daily baths, and immoderate
drinks. Quite a number of us adopted this practice, and one at least
has not even yet wholly abandoned it.
Several members of my mother’s family adopted “Professor” Graham’s
regimen, and for a few months we ate no meat, nor, as he said,
“anything that had life in it.” It was claimed that this would
regenerate the race; that by following a certain line of diet, a person
would live longer, do better work, and be able to endure any hardship,
in fact, that not what we were, but what we ate, would be the making of
us. Two young men, whom I knew, made their boasts that they had “walked
from Boston to Lowell on an apple.”
We ate fruit, vegetables, and unleavened or whole-wheat bread, baked
in little round pats (“bullets,” my mother called them), and without
butter; there were no _relishes_. I soon got tired of the feeling of
“goneness” this diet gave me; I found that although I might eat a pint
of mashed potato, and the same quantity of squash, it was as if I had
not dined, and I gave up the experiment. But my elder brother, who
had carried to the extremest extreme this “potato gospel,” as Carlyle
called it, induced my mother to make his Thanksgiving squash-pie after
a receipt of his own. The crust was made of Indian meal and water, and
the filling was of squash, water, and sugar! And he ate it, and called
it good. But I thought then, and still think, that his enjoyment of the
eating was in the principle rather than in the pie.
A few of the girls were interested in phrenology; and we had our heads
examined by Professor Fowler, who, if not the first, was the chief
exponent of this theory in Lowell. He went about into all the schools,
examining children’s heads. Mine, he said, “lacked veneration;” and
this I supposed was an awful thing, because my teacher looked so
reproachfully at me when the professor said it.
A few were interested in Mesmerism; and those of us who had the
power to make ourselves _en rapport_ with others tried experiments
on “subjects,” and sometimes held meetings in the evening for that
purpose.
The life in the boarding-houses was very agreeable. These houses
belonged to the corporation, and were usually kept by widows (mothers
of mill-girls), who were often the friends and advisers of their
boarders.
Among these may be mentioned the mothers of Lucy Larcom; the Hon.
Gustavus Vasa Fox, once Assistant Secretary of the Navy; John W.
Hanson, D.D.; the Rev. W. H. Cudworth; Major General B. F. Butler; and
several others.
Each house was a village or community of itself. There fifty or sixty
young women from different parts of New England met and lived together.
When not at their work, by natural selection they sat in groups in
their chambers, or in a corner of the large dining-room, busy at some
agreeable employment; or they wrote letters, read, studied, or sewed,
for, as a rule, they were their own seamstresses and dressmakers.
It is refreshing to remember their simplicity of dress; they wore no
ruffles and very few ornaments. It is true that some of them had gold
watches and gold pencils, but they were worn only on grand occasions;
as a rule, the early mill-girls were not of that class that is said
to be “always suffering for a breast-pin.” Though their dress was
so simple and so plain, yet it was so tasteful that they were often
accused of looking like ladies; the complaint was sometimes made that
no one could tell the difference in _church_ between the factory-girls
and the daughters of some of the first families in the city.
Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, in _The Lady’s Book_, in 1842, speaking of the
impossibility of considering dress a mark of distinction, says: “Many
of the factory-girls wear gold watches and an imitation at least of all
the ornaments which grace the daughters of our most opulent citizens.”
The boarding-houses were considered so attractive that strangers, by
invitation, often came to look in upon them, and see for themselves how
the mill-girls lived. Dickens, in his “American Notes,” speaks with
surprise of their home life. He says, “There is a piano in a great
many of the boarding-houses, and nearly all the young ladies subscribe
to circulating libraries.” There was a feeling of _esprit de corps_
among these households; any advantage secured to one of the number was
usually shared by others belonging to her set or group. Books were
exchanged, letters from home were read, and “pieces,” intended for the
Improvement Circle, were presented for friendly criticism.
There was always a best room in the boarding-house, to entertain
callers in; but if any of the girls had a regular gentleman caller, a
special evening was set apart each week to receive him. This room was
furnished with a carpet, sometimes with a piano, as Dickens says, and
with the best furniture, including oftentimes the relics of household
treasures left of the old-time gentility of the house-mother.
This mutual acquaintanceship was of great advantage. They discussed the
books they read, debated religious and social questions, compared their
thoughts and experiences, and advised and helped one another. And so
their mental growth went on, and they soon became educated far beyond
what their mothers or their grandmothers could have been. The girls
also stood by one another in the mills; when one wanted to be absent
half a day, two or three others would tend an extra loom or frame
apiece, so that the absent one might not lose her pay. At this time the
mule and spinning-jenny had not been introduced; two or three looms, or
spinning-frames, were as much as one girl was required to tend, more
than that being considered “double work.”
The inmates of what may be called these literary households were
omniverous readers of books, and were also subscribers to the few
magazines and literary newspapers; and it was their habit, after
reading their copies, to send them by mail or stage-coach to their
widely scattered homes, where they were read all over a village or a
neighborhood; and thus was current literature introduced into by and
lonely places.
From an article in _The Lowell Offering_, (“Our Household,” signed
H. T.,) I am able to quote a sketch of one factory boarding-house
interior. The author said, “In our house there are eleven boarders,
and in all thirteen members of the family. I will class them according
to their religious tenets as follows: Calvinist Baptist, Unitarian,
Congregational, Catholic, Episcopalian, and Mormonite, one each;
Universalist and Methodist, two each; Christian Baptist, three. Their
reading is from the following sources: They receive regularly fifteen
newspapers and periodicals; these are, the _Boston Daily Times_, the
_Herald of Freedom_, the _Signs of the Times_, and the _Christian
Herald_, two copies each; the _Christian Register_, _Vox Populi_,
_Literary Souvenir_, _Boston Pilot_, _Young Catholic’s Friend_,
_Star of Bethlehem_, and _The Lowell Offering_, three copies each. A
magazine, one copy. We also borrow regularly the _Non-Resistant_, the
_Liberator_, the _Lady’s Book_, the _Ladies’ Pearl_, and the _Ladies’
Companion_. We have also in the house what perhaps cannot be found
anywhere else in the city of Lowell,--a Mormon Bible.”
The “magazine” mentioned may have been _The Dial_, that exponent of
New England Transcendentalism, of which _The Offering_ was the humble
contemporary. The writer adds to her article: “Nothwithstanding the
divers faiths embraced among us, we live in much harmony, and seldom is
difference of opinion the cause of dissensions among us.”
Novels were not very popular with us, as we inclined more to historical
writings and to poetry. But such books as “Charlotte Temple,” “Eliza
Wharton,” “Maria Monk,” “The Arabian Nights,” “The Mysteries of
Udolpho,” “Abellino, the Bravo of Venice,” or “The Castle of Otranto,”
were sometimes taken from the circulating library, read with delight,
and secretly lent from one young girl to another.
Our religious reading was confined to the Bible, Baxter’s “Saints’
Rest,” “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” “The Religious Courtship,” “The Widow
Directed,” and Sunday-school books.
It was fortunate for us that we were obliged to read good books, such
as histories, the English classics, and the very few American novels
that were then in existence. Cheap editions of Scott were but just
publishing; “Pickwick,” in serial numbers, soon followed; Frederika
Bremer was hardly translated; Lydia Maria Child was beginning to
write; Harriet Beecher Stowe was busy in her nursery, and the great
American novel was not written,--nor yet the small one, which was
indeed a blessing!
There were many representative women among us who did not voice
their thoughts in writing, and whose names are not on the list of
the contributers to _The Offering_. This was but one phase of their
development, as many of them have exerted a widespread influence in
other directions. They graduated from the cotton-factory, carrying with
them the results of their manual training; and they have done their
little part towards performing the useful labor of life. Into whatever
vocation they entered they made practical use of the habits of industry
and perseverance learned during those early years, and they have
exemplified them in their stirring and fruitful lives.
In order to show how far the influence of individual effort may
extend, it will be well to mention the after-fate of some of them. One
became an artist of note, another a poet of more than local fame, a
third an inventor, and several were among the pioneers in Florida, in
Kansas, and in other Western States. A limited number married those
who were afterwards doctors of divinity, major-generals, and members
of Congress; and these, in more than one instance, had been their
work-mates in the factory.
And in later years, when, through the death of the bread-winner, the
pecuniary support of those dependent on him fell to their lot, some
of these factory-girls carried on business, entered the trades, or
went to college and thereby were enabled to practise in some of the
professions. They thus resumed their old-time habit of supporting the
helpless ones, and educating the children of the family.
These women were all self-made in the truest sense; and it is well
to mention their success in life, that others, who now earn their
living at what is called “ungenteel” employments, may see that what
one does is not of so much importance as what one is. I do not know
why it should not be just as commendable for a woman who has risen
to have been once a factory-girl, as it is for an ex-governor or a
major-general to have been a “bobbin-boy.” A woman ought to be as proud
of being self-made as a man; not proud in a boasting way, but proud
enough to assert the fact in her life and in her works.
All these of whom I speak are widely scattered. I hear of them in the
far West, in the South, and in foreign countries, even so far away as
the Himalaya Mountains. But wherever they may be, I know that they
will join with me in saying that the discipline of their youth helped
to make them what they are; and that the cotton-factory was to them the
means of education, their preparatory school, in which they learned the
alphabet of their life-work.
Such is the brief story of the life of every-day working-girls; such as
it was then, so it might be to-day. Undoubtedly there might have been
another side to this picture, but I give the side I knew best,--the
bright side!