Process

Read and analyze the following primary source documents and answer the questions.

1. Reading #1:  Analyze "The Time Table of the Lowell Mills, October 21, 1851."  It reflects an average 11-hour workday. However, the required number of work hours were reduced to 11 hours only after the "Ten Hour Movement" of the 1840's failed. In 1852, just prior to the Massachusetts State election, corporations decided to take a positive action instead of making threats and reduced the number of work hours to 11 in the mills in Lowell, Lawrence, Holyoke, and Biddeford, Maine.

Source: Factory Girl's Garland, a mill workers' newspaper in Exeter, NH on May 25, 1844.

Question: Explain how the bells work throughout the day.

2. Reading #2:  Read and analyze the poem, The Factory Bell by an Unknown Factory Girl, 1844. This poem first appeared on May 25, 1844 in the Factory Girl's Garland.

Questions:

1. Why do you think the poet wrote a poem about bells?
2. What was the poet's attitude about the factory bells?

3. Reading #3:  "A Description of Factory Life by an Associationist in 1846."      

Question: What were the visitors’ impressions of the mill. Support your ideas.

4. Reading #4:  "Factory Rules from the Handbook to Lowell, 1848"  

Questions:

1. Explain the types of rules. Categorize them.
2. What do you think about these rules?

5. Readings #5: 
   "The Boardinghouse System" 
   "Boarding House Rules from the Handbook to Lowell, 1848" 

Questions:

1. What do the boarding house rules tell you about relationships within the house?
2. What was the purpose behind the rules?
3. Compare employee rules today with those in Lowell in 1848.        

6. Reading #6:  "The Spirit of Discontent"  (fiction from The Lowell Offering ca 1840.)

Questions:

1. What does Ellen think?                 
2. What is Ellen’s friend’s view?                
3. Which of the two girls do you think would most likely sign a petition to protest the conditions in the mills and the low wages?  Why?

7. Reading #7:  "The Lowell Mill Girls Go on Strike, 1836” by Harriet Hanson Robinson  (excerpt from Robinson's book Loom and Spindle), a memoir of her Lowell experiences, where she recounted the strike of 1836.  (New York, T.Y. Cowell, 1898, p.83-86)  

Questions:

1. How does the author view the cotton-mill workers?
2. How does the author come to her conclusions?

8. Reading #8: "Constitution of the Lowell Factory Girls Association 1836"
   (Image Courtesy of the Center for Lowell History)

Questions:

1. Why do you think the Lowell Factory Girls Association felt the need for a constitution?
2. According to the constitution, who could join the Association?
3. How were the mill owners described in the Constitution?  Do you feel that it was a fair description of them? Why or why not?

9. Reading #9: 
   During the 1820's and 1830's conditions for Lowell workers were the best to be found. However, as more mills were built there was a growing competition among the mill owners. The price of cotton declined. As a result, owners no longer provided the same quality of working and living conditions. There were verbal protests and strikes in the mid 1830's and by the 1840's mill workers increased the protests of their conditions.
                      
   Workers sent petitions to the Massachusetts Legislature asking for a reduction in the number of hours in each working day. However, mill owners opposed this reduction and influenced the legislature to oppose this law. It took over thirty years for the Massachusetts Legislature to pass a law stating that an employer could not employ "one set of hands" for longer than ten hours a day; this law only applied to women and children.
                       
   Read and analyze "We Call On You to Deliver Us From the Tyrant's Chain": Lowell Women Workers Campaign for a Ten Hour Workday.

Questions:

1. To who does the "Operative" in "Factory Tracts" compare the female operatives of New England textile mills?
2. How does the “Operative” feel about:

(a) the length of the workday?
(b) required attendance at Sunday religious services?
(c) the assistance that men can give their daughters and sisters working in the mills?

3. What words does she use to describe the rules female operatives must abide by?
4. What is a "regular discharge?"
5. How many women had joined the Female Labor Reform Association?  Out of how many in total?

10. Reading #10:  "Texts About Lowell Mill Girls" 

(a) 1834 Boston Transcript reports on the Strike
       Question:  What was the attitude of the writer about the strikers?

(b) Poem that Concluded Lowell Women Workers' 1834 Petition to the Manufacturers
       Question:  Who are the "Tories in disguise?"

(c) Song Lyrics Sung by Protesting Workers in Lowell

 

       Question:  What is this song about?  What does the writer refuse to be?

mp3 file:

11. Reading #11:  "Petition to the Massachusetts Legislature

 Questions:

1. What are some of the reasons people gave for signing the petition?
2. What are some of the reasons people gave for not signing it?