Resources

IResources included within this lesson:

A. Primary Source Documents:

1) Letters of Correspondence between Textile Mill Treasurer Henry Hall and Mill Agents William Austin and John Aiken found in the Lawrence Manufacturing Company Records, 1831-1955, Lowell Massachusetts, housed in the Harvard University Baker Business School Library

2) Newspaper Articles:

a. “Trouble in Lowell,” The Haverhill Gazette of October 8, 1836

b. "The Factory Girls At Lowell,” National Laborer, Philadelphia, PA, October 15, 1836, p. 119

c. Account of Strike and Factory Girls’ Association Resolution, National Laborer, Philadelphia, PA, October 1836

3) Letter from Mary Appleton Aiken (wife of Mill Agent John Aiken Esq.) to her mother, Elizabeth Appleton, October 4, 1836 (from the Appleton-Aiken Family Papers at the University of Michigan).
 Connection Threads Newsletter Fall 2002,  “Mary Appleton Aiken” by Gray Fitzsimons, Historian, Lowell National Historic Park.

4) Excerpt from memoir Loom & Spindle by Harriet Hanson
      Robinson, (New York, T.Y. Crowell, 1898), Pp 83-86.  Introduction to
      Excerpt and excerpt from the Website:  “History Matters: The U.S. Survey
      Course on The Web,” http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5714/

5) “I Cannot Be A Slave”, introductory text, music, and lyrics, Center For Lowell History: University of Massachusetts Lowell Libraries Website:  http://library.uml.edu/clh/All/so04.htm

B. Secondary Source Excerpts:

1) Dublin, Thomas, Women At Work:  The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826-1860, Columbia University Press: New York, 1979, pp.  101-102.

2) Foner, Philip S., American Labor Songs of the Nineteenth Century, University of Illinois Press: Chicago, 1975, pp. 44-45.

3) Document Analysis Worksheets with Document Based Questions

4) Recording of the song “I Cannot Be A Slave:”

Performed by:
             Susan Levine  (Vocals)
             Tom Eaton   (Piano)
       Produced and Recorded by Tom Eaton at Thomas Eaton Recording,        Newburyport, MA

Additional Links with valuable information:

Center for Lowell History

Uses of Liberty Rhetoric Among Lowell Mill Girls

Lowell Mill Women & Abolition

Before Brother Fought Brother: Life in the North and South 1847-1861