By 1840, the factories in Lowell employed at some estimates more than 8,000 textile workers, commonly known as mill girls or factory girls. These “operatives”—so-called because they operated the looms and other machinery—were primarily women and children from farming backgrounds.
Who worked in the Lowell System?
“The Lowell System required hiring of young (usually single) women between the ages of 15 and 35. Single women were chosen because they could be paid less than men, thus increasing corporate profits, and because they could be more easily controlled then men.
Who made the Lowell System?
Francis Cabot Lowell
Francis Cabot Lowell (1775-1817) first used the system in his textile mill in Waltham, Massachusetts, and some scholars credit his approach with bringing the modern factory to the United States.
Which industry was most associated with the Lowell System?
the textile industry
The Waltham-Lowell system was a labor and production model employed during the rise of the textile industry in the United States, particularly in New England, amid the larger backdrop of rapid expansion of the Industrial Revolution the early 19th century.
Who did Lowell hire to work in his factory?
Lowell mill girls
The Lowell mill girls were young female workers who came to work in textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts, during the Industrial Revolution in the United States. The workers initially recruited by the corporations were daughters of New England farmers, typically between the ages of 15 and 35.
Who eventually replaced the original labor force of Lowell?
By the 1850s the Lowell System was a failed experiment. New England farm girls were replaced by immigrant women who were willing to work for longer hours and lower wages.
How did the Lowell mills work?
The Lowell System
For the first time in the United States, these mills combined the textile processes of spinning and weaving under one roof, essentially eliminating the “putting-out system” in favor of mass production of high-quality cloth.
Who invented the factory system?
Richard Arkwright
Discover how Richard Arkwright kick-started a transformation in the textiles industry and created a vision of the machine-powered, factory-based future of manufacturing.
What were the Lowell mills known for?
In the 1830s, half a century before the better-known mass movements for workers’ rights in the United States, the Lowell mill women organized, went on strike and mobilized in politics when women couldn’t even vote—and created the first union of working women in American history.
What caused Lowell to start to decline?
When the war ended in 1945, orders for munitions and textiles fell off, and the city lapsed into its old economic doldrums. It was clear that the textile industry would not lead Lowell back to prosperity.
Why did the Boston Associates create Lowell?
Men like Patrick Tracy Jackson, Francis Cabot Lowell and Nathan Appleton were linked together not only because they had made it to the top of Boston’s elite, but because they wanted to make sure that industrial growth did not run amok—that it was restrained by traditional values of community, hard work, social
Why did the Lowell mills prefer to hire female workers?
To find workers for their mills in early Lowell, the textile corporations recruited women from New England farms and villages. These “daughters of Yankee farmers” had few economic opportunities, and many were enticed by the prospect of monthly cash wages and room and board in a comfortable boardinghouse.
How much were the Lowell mill girls paid?
High standards of behavior were expected. In exchange, work in the mills provided good wages–from $1.85 to $3.00 per week–the highest in the country for women (although men working in the same mills were generally paid at least two times the salaries of women).
Why did the mill girls work there?
For many of the mill girls, employment brought a sense of freedom. Unlike most young women of that era, they were free from parental authority, were able to earn their own money, and had broader educational opportunities.
What was the result of the Lowell strike?
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.
What was life like for mill workers in the Lowell system?
What was life like for mill workers in the Lowell System? Workers, mostly young women, worked hard for 12 to 14 hours per day,lived in boardinghouses, and were encouraged to use their free time to take classes and form clubs.
What life was like for the Lowell Mill Girls?
Life for the Lowell Mill Girls
Hours were long and hard – even more so than work on the farms, with a 12- to-14-hour day that began before daybreak and ended well after sunset. The younger girls were called doffers because they doffed (or removed) the heavy bobbins of thread from the machine spindles.
Who used the factory system?
During the Industrial Revolution, family-based cottage-industries were displaced by the factory system, a method of manufacturing using machinery and the division of labor. The factory system was first adopted in Great Britain at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700’s.
How did the factory system affect workers?
The movement toward industrialization often led to crowded substandard housing and poor sanitary conditions for the workers. Moreover, many of the new unskilled jobs could be performed equally well by women, men, or children, thus tending to drive down factory wages to subsistence levels.
What led to the factory system?
As machinery became larger and more expensive, factories formed where business owners purchased the machines and hired workers to run them. What makes up the factory system? The factory system of the Industrial Revolution introduced new ways of making products.
What was the purpose of the Lowell offering?
The Lowell Offering, both as a general proposition and in its specific contents, used the idea of literary work to ease the cultural tensions associated with the movement of rural women from the family to the factory.