Factory Girls' Association

United States 1834-1836

Synopsis

Women factory workers at Lowell, Massachusetts, rejected wage cuts in 1834 and again in 1836 by walking off the job. These early "turn outs," as they were called, required the coordination of hundreds of female operatives and drew on both traditional forms of community networks and a newer form of wage labor negotiations to organize the strikes and protect their interests as female wage laborers. Neither strike resulted in long-term worker associations nor succeeded in preventing wage reductions; but the walkouts did disrupt factory production, demonstrating the significance of collective action and revealing the ambiguous position of women in the world of wage labor.

Timeline

• 1809: Progressive British industrialist Robert Owen proposes an end to employment of children in his factories. When his partners reject the idea, he forms an alliance with others of like mind, including the philosopher Jeremy Bentham.
• 1813: Jane Austen publishes Pride and Prejudice.
• 1818: Donkin, Hall & Gamble "Preservatory" in London produces the first canned foods.
• 1824: Ludwig van Beethoven composes his Ninth Symphony.
• 1829: Greece wins its independence after a seven-year war with Turkey.
• 1831: Unsuccessful Polish revolt waged against Russian rule.
• 1834: British mathematician Charles Babbage completes drawings for the "analytic engine," a forerunner of the modern computer that he never builds.
• 1834: American inventor Cyrus H. McCormick patents his reaper, a horse-drawn machine for harvesting wheat.
• 1835: American inventor and painter Samuel F. B. Morse constructs an experimental version of his telegraph, and American inventor Samuel Colt patents his revolver.
• 1837: Victoria is crowned in England.
• 1841: Act of Union joins Upper Canada and Lower Canada, which consist of parts of the present-day provinces of Ontario and Quebec, respectively.
• 1846: American inventor Elias Howe patents his sewing machine.

Event and Its Context

The Lowell Factory System

The growth of cotton mills in New England in the early nineteenth century contributed to industrialization in the United States. The Lowell factory system established a new form of organizing textile production, and the young women who migrated from the countryside to work in the factories constituted a workforce and community previously unseen in the United States. Francis Cabot Lowell, backed by financiers Benjamin Gorham, Tracy Jackson, and Uriah Cotting, established the first modern factory system in 1813. The Boston Manufacturing Company handled every aspect of cotton production and was the first factory to do so. Francis Lowell, along with Paul Moody, a mechanic, further modernized the factory system by improving upon the power loom.

Female operatives held a variety of positions inside the factories. Wage scales were based on the skill of the job performed. Women who attended to spinning machines earned less than women weavers, whose more specialized skills returned higher wages. Male operatives at the low end of the wage scale earned approximately five cents more than the highest paid female operative. The male carding and picking workers required strength, but their jobs were considered semiskilled and were among the lowest paid ranks of male workers. Men also worked in the repair shops and mill yards and held all managerial positions in the factories.

From management's perspective, women workers were ideal because they universally received lower wages than male laborers. To attract young women from the surrounding countryside, Lowell and other factory owners promised decent wages as well as boarding houses operated by women, run with strict rules to ensure young women had moral guidance, even though they lived outside the purview of their parents. The Lowell factory system's opportunity for young women to earn wages without damaging their feminine virtue proved to be a successful strategy.

Boardinghouse rules served not only to protect women but also to protect the interests of the factory owners. Management sought to forge an obedient, efficient workforce and to assuage fears about the potential dangers of urban life for young women. In Lowell, factory managers established a system that protected their young female operatives and punished those who broke the rules. Women who breached tenets of morality or left their employers without the required two weeks' notice were effectively blacklisted from Lowell factories. "Honorable discharge[s]" served as tickets into the factories and the boarding houses. Without such a document, young women found themselves unable to gain employment or housing.

Factory owners wanted a disciplined work force, and company-owned housing helped them achieve this. It also provided a degree of social control over the young women in their employ. In addition to keeping owners' costs down, the rules of the boardinghouses ensured that young women would continue to receive moral guidance. Factory workers were expected to attend church regularly—failure to do so meant receiving a dishonorable discharge, which would also result in their being blacklisted from the Lowell factories. Boardinghouse regulations included a 10:00 P.M. curfew, which was intended to keep young women out of danger and in good shape for a long day's work. So although the young women who sought work in the factories found independence from their parents' households, they found themselves, to a certain extent, charges of the female boardinghouse keepers and factory supervisors.

The majority of female operatives came from propertied farm families and usually made the decision themselves to seek employment at the mills. As Thomas Dublin pointed out, the women who migrated to the Lowell factories tended to come from larger families and be first or second daughters. Unlike their European counterparts, Lowell's female workers went to work to support themselves, not their families. These young women usually worked for a few years before marrying. During this time they earned their own incomes and gained independence form their parents. Although the female operatives worked 12 hours a day, six days a week, the women experienced new social opportunities that were unavailable to them in their rural communities. The newfound social and economic independence of these women altered the rural patriarchal family structure. Young women experienced the freedom of having their own incomes and could spend their money at their own discretion. Despite the long working days, socializing took place in the factory as well as the boarding houses.

The factory workers forged bonds both in the workplace and in the boardinghouses. Management paired new hires to the mills with more experienced workers. Additionally, many of the women migrating to Lowell had a relative already working in the mills who could help the newcomers adjust to their new environment. Even if young women did not have familial connections, the close living and working quarters, along with the system of pairing workers, helped to socialize the new female factory workers. Although familial ties helped forge a sense of community in the factories, women experienced a different social world than the rural ones from which they had come. The young female factory workers might have loosened the bonds of parental control, but society in the Lowell factory systems was regulated by seasoned workers, and pressure to adopt the perceived urban sophistication of the veteran women workers was part of life in Lowell.

Pairing new factory workers with veteran workers also helped newcomers learn the ropes of the factory work. Letters from factory workers attest to the significance of women working together, looking out for one another, and keeping women within the accepted norms of the social order. Such working conditions also fostered the solidarity that became evident during the strikes of 1834 and 1836.

If accepted norms of behavior and work habits were easily ascertained, the status of women workers in early industrializing United States was more ambiguous. Factory work increased during the 1830s, but other forms of production such as out-work and artisan shops persisted. Women's place in the world of wage labor remained subordinate to men's, and the women were not considered permanent wage earners. These perceptions sat at cross-purposes for female laborers seeking to change their working conditions. They also undermined the female workers' ability to forge strong alliances with male laborers. Most women at the Lowell factories in the 1830s were wage laborers for a relatively short period of time at a particular stage in their lives, yet the fact that so many women banded together to maintain their wage levels illustrates their understanding of the power of workers' alliances. The impermanence of their associations exemplifies the problematic status of female workers in a period where women were not considered a permanent part of the wage labor force.

The subordination of women workers to male workers' interests, as historian Mary Blewett pointed out, sabotaged any real challenge to burgeoning capitalism in the United States. The 1830s produced increasing activism among the working classes, but men's concerns overshadowed women's and ultimately forged an image of the working class based on masculine identity. The Workingmen's Party and arguments for a "workingman's wage" reinforced the laborer as male and did much to render women's labor invisible in the economy. Blewett's examination of the Lynn, Massachusetts, shoemakers' strike in 1860 demonstrated the continued failure of the working class to address the needs of both female and male wage laborers, which resulted in below-living wages for most women and undermined workers' efforts to mitigate employers' control.

The 1834 Turn-out

Early in 1834 the largest factories in Lowell posted notices of reductions in wages for piecework. Women began organizing as soon as the broadsides were posted, even before the agents set the exact numbers for the reduction in wages. The first action taken by the women was to circulate and sign petitions demanding that wage levels remain the same and threatening that the women would not show up for work if wage reductions took place. Female factory workers called meetings, elected representatives, and pledged financial support for operatives who needed money. When a spokeswoman from one of the mills was fired, the turn-out began in earnest. Despite her warning that the other female operatives would walk out if her employment was terminated, the agent dismissed the spokeswoman. She exited the room, followed by all of the other female operatives present. Some 800 women struck, signing petitions that expressed their heritage as "free" women and daughters of liberty.

Within days the strike was over. Inauspicious timing along with the mobility of many of the women meant that those who did not have to, or could not, return to the mills, moved back to their rural homes, bringing the strike to an inauspicious end. New factory workers quickly replaced those on strike during the 1834 turn-out. Many of the women who had not left the area returned to work at the mills. Little is known about the fate of the women who did not have the choice to return to their parents' homes and remained on strike even in the face of ultimate failure.

Although the strike of 1834 was short-lived and failed to preserve operatives' wages, it left a legacy for worker agitation in the future. In addition to their objections to losing wages, the female workers resoundingly rejected managements' paternalistic approach. The petition stated that management's demeanor was "haughty" and "overbearing." The women chafed under this paternal treatment and demanded their rights to maintain their wages levels as well as their dignity.

Labor activism increased during the late 1820s and early 1830s. As the artisan system eroded, wage workers were well aware that action on their part often proved a necessary response to merchant-capitalists. Although the Workingmen's Party experienced a fast demise, the question of where wage labor stood in the republic unsettled workers and capitalists alike. Workers worried that they would be "enslaved," and owners wanted to mold a system that relied on cheap wages to generate the greatest profits.

The Lowell factory girls' strike was not the only one to occur in 1834. In Dover, New Hampshire, female cotton factory workers also turned out in February and March of that year, repudiating factory owners' attempts to lower their wages. In New York female bookbinders took action in 1835. One publication titled their walkouts the "Broomstick strikes" when these women demanded a higher wage for their work. In Philadelphia the Female Improvement Society for the City and County of Philadelphia formed in 1835 to address the needs of the city's seamstresses, milliners, and other textile piece workers. The Female Improvement Society elected special committees to make formal requests for wage increases; one committee petitioned the secretary of war, arguing that insufficient wages were paid to the women who clothed the army. In Philadelphia increases—although slight—did come about from the association's demands.

The 1836 Strike and Formation of the Factory Girls' Association

Although the women strikers in Lowell did not reap rewards from their walkout, they set the stage for future activism. In 1836 Lowell factory managers increased the rents for their boardinghouses. Reacting to this effective decrease in their income, the women chose to strike in protest. They launched the Factory Girls' Association, which boasted 2,500 members. The organization appointed officers and established committees to formally address their position. The association informed the factory agents that correspondence from management would be received only through the officers of the new union.

The rhetoric in 1836 mirrored that of the 1834 turn-out. The women claimed that they were "daughters of freemen," and refused to be "enslaved" by factory management. The strikers eventually found themselves evicted from their boardinghouses, and the strike quickly dwindled to a close, but production remained below prestrike levels. The Lowell strike of 1836 also spurred strikes in Amesbury and Dover, Massachusetts.

The collective action that led to the founding of the female worker organizations failed to create any permanent associations. In the case of Lowell, the impetus to form permanent labor organizations did not exist, for the majority of the women did not face working in the mills for the rest of their lives. The organizing efforts of these women nonetheless made their walkouts more effective, and for a brief time, affected production output. Manufacturers, of course, quickly moved to fire and blacklist strikers, hoping to prevent future organizing among the female operatives. Given the lack of success of the Lowell strikes, smaller manufacturers around New England and other parts of the North followed Lowell's example by reducing wages. The women workers in these other areas also responded by walking out.

The Lowell factory was the first modern factory in the United States. The initial strategy of Cabot Lowell to offer high wages and other incentives to attract the young rural women from neighboring farms proved unsustainable for the factory owners who needed to maximize profits and compete in industry. Textile factories did not emerge in other parts of the country; in New York and Philadelphia "put-out" work prevailed. This system of labor paid women by the article, but the women worked out of their own homes rather than in a factory. The putout system did not have the overhead costs that were associated with the Lowell factory system, nor could it match the level of production attainable with factory work.

Despite the failure of the strikes, Lowell women engaged themselves in the important debate about wage workers' status in the Jacksonian era. An emerging sense of female working-class consciousness complicated the debate, as it also asserted the importance of women to labor and the nascent labor movement. In the 1840s the legacy of the 1830s turn-outs would help Lowell women organize and agitate for the 10-hour workday. The early strikes carved out a niche for female wage laborers based on their rights as citizens and asserted their value as an important part of the system of production. Although women's wage labor would continue to be overshadowed by a gender system that devalued women's work, the Lowell factory girls' early organization took the important step of entering women into the debate about the future of the laboring classes in the United States.

Key Players

Larcom, Lucy (1824-1893): Larcom was involved in the 1836 strike. Just 12 years old at the time, she had come to Lowell from the rural outskirts of Massachusetts with her mother, who was widowed and was forced to find work to support her children. Larcom published an article in the Atlantic Monthly in 1881 describing life in the mills and the magazine, The Lowell Offering, which began publication in 1840 and was written by and for the Lowell factory girls. Larcom wrote both for The Lowell Offering and The Operatives' Magazine.

Robinson, Harriet Jane Hanson (1825-1911): In 1836 Robinson walked out with other female strikers, and management reprimanded her mother, Harriet Hanson, for the failure to prevent her daughter from turning out. Robinson recounted her life in the mills in her book Loom and Spindle; Or, Life Among the Early Mill Girls. In addition to discussing the Lowell factory environment, Robinson included in her book some short biographies of her fellow factory workers who wrote for The Lowell Offering.

Turner, Elizabeth Emerson (1822-?): Born in Lyme, New Hampshire, Turner moved to Lowell with her family in 1833, after her father lost his property as the result of an illness. Turner began working in the mills at age 11 and began writing for The Lowell Offering when she was 18 years old.

See also: Lowell Industrial Experiment; Workingmen's Party (1828).

Bibliography

Books

Andrews, John B., and W. D. P. Bliss. History of Women in Trade Unions. New York: Arno Press, 1974.

Baxter, Annette K., and Leon Stein, eds. Women of Lowell.New York: Arno Press, 1974.

Bender, Thomas. Toward an Urban Vision: Ideas and Institutions in Nineteenth Century America. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975.

Boris, Eileen, and Nelson Lichtenstein. Major Problems in the History of American Workers. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1991.

Dublin, Thomas. Farm to Factory: Women's Letters,1830-1860. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981.

——. Transforming Women's Work: New England Lives in the Industrial Revolution. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994.

——. Women at Work: The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826-1860. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979.

Foner, Philip S., ed. The Factory Girls. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977.

——. History of the Labor Movement in the United States, vol. 1. 3rd ed. New York: International Publishers, 1962.

——. From Colonial Times to the Founding of the American Federation of Labor. New York: International Publishers, 1962.

Kessler-Harris, Alice. Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.

Stansell, Christine. City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789-1860. New York: Knopf Press, Inc., 1986.

Wilentz, Sean. Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788-1850. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984.

—Karla Kelling