FACTORY GIRLS

RULES

PART 1

• Overseers are to always be in their rooms and not absent during working hours
• All persons are not to be absent from work w/o consent of the over-seer
• Those wanting to leave the company are to give a two weeks' notice to overseer
• Those who leave sooner than twelve months are not entitled to regular discharge
• Any one habitually absent from public worship or guilt of immorality won't be employed

PART 2

• A physician will attend once a month for free vaccinations
• Anyone considered to be guilty of stealing is liable to prosecution
• Payment will be made monthly, every last Saturday.
• These regulations are part of the contract that all workers engage to comply

LIVING CONDITIONS

PART 1

• Bedrooms, where 4-6 women shared the room, had little or no privacy.
• Dwellings that housed 20-40 people's had up to ten bedrooms.
• It contained a kitchen, dining room, parlor, and a keeper's quarters.
• Close communal living encourage bonds among women.
• Room and board costs ranged from $1.25-$1.50 per week during the 1830s

PART 2

• Workers received 3 meals a day, limited laundry service, and a bed
• Shops, religious institutions, educational/recreational activities gave girls social lives
• Workers saved money and gained economic independence
• Boardinghouses were later used to hold meetings for protests
• Prayers were necessary before each meal

WORKING CONDITIONS

PART 1

• Work between 60-80 hours a week
• Work for at least a year, live in a company boardinghouse, and attend church
• Windows were shut tight resulting in tuberculosis / respiratory diseases
• Lighting was insufficient because of high-speed machines
• Economic downtown led to the mills first wage cuts

PART 2

• The women formed the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association
• They tried to appeal to their employers and state legislature through petitions
• Girls worked on machines, usually multiple machines.
• The demands of textile mills took tolls on worker’s health and safety

WAGES AND HOURS

• In the mid 1830’s, the average work week was six, twelve hour days.
• Mills were closed on Fast Day, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day.
• Six days a week earned a factory girl between $5 and $9
• At the same time the average factory worker was making about $18.
• Farm life work for unwed daughters never stopped.

TIME TABLE

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PROTESTS

• Textile corporations threatened fired or blacklisted the girls who protested
• In the 1840s girls banded together to fight for 10 hour days.
• One of 1st strikes was in Lowell in October 1836
• Leading protest figure was Sarah Bagely (female labor reform association creator)
• Mills shut down; girls went to procession to Chapel Hill for labor reformer speeches

HARRIET HANSON ROBINSON

• Worked at 10, child of 4, married at 23
• 14hrs/6d/$2 for labor in the Lowell Mills
• Took leader part in strike w/ other girls about wage cuts
• Wrote autobiography about life as worker in the mills

1836 SONG LYRICS BY PROTESTING WORKERS

• Oh! Isn't it a pity, such a pretty girl as I
• Should be sent to the factory 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