Mill Girls
These young women, usually ages 15–30, worked in large cotton factories.
Who were the mill girls?
The textile corporations recruited women from these two types of places in New England.
What are farms and villages?
Most women who came to Lowell were from these two types of places.
What are farms and small villages?
Many Irish workers came to Lowell in the 1840s while fleeing these conditions in Ireland.
What are famines?
This publication was written entirely by women who worked in the Lowell mills.
What is The Lowell Offering?
This group of women came together in the 1840s specifically to push for a shorter workday.
Who were female labor reformers?
These women were known as the “daughters of” these people.
Who were Yankee farmers?
Some women had previously worked in these smaller types of factories.
What are small textile mills?
Lowell workers had one major advantage over workers in other textile cities, but this advantage came with difficult working conditions.
What were higher wages?
How does Charles Dickens describe the mills in Lowell?
He describes them as clean, well-ordered, comfortable, and well-ventilated, with healthy-looking workers and orderly working conditions.
Most mill girls were originally described as these women from New England.
Who were young Yankee women?
Female mill workers often faced these while working in the mills.
What are long hours and difficult working conditions?
Women sometimes made goods like cotton, woolen products, or these for merchants.
What are shoes?
Lowell’s female workers demonstrated their willingness to challenge their employers when they did this twice during the 1830s.
What is strike?
What are some ways Lowell’s textile corporations took advantage of their employees?
They required long workdays, strict rules, and obedience, while workers who protested could face firing or blacklisting.
These women began joining Yankee mill girls in the textile industry during the late 19th century.
Who were immigrant women?
In addition to wages, workers were provided with this type of housing.
What are boarding houses?
This city became a destination for young women leaving rural areas to find opportunities.
What is Lowell?
The arrival of thousands of these workers changed the ethnic makeup of Lowell’s textile workforce and made organizing more difficult.
Who were immigrants?
How did Lowell’s mill workers react to poor working conditions and wage cuts?
They protested, went on strike, and organized for better working conditions and a 10-hour workday.
Women continued to be an important part of this workforce despite the hardships of mill work.
What is the textile workforce?
This was the year Lowell’s first factory opened.
What is 1823?
Many young women left home for Lowell because their families were facing this.
What are economic difficulties?
The group whose arrival increased dramatically in Lowell during the 1840s was fleeing a devastating food crisis in this country.
What is Ireland?
Why did Mary Paul want to go to Lowell?
She wanted to earn money, gain some independence, and help improve her family’s difficult financial situation.