The Lowell mill girls
American industry begins with young women off the farms
See it on the timeline →In depth
A cotton mill is a factory where raw cotton is spun into thread and woven into cloth, and the first American ones were driven by water power from river falls. The system was deliberately designed to avoid the reputation of British mill towns, and it gave a generation of women an income of their own before anyone had framed that as a demand. It also produced the first strikes led by women in the United States, in 1834 and 1836. The cotton came from the slave plantations of the South, so the freest and the least free labour in the country were two links in one chain of production.
For children
The first large factories in the United States were water-powered cotton mills in Massachusetts. The workers were mostly young unmarried women from farms, living in company boarding houses and publishing a magazine of their own.
Sources
- Dublin, Women at Work (1979)
- National Park Service: Lowell National Historical Park
Connects to
Report a correction
Found something that does not hold? Tell us — sources help, but are not required.
Report a correctionPart of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org ·