Cutting down the wages was not their only grievance, nor the only cause of this strike. [Before] the corporations had paid twenty-five cents a week towards the board of each operative, and now it was their purpose to have the girls pay the sum; and this, in addition to the cut in the wages, would make a difference of at least one dollar a week. It was estimated that as many as twelve or fifteen hundred girls turned out, and walked in procession through the streets. They had neither flags nor music, but sang songs, [including]
“Oh! isn’t it a pity, such a pretty girl as I-
Should be sent to the factory to 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.”
All persons [working for] the Middlesex Company . . . [must live] in one of the boarding-houses belonging to the Company.
The Company will not employ any one who is habitually absent from public worship on the Sabbath, or whose habits are not regular and correct.
All persons entering into the employment of the Company are considered as engaged for twelve months; and those who leave sooner will not receive a regular discharge.
Smoking within the factory yards will in no case be permitted.
Boarders are not permitted to have company at unreasonable hours.
Boardinghouse doors must be closed at ten o’clock in the evening, and no one admitted after that time without some reasonable excuse.
The keepers of the Boarding House must . . . report the names of such as are guilty of any improper conduct, or are not in the regular habit of attending public worship.
I know that sometimes the confinement of the mill became very wearisome to me. In the sweet June weather I would lean far out of the window, and try not to hear the unceasing clash of sound inside….
I regard it as one of the privileges of my youth that I was permitted to grow up among these active, interesting girls…. They were earnest and capable; ready to undertake anything that was worth doing…. They gave me a larger, firmer idea of womanhood….
Country girls were naturally independent, and the feeling that at this new work the few hours they had of every-day leisure were entirely their own was a satisfaction to them. They preferred it to going out as ‘hired help.’ It was like a young man’s pleasure in entering upon business for himself. Girls had never tried that experiment before, and they liked it.
Appleton (mill owner): . . . In this rich, young republic-we have started afresh in all things. Here on the Merrimack River we have prospered, not only because we invented a power loom. But also because we found disciplined and respectable workers, the virtuous daughters of our New England farmers. Our mills at Lowell are a kind of industrial miracle. In America, we can have manufactures without the sprawling, filth-strewn slums of England. Abundance without the degradation and poverty of the old world…
Obadiah Smith (overseer): Watch out, Harriet Dearie. Or you can leave right now and not come back. Don't need all of you anyway. People aren't buying so much cloth these days. The Boston partners-Appleton and the rest-they can't sell what they got already. You better quiet down and be sensible like little Lucy here
Students will analyze how changing working conditions and decreasing pay led to strikes in the 1830s.
Students will dramatize the conflict between factory owners and factory workers over changing working conditions and pay.
Step 1: Divide the group into four equal groups: one group to play the factory owner, one group to play a girl who wants to go on strike, one group to play a girl who does not want to go on strike, and one group to play the talk show host. Pass out copies of the To Strike or Not to Strike worksheet describing the situation and go over the parts of the role play carefully.
Step 2: Pass out copies of the character planning worksheets to every student, as well as the primary and secondary documents. In their character groups, students review the readings and select evidence and information they wish to include in the talk show role play. Students should consider the arguments and evidence the character would use, and how he/she would counter the arguments of the other characters. The talk show host groups should also plan for what kinds of questions they will ask the other characters.
Step 3: Each group should choose one member to perform the role play for the class. Pass out copies of the Scene Assessment Rubric to the non-performing members of the class and go over directions for completing it as they actively listen to the role play; as students watch the talk show, they should take notes about the main points of each character and the sources the actors used to create their dialogue.
The designated characters present the role play to the class.
Step 4: After concluding the role play, lead discussion of following points:
How did factory work benefit the girls? (got them off the farm, gave them autonomy, positive supervision of boardinghouses, own wages, education, cultural opportunities with other workers)
In what ways was factory work not a benefit to the girls? (wage cuts, boardinghouse rent raises, strict schedule and rules, loss of independence--being "a slave", danger/discomfort of factory work)