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Loom and Spindle: Or Life Among the Early Mill Girls; With a Sketch of the Lowell Offering and Some of Its Contributors (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Loom and Spindle: Or Life Among the Early Mi...)
Excerpt from Loom and Spindle: Or Life Among the Early Mill Girls; With a Sketch of the Lowell Offering and Some of Its Contributors
Whenever the history of economic condi tions in this country shall be written, the author will express his gratitude for all works giving the details of especial epochs and phases of ih dustrial life. Among them he will find no more interesting experience than that attending the entrance of women to the industrial field. The author of Loom and Spindle contributes something more than her personal experiences at Lowell during the early years of the textile factories, - she contributes an inside view of the workings of a new system of labor, which had been transplanted from England, and which originated with the application of power to spin ning and weaving.
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(Excerpt from Captain Mary Miller: A Drama
Mrs. G. Yes, b...)
Excerpt from Captain Mary Miller: A Drama
Mrs. G. Yes, but yer never as'd me! An' I didn't want her sold, muther You know haow I took care 0' that caarf. Her mother died, an' never saw her. I almost feel as if she was mine for I brought her up like a baby, and she sucked milk from my finger before she could stan'. I'm sure I'm as much her mother as harf the hens are mothers of their chickens: for they never see some 0' the eggs till they are put under 'em to hatch, an' they don't know which is which.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Harriet Hanson Robinson was an American writer and woman suffrage leader who wrote an account of her experince in the textile mills, helping to encourage women to flock to the mills for a chance to earn their own wages.
Background
Harriet Hanson Robinson was born on August 2, 1825 in Boston, Massachusetts, the second of four children born to William and Harriet Hanson. When she was six years old, her father died, leaving her mother with the difficult task of feeding and caring for four young children. At the time, it was not unusual for a family to break up because of financial need, but Robinson's mother was determined to keep her family together. When a concerned neighbor offered to ease her burden by adopting young Harriet, Mrs. Hanson said, "No; while I have one meal of victuals a day, I will not part with my children. " With help from her husband's friends, Mrs. Hanson set up a small shop in Boston, selling food, candy, and firewood. The family lived in a room behind the shop, sleeping in one bed.
When her sister suggested she join her in Lowell, a booming mill town about twenty miles northwest of Boston, to manage a boardinghouse for mill workers, Mrs. Hanson did not hesitate. In 1832, she piled her four children into a canal boat and traveled the short journey up the Middlesex Canal to Lowell. In Lowell Mrs. Hanson worked as hard as ever. She managed a house of forty boarders, taking care of all the cooking, cleaning, and shopping. Now her income was steady and secure. Robinson washed many sinkfuls of dishes, standing on a crate to reach the sink.
Education
In spite of their poverty, Harriet went to school every day and she also attended a sewing school on Saturdays. When she was fifteen, she attended Lowell High School. Here, in a wooden schoolroom located above a butcher shop, she learned French, Latin, and English grammar and composition.
Career
At age ten Robinson went to work in the mills. Her mother needed the extra income and Robinson wanted to help out. She was sent to work as a doffer – a worker who took full bobbins off the spinning frame and replaced them with empty ones. The work was fairly easy; doffers were needed only fifteen minutes out of every hour. "The rest of the time, " she later wrote, "was their own, and when the overseer was kind, they were allowed to read, knit, or even to go outside the mill-yard and play. "
In spite of the educational advantages, the spirited fellowship, and the income that the mills offered, workers were not always happy with the treatment they received. Robinson witnessed two strikes during her younger years, and participated in one of them. When she was eleven and working as a doffer, workers struck because of a proposed pay cut that would allow mill owners to pay more to the boardinghouse managers. Robinson was directly involved in the strike, leading a room full of girls into the march. This turnout, which lasted a month, produced some effects; several of the mills reversed the wage cut. Only later did Robinson realize that her action hurt her mother, who, as a boardinghouse matron, could have used the extra income.
When she was older, Robinson became a drawing-in girl, one of the more desirable positions in the mill. Drawing-in girls drew in the threads of the warp through the harness and the reed, making the beams ready for the weaver's loom. Though it required skill and a nimble and steady hand, this job was not very demanding. Since the drawing-in girls were paid by the piece, not by the hour, they could work at their own pace. If they chose to read, they could, and Robinson often took the opportunity to open a book while she worked. When she was fifteen, Robinson took two years off from working in the mills to attend school. After high school she joined in many of the literary groups that had sprung up around Lowell. She even began writing and publishing her own poetry.
Robinson left the mills at age twenty-three. She later wrote of her experiences in a book called Loom and Spindle, or Life Among the Early Mill Girls, published in 1898. Although many historians believe that Robinson painted an overly bright and rosy picture of life in the mills during this time, Robinson claimed that hers was an accurate account of her experiences and that working conditions did not worsen until after she left in 1848. It is important to keep in mind, however, that Robinson's circumstances may have been more favorable than most. She lived with her family (many girls had left homes far away to work in the mills); she held a skilled but relatively easy job that allowed time for reading; and she worked in the very early days of the industry, when workers were still allowed to perform at their own pace. Nonetheless, her account captures a time in history when women began to see their position in society change as they had the opportunity to become wage earners and to educate themselves.
By today's standards, work in the mills during Robinson's time was demanding and difficult. Workers began their day at 5:00 in the morning and worked until 7:00 in the evening, with only two half-hour meal breaks in between. Robinson wrote that though she did not mind such a schedule, the worst part of it was having to get up so early. Inside the mills, the noise of so much machinery could be deafening. As a drawing-in girl, Robinson worked in small rooms away from the busiest and noisiest part of the mill.
In October 1840 some of the mill girls got together to produce and publish, in the words of editor Abel C. Thomas, "the first magazine or journal written exclusively by women in the whole world. " The sixteen-page Offering, which sold for about six cents a copy, published poems, articles, and stories written by mill girls. Robinson contributed several poems to the journal and later became its historian.
As early as 1841, when Robinson still worked in the mills, workers were complaining about the inhuman conditions, claiming they were treated like machines. As years passed, mills sped up production and gave workers increased work loads. Wages dropped and working conditions worsened. Reporters described mill hands as working endlessly and "when they can toil no longer, they go home to die. " Housing became cramped as more and more workers moved to mill towns.
Workers, with the support of the public, fought for a shorter working day (ten hours) and better wages. By the mid-to late 1800s mill girls were replaced by immigrants who were willing to work for lower wages. As the twentieth-century approached, mill towns like Lowell, Lawrence, and Holyoke teemed with mill workers, many of them immigrant men. Housing became scarce and overcrowded. Cramped conditions, improper air circulation, and unclean surroundings caused outbreaks of tuberculosis, cholera, and typhoid. One out of every three spinners, many under the age of 25, would die before completing ten years in the factory. It was a far cry from the dismal round of life in these mill towns to the pleasant, spirited days that Robinson wrote about.
Robinson's marriage to William Robinson ended her work in the mills. The couple eventually moved to Malden, outside of Boston. Robinson was content to live as a housewife while her husband worked. Later, however, after William's death, Robinson devoted much of her time to fighting for women's rights. She hoped to, but did not, see women get the vote in her own lifetime. With her elder daughter Robinson joined the National Woman Suffrage Association, which promoted a woman's right to vote as well as her rights in the workplace and in the home. In 1881 she published a book, Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement. At one point she testified before Congress on the subject of suffrage. Robinson and Hattie also formed a women's club in Malden.
In her later years Robinson often was asked to lecture about her life as a mill girl. At these lectures she met women who were working in the mills of the late 1800s and soon learned that the conditions they labored under were far worse than anything she remembered. Robinson spent the last years of her life keeping active with her family, reading, writing, and sewing. She died on December 22, 1911, at the age of eighty-six.
(Excerpt from Captain Mary Miller: A Drama
Mrs. G. Yes, b...)
Views
Robinson’s composition titles – including "Poverty Not Disgraceful" and "Indolence and Industry" – give a glimpse into her attitudes about life. She felt that hardworking poor people were just as worthy as wealthy people.
Membership
National Woman Suffrage Association, General Federation of Women’s Clubs
Personality
Harriet was a strikingly beautiful young women with piercing black eyes, ringlets in her long hair, and a brave, confident face.
Interests
Throughout her childhood, books were extremely important to Harriet. She spent much of the precious free time she had each day reading.
Connections
Harriet met her husband, William Robinson, when she took some of her poetry to the Lowell Journal, where he worked as an editor. They married on Thanksgiving Day of 1848 and had four children, one of whom died in infancy. Her elder daughter name was Hattie.