In Lowell during the Industrial Revolution it appeared that everyone was stuck in an unbreakable chain. As the lower class seemed to be rapidly expanding, and more and more families were left incapable of supporting their children, the best solution seemed to be the one that killed two birds with one stone. Sending their daughters off to the mills not only meant they would have another source of income, but also their child would now have food to eat, a roof over their heads, and work to keep them occupied, things they never could have provided for them before. But what those mill worker’s fathers didn't realize was that a lifelong career in bobbin weaving didn't exactly lend itself to many other promising career paths; and more than likely their daughters stayed poor, stayed in Lowell, and when it came time for it, sent their own daughters down to the mill, thereby continuing the chain. It was the ingenious system of the Lowell mills that never seemed to be anticipated or planned, but amongst many other forces ensured that Lowell factories would never be understaffed.
One document we read for our first DBQ (doc B) stated this very same reason from the perspective of one of the the mill owners himself. When asked if many of the parents objected to sending their daughters to the mills he replied that “Many parents did object to send their girls, but that the poorness of others, and not having any work to set them to, left him not at any loss for hands.” So it seems the higher ups were aware the positively devious system they had stumbled across, and although it might very well have been immoral in some peoples eyes, they weren't very hasty to put any of it to a stop.
Although this theory of financial motivation is true for some girls that worked at the Lowell mills, like most theories, this acts as only one possible explanation, and there were many reasons for the average Lowell mill girl not being so eager to hang up her threads and needles. One big factor being some of the girls were actually very excited to go to work in the mills. Some of them even thought the factories were more like an apprenticeship where they were going to be taught how to do the work by by real professionals of their craft. One of the stories in the video we watched “Children of the Revolution”showed a boy who said he was promised roast beef and plum pudding before being employed (note that this was in an English mill) but instead was served a glass of blue tinted milk for his introductory meal.
But why would that poor child after sitting down to a dinner of blue dairy mush decide not to leave right then and there; well one of the documents we read in class seems to shed a little light on this. This document (doc. C) tells the story of of a girl who continued to work in the mill even though her health was deteriorating rapidly for over 3 years of her working tenure. She reports of even several of her co workers dying before her eyes yet still she worked on, she kept on telling herself she was in good health until she eventually got fired from her job and thrown back to the bustling Lowell streets. Either she was actually aware of her condition and just didn't want to be left homeless and poor, or possibly something even more tragic was at work. This story is a perfect example of the true motivations of these girls, fear and denial.
Some of them them had been in the mills for so long that the thundering screeches of the spinning Jennies and the metallic clanks of Bobbins was practically all they knew, and the thought of no longer having a roof over their heads, food to eat, and work to do, was a thought so frightening it outweighed the threat the mills put on their lives.
That is the real secret to why the girls stayed in the mills, although money was what motivated the parents to send them, and the promising conditions is what got them to agree, I think the biggest reason why the girls didn't just up and quit was fear. Fear of being hungry, fear of being homeless, fear of being jobless, and fear of being alone, mixed with the human need to always stay with what’s familiar to us, is what kept the girls there for as long as they were. whether or not this system was morally just, or if this diabolical chain could have been prevented is a subject that can be debated for years and years, but one fact that I truly believe is that these girls didn't really have a choice of whether or not they wanted this to happen to them, some of them were mill workers for so long that even if they mustered enough confidence to walk away from the mill, in some respects they could never really leave.
No comments:
Post a Comment