The
Boott Cotton Mills Museum gave me the feeling of a weave room in a textile
factory back in the 1800s. Even with the power looms on the first floor, I
could feel the vibrations from the upper floors. These looms were originally
placed at the top floors, but were soon placed at the bottom to prevent the
buildings from collapsing. The workplace alone here was very dangerous to
children that still had playful and reckless behavior. Lizzie M. Ryan, a 12
year old girl, was a recorded case of this. She slid down the stair banister
and hurt herself.
Mill
workers’ lives were heavily dictated by the bell. The morning bell was at 4:30
AM to get to work. Breakfast was 7:00 AM. Lunch (referred to as dinner back
then) was 12:00 PM. Supper was 6:30 PM. These people woke up at such early
times and worked brutally long hours. In 1894, the Massachusetts 10 Hour Law
was passed but Mill Owners easily avoided it. One worker said that even though
there was a feeling of confinement and enslavement in the mills, the money made
from the hard work made him feel free which I found especially surprising
considering how terrible the working conditions were.
There
was also an issue concerning respect for the workers. Mill girls, for instance,
were felt up and harassed, and sometimes threatened to be fired if they didn’t
do as the supervisor please. For example, there was the case where a supervisor
wanted a mill girl to go out with him if she wanted to keep her job. It was all
about what the boss wanted, basically. The workers had to go by "keep eyes
and ears open, but mouths shut".
Overseers
needed to attend church and display “correct” behavior. Employed workers also
needed to fit certain requirements as well to be hired. Thomas Jefferson warned
about the tyranny of the Overseer, which did happen. Thomas Jefferson supported
smaller farms and less industrialization for a virtuous government/country.
Alexander Hamilton, on the other hand, promised wealth from industry. The employment office was always full, and
competition was fierce and became even worse with immigrants coming in to work
at lower wages.
3 million jobs
were lost in the 1893 depression. I didn’t even know there was a depression like
this in the United States at this time; the only one I know of was the Great
Depression that was in the 1920s-1930s. Many mills moved South to escape
competition in the North, since places like Lowell were devastated.
Commentary about
the tough work women did in the mills was in the museum as well. The jobs were
very hard, yet not done by men. Men had the "easier" jobs. They
worked until they were physically unable to continue. The rooms were hot and
humid to keep the cotton whole. If you worked per piece, you wanted the
humidity because of that. Pay was docked for imperfections in the cloth. A
starting mill worker told her experience of making four pennies in her first
week because of being new and making many mistakes.
The
Mill Girls and Immigrants Exhibit showed that mill workers came from different
situations. Some mill girls went to the mills because their families were poor.
Some had parents that they didn’t want to be around, or thought they needed to
be independent despite having adequate wealth. There were also plenty of Greek,
Cambodian, French, and Irish immigrants. After World War I, it was harder to
immigrate to the US, and quotas for immigrants were made much tighter. It was
also almost impossible with the massive amount of Visas that had to be filled
out; some expired too fast.
The
Dickens Exhibit showed Dickens’s thoughts about his visit to the United States
of America. When he continued South, he started noticing the slavery issue more
and more, and then stopped continuing South because of his hatred of slavery.
At Richmond, Virginia, he changed course and went west instead. He even said "This
is not the republic of my imagination." Dickens also faced the issue of his
books being "pirated". People bootlegged his texts, and he wanted to
get laws passed for intellectual property.
