In just six years,
Francis Cabot Lowell
built up an American textile manufacturing industry. He was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts in 1775, and became a successful merchant. On a trip to England at age 36, he was impressed by British textile mills.
Who did Lowell hire to work in his factories?
“The Lowell System required hiring of
young (usually single) women between the ages of 15
and 35. Single women were chosen because they could be paid less than men, thus increasing corporate profits, and because they could be more easily controlled then men.
Who worked in the textile mills in Lowell Massachusetts?
By 1840, the factories in Lowell employed at some estimates
more than 8,000 textile workers
, commonly known as mill girls or factory girls. These “operatives”—so-called because they operated the looms and other machinery—were primarily women and children from farming backgrounds.
Did men work in the Lowell Mills?
Francis Cabot Lowell, an American businessman, began to reform the manufacturing industry by hiring women and creating a centralized workplace. … While young men could work at a
variety
of occupations, young white women had fewer options and more experience working with textiles.
What was made in the Lowell Mills?
For the first time in the United States,
raw bales of cotton could be transformed into bolts of cloth under one roof
. The production process became known as the Waltham-Lowell system, named after the Massachusetts towns in which the four-story brick mills resided.
What caused Lowell to start to decline?
Economic instability in the 1830s as well as immigration greatly affected the Lowell mills.
Overproduction
during the 1830s caused the price of finished cloth to drop and the mills’ financial situation was exacerbated by a minor depression in 1834 and the Panic of 1837.
Why did factory owners replace mill girls with immigrants?
Instead of hiring local New England girls to work in the mills,
the factory owners discovered they could hire newly arrived immigrants
. The immigrants, many of whom had come from Ireland, fleeing the Great Famine, were content to find any work at all — even for relatively low wages. McNamara, Robert. … Lowell Mill Girls.
What happened in Lowell Massachusetts?
| Year Pop. ±% | 2010 106,519 +1.3% | 2020 115,554 +8.5% |
|---|
Why was the Boston Manufacturing Company so successful?
| Significant dates | Designated NHLD December 22, 1977 |
|---|
What is Lowell Massachusetts known for?
Lowell is perhaps best known for
its mills
. Colloquially known as the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution, many history books make mention of the Lowell “mill girls” who helped churn out textiles.
Why did most factory owners not hire union employees?
Mill owners
had trouble finding workers because there were better paying jobs available
. How did Samuel Slater’s Rhode Island system change employment practices in mills? Well basically, the system would hire entire families to work which let labor fill up quickly.
How long was the work day and work week for a mill girl?
Employees worked from 5:00 am until 7:00 pm, for an average
73 hours per week
. Each room usually had 80 women working at machines, with two male overseers managing the operation.
Who was the father of the factory system?
Discover how Richard Arkwright kick-started a transformation in the textiles industry and created a vision of the machine-powered, factory-based future of manufacturing.
What was unusual about the mill town of Lowell Massachusetts?
What was unusual about the factory town of Lowell, Massachusetts? …
Boys and girls as young as seven worked in factories. Small children were especially useful in textile mills because
they could squeeze around the large machines to change spindles.
How were Lowell mills powered?
The mills were driven by
huge batteries of water wheels
. In the 1840s they began replacing these water wheels with the new Francis water turbines, and the factories kept on expanding. The site was soon generating nine thousand horsepower — modest by today’s standards, but a huge enterprise in those days.
What caused the Lowell system of textile mill labor to eventually break down?
As competition grew in the domestic textile industry and wages declined, strikes began to occur, and
with the introduction of cheaper imported foreign workers by mid-century
, the system proved unprofitable and collapsed.
