Workers in the Lowell Mills were required to live in the boardinghouses while working at Lowell. These boardinghouses were in clean, neat, and well painted. Although sometimes the boarders were sometimes crowded, conditions in the Lowell boardinghouses were often better than the women’s homes in other towns. While living at Lowell, boarders had many strict rules and regulations to follow. This primary source of the rules and regulations was most likely written by the management at Lowell to ensure residents in the boardinghouses knew what was expected of them. Overseers were responsible for holding boarders accountable for the rules and making sure that they are abiding by the policies. As we study the lives of women at Lowell, it is …show more content…
Controlled by bells, a Lowell woman’s 11-hour work day began before dawn and ended after 6:30 in the evening. These bells were a constant reminder that their lives were centered on work, not their family. Developing a family and investing in the domestic culture is a key aspect of True Womanhood. By turning away from this family focus, women were straying from the True Womanhood ideals. Women working in the mills were typically native-born, young, and unmarried. As most of the boardinghouses were run by men, the idea of coverture does not disappear. In the case of John and Abigail Adams, coverture meant protection, but it took away from Abigail’s privileges. Similarly in the boardinghouses, women were protected, but they were so restricted by rules and regulations that they had very few freedoms. Although these rules limited women, they upheld the submissive aspect of True Womanhood because they were to be obedient to their …show more content…
This curfew allowed little time for other activities and outings with friends. Not only the curfew, but the demanding and extensive six-day work schedule in the mills did not allow much time for women to have other commitments. I found myself going backwards through time to the pre-revolutionary era with Beatrice Plummer. As a midwife, Beatrice worked all day long and had no privacy . Similar to Lowell, women worked 11 hour days and went home at night to their boardinghouses with many other women, leaving them with very little
To understand the significant change in the role of the women is to understand its roots. Traditionally, women in colonial America were limited in the roles they played or limited in their "spheres of influence." Women were once seen as only needed to bear children and care for them. Their only role was domestic; related to activities such as cooking and cleaning. A married woman shared her husband's status and often lived with his family. The woman was denied any legal control over her possession, land, money, or even her own children after a divorce. In a sense, she was the possession of her husband after marriage. She "... was a legal incompetent, as children, idiots, and criminals were under English law. As feme covert she was stripped of all property; once married, the clothes on her back, her personal possessions--whether valuable, mutable or merely sentimental--and even her body became her husband's, to direct, to manage, and to use. Once a child was born to the couple, her land, too, came under his control." (Berkin 14)
Women of the nineteenth century had very set expectations. There were only two types of women: upper class bourgeoisie and lower class farmer’s wives or daughters. Women were considered physically weaker to men, which meant that they were best suited to the domestic sphere while the men workers and made the money. The mill girls defied all of this, and created their own class of women: wage earning middle class women. These women were not like farmers’ wives that were typically uneducated, nor like the bourgeoisie women that were educated, by mostly in domestic and “womanly” skills. The mill girls went to college if they so desired, most of the time doing that in the stead of getting married and becoming a housewife. The mill girls were a
The small community of Hallowell, Maine was no different than any other community in any part of the new nation – the goals were the same – to survive and prosper. Life in the frontier was hard, and the settlement near the Kennebec Valley was no different than what the pioneers in the west faced. We hear many stories about the forefathers of our country and the roles they played in the early days but we don’t hear much about the accomplishments of the women behind those men and how they contributed to the success of the communities they settled in. Thanks to Martha Ballard and the diary that she kept for 27 years from 1785-1812, we get a glimpse into...
...ts and the emancipation of slavery with women participating in and organizing the events defends the claim that the Lowell mills gave opportunity for women to progress in their efforts against any inequality.
As many women took on a domestic role during this era, by the turn of the century women were certainly not strangers to the work force. As the developing American nation altered the lives of its citizens, both men and women found themselves struggling economically and migrated into cities to find work in the emerging industrialized labor movement . Ho...
“The Pastoralization of Housework” by Jeanne Boydston is a publication that demonstrates women’s roles during the antebellum period. Women during this period began to embrace housework and believed their responsibilities were to maintain the home, and produce contented and healthy families. As things progressed, housework no longer held monetary value, and as a result, womanhood slowly shifted from worker to nurturer. The roles that women once held in the household were slowly diminishing as the economy became more industrialized. Despite the discomfort of men, when women realized they could find decent employment, still maintain their household and have extra income, women began exploring their option.
The two works of literature nudging at the idea of women and their roles as domestic laborers were the works of Zora Neale Hurston in her short story “Sweat”, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Whatever the setting may be, whether it is the 1920’s with a woman putting her blood, sweat and tears into her job to provide for herself and her husband, or the 1890’s where a new mother is forced to stay at home and not express herself to her full potential, women have been forced into these boxes of what is and is not acceptable to do as a woman working or living at home. “Sweat” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” draw attention to suppressing a woman’s freedom to work along with suppressing a woman’s freedom to act upon her
Dublin, Thomas. Women at Work: the Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826-1860. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979.
A woman's job in the early 1700s was to cook, clean, teach the children and tend to the house while the men worked outside. However because of the Lowell system, women were viewed immensely different. Thanks to Frances Lowell, not only women but unmarried women were allowed to work in factories and raise money for the family or themselves. However, because the role of women changed, many people were unsure of how to accept their new roles in society. Many were spectacle of women rising society because for the past hundred years, society had viewed the role of the women as lower than men because they were not able to do as much work because most work during the time period was physically demanding and a woman's body is not built as strong as a man's. However, because of the Lowell system, women were able to work and earn money, thus rise to new level in society. But even then, people still viewed women working in the factories as inferior to those women who did not work in the factory. Mostly older women did not believe that the women should work in a factory. For example throughout the book Lyddie, whenever people saw a “factory girl” they always gave her dirty looks and talked about how they should be at home, not working in a factory. They still had an older mindset on the role of women. Even though the workers faced the prejudices of others, they still succeed in life are rose
In the book Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England 1650-1750, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich attempts to highlight the role of women that was typical during this particular time period. During this point in history in hierarchal New England, as stated both in Ulrich’s book and “Give Me Liberty! An American History” by Eric Foner, ordinary women were referred to as “goodwives” (Foner 70). “A married woman in early New England was simultaneously a housewife, a deputy husband, a consort, a mother, a mistress, a neighbor, and a Christian” and possibly even a heroine (Ulrich 9). While it is known that women were an integral part of economic and family life in the colonies during this time, Ulrich notes that it is unlikely
Women spent majority of their day ironing, washing clothes, baking, sewing clothes and raising their children (page 17). Religion also added to women’s lesser status (page 18). Religion was at the core life of Americans, female submission was decreed to be part of God’s order (page 18). Lucretia Mott soon pointed out that many scriptures celebrated female strength and independence (page 18). As a young girl Elizabeth Cady Stanton learned about laws that limited rights of wives and as an adult found ways to reform marriage and divorce laws (page 23). Things were looking up for women, by 1850 female wage workers made up nearly a quarter of the manufacturing labor work force (page 30). Women were still excluded from occupations such as the military, ministry, law, medicine and jobs felt inappropriate for women (page 32). During this antebellum period women were starting to rise up and realize they deserved to have the same rights and privileges men received. This gave women hope that things could change. By the second quarter of the 19th century few positive changes for women pushed Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Susan B Anthony, Lucy Stone and others to challenge injustices and reform efforts (page
A huge part of the economical grow of the United States was the wealth being produced by the factories in New England. Women up until the factories started booming were seen as the child-bearer and were not allowed to have any kind of career. They were valued for factories because of their ability to do intricate work requiring dexterity and nimble fingers. "The Industrial Revolution has on the whole proved beneficial to women. It has resulted in greater leisure for women in the home and has relieved them from the drudgery and monotony that characterized much of the hand labour previously performed in connection with industrial work under the domestic system. For the woman workers outside the home it has resulted in better conditions, a greater variety of openings and an improved status" (Ivy Pinchbeck, Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, 1750-1850, pg.4) The women could now make their own money and they didn’t have to live completely off their husbands. This allowed women to start thinking more freely and become a little bit more independent.
The chain of letters reveals the beginning of a major change that will happen in the near future, supporting the development of women's rights. Industrialization had a major impact on the lives of every American, including women. Before the era of industrialization, around the 1790's, a typical home scene depicted women carding and spinning while the man in the family weaves (Doc F). One statistic shows that men dominated women in the factory work, while women took over teaching and domestic services (Doc G). This information all relates to the changes in women because they were being discriminated against and given children's work while the men worked in factories all day.
In Christine Stansell’s City of Women, the main issue discussed is “the misfortunes laboring women suffered and the problems they caused” (xi). Throughout the book, Stansell delves into the different aspects that affected these female New Yorkers’ lives, such as inadequate wages, societal stigmas about women laborers, and the hierarchal class system, within antebellum America. She argues that since the nation’s founding, in 1789, the bedrock of these tribulations working women would be mercilessly exposed to was gender inequality. Women’s opportunities and livelihoods were strongly dependent on the dominant male figure in their life, due to the fact that in that period there was very few available and accepted forms of employment for women. Stansell claims, “Paid work was sparse and unstable. Laboring women were confined within a patriarchal economy predicated on direct dependence on men” (18). As the work continues, she illustrates these women’s desires to break away from their reliance on men, as well as the avenues they took to achieve this desired independence. To help solidify her
Women were present to one another during the working course and not leaning their machinery there was little probability of privacy to integrate the group requirements was very durable. Newcomers have the company and support of a partner in their first improvement to Lowell. The boarding houses was the ...