The Mill Girls

During the Industrial Revolution, many young women and girls in America went to work in the Lowell mills, which was precisely the aim of the Lowell Experiment. As opposed to England, where overcrowding and poverty meant there was no shortage of people willing to work in the mills, America had plenty of space for families to continue farming and were less likely to go into the mills to work.

The Lowell Experiment was the Lowell mills’ way of attracting workers to work for them, mostly seeking for young girls that were not yet of marrying age. Girls were not needed to work on the farm like boys were and normally were married to boys who could farm. At the time, married women weren’t supposed to be working and were instead meant to be doing things at home. Additionally, women didn’t need to be paid as much, and were essentially raised to be obedient. That meant that the ideal worker for the Lowell mills were girls who were old enough to be out of the house, but not yet old enough to be married.

"Print by Merrimack Company." From American Textile
History Museum. This picture, showing a peaceful and happy
lifestyle in the mills, was used to attract girls to the mill
life. The happy couples indicate a good place to settle,
and the clean environment gives a pure feel to the scene.

To make the mills enticing enough that daughters would be willing to leave and families willing to part with their daughters, the experiment set up restrictions, the first of which being that working in the mills was a temporary job. Once they came of age, girls would leave the mill and find a husband to settle down with. They also set up the mills like a home: an older woman in the boardinghouses to serve meals and behavior, and strict rules of conduct. Girls benefited by getting money for them to send back home, to spend or to save. They also got a taste of independence from their families, made friends with other mill girls, and got an education. However, this came at the cost of leaving their homes, and chances of accidents with the machinery. In addition, the idyllic mill lifestyle was not to last: overproduction in American mills led to wage cuts, which the girls protested and went on strike against.

Clip from "Daughters of Free Men", a documentary by the American Social
History Project, from the City University of New York. It tells the story of Lucy
Hall as she goes to work in the mills. This clip focuses on the wage cuts, which
get protested by the rest of the girls.

Although the Lowell Experiment ended when the Civil War broke out, the mill girls left their mark on society. They changed America’s perceptions of women by working outside the house, living away from their parents, and getting a good education. When they could no longer work in the mills, many girls found they didn’t want a simple farm life anymore. They became writers, labor reform activists, women’s rights activists, and even abolitionists. These Lowell mill girls helped to shape American society today, even all the way from the 1800’s.