Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/199

 FACTORY LEG! SLA TIOX FOR WOMEN \ 8 5

gave them added independence. From the first their work has been supplemental to, rather than competitive with, that of man.

Between the years 1815- 1830 we may date the establishment of women wage-earners as a definite economic factor. And as the years have gone on the number of women workers has in- creased.

The building of factories once commenced, the work con- tinued at a rapid rate. The first 1 large factory with improved machinery was built at Pawtucket, R. I., in 1790. Another mill was erected in the same state in 1795, and two more in Massachusetts in 1802 and 1803. In the next three years ten were built in Rhode Island, and one in Connecticut. By the end of 1809 eighty-seven additional mills had been put up so that a great many were in operation in the opening years of the present cen- tury. From that time on the spread of the factory system has been abnormally rapid. It has gone hand in hand with the development of the country's great resources. As early as 1813 we find in Waltham, Mass., the first factory in the world that combined under one roof every process of converting raw cotton into finished cloth. It will be noticed that here we have the birth of the great manufactories about the same time that agita- tion for remedial legislation 7 was sweeping over England; an agitation which half a century later was to stir this country to the depths.

With the growth of the factory system came conditions 3 which were a menace to the well being of the nation, but it \va> long before intelligent citizens could be led to see that brutal treatment of women and children together with long hours in unsanitary mills was a danger to the country. In the decade between 1830-1840 we have accounts of vile sanitary conditions,

system in the United States." \\KK.III. /w,/WnW Evolution in the l-nited Staffs, 1. IIQ.

'"The first place that can be called a factory was erected at Beverly, Mass., in 1787. It was driven by horse power." /but., p. 124. irst law proposed by Sir Robert iVcl in 1802.

' Stories of the almost idyllic condition ..f the women working in the Lowell factories can hardly be regarded as ! factory life at that time.