Page:Meta Stern Lilienthal - From Fireside to Factory (c. 1916).djvu/31

 intense, constant, nervous strain that marks the modern factory system was absent. Moreover, while the modern weaver has many looms to tend, Hannah operated just one loom and there were no more than twelve looms in the whole factory. But the greatest advantage Hannah and her fellow workers possessed was a social one. Hannah, who had followed her work from the home to the factory, was not looked down upon by the girls who continued to work at home. Her social status remained unchanged. The families of the factory owners were her friends and associates.

This story of Hannah Borden gives us, in a nutshell, the whole story of the transition of women from home to factory. It shows us that women did not voluntarily abandon their old, traditional sphere; that no spirit of restlessness or rebellion caused them to leave their homes; but that they merely followed their work when the invention of machinery and the application of steam power transformed industry from a domestic into a social function. Another interesting fact that the story of Hannah Borden teaches us is that public opinion was not averse to women's leaving their homes in order to perform their old work in the new way. The mill owners were even regarded as public benefactors for giving employment to women who would otherwise have been idle, and Hannah was not snubbed by her well-to-do friends for being a factory girl. Only when women, under economic pressure, began to invade the skilled trades and learned professions that had formerly been the undisputed realm of man, and when men, also under economic pressure, were compelled to compete with women on the industrial field, only then was the cry raised that woman's place is home, and that to seek employment on the broader fields of life is unwomanly.

Of the many factory towns that sprung up in rapid succession when the factory system had once become established, none is more interesting or conveys a better picture of early factory life than Lowell. I will, therefore, ask the reader to accompany me in mind to Lowell of 1840,