Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/421

 NOTES AND MEMORANDA 399 things, details asto'the diet of factory women in 'corporation' board- ing houses in the city of Lawrence The fourteenth annual report (1883) contains a sketch of early factory labour in Lowell, and the twentieth report (1889) considers the position of women in industry in Massachusetts In addition to these articles may be found -ost useful and suggestive information in nearly every report issued by the Bureau The account of:early factory labour in New England is given very shnply by Mrs. Robinson, herself a worker in the Lowell -ills for several years: ' In 1832, Lowell was little nore than a factory village Five "corporations" were started, and the cotton ills belonging to the, were building. Help was in great demand ...... Into this Yankee E1 Dorado these needy people began to pour by the various modes of travel known to those slow old days The stage coach and the canal boat ca,e every day, always filled with new recruits for the army of useful people .... Troops of young girls came from different parts of New England, andfro Canada, and men were eployed to collect them at so much a head, and deliver then at the factories Some of these were daughters of professional men or teachers, whose mothers, left widows, were struggling to maintain the younger children A few were the daughters of persons in reduced circumstances who had left home on a..vsm, to send their wages surreptitiously in aid of the family purse ..... Many farmers' daughters came to earn noney to conplete their wedding outfit, or buy the bride's share of housekeeping articles ...... The early mill girls were of different ages. Sone were not over ten years old; a few were in niddle life, but the majority were between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five. The very young girls were called "doffers." They "doffed" or took off the full bobbins from the spinning frames and replaced then with endpry ones. These mites'worked about fifteen minutes every hour, and the rest of the time was their own. When the overseer was kind, they were allowed to read, knit, or go outside the mill-yard to play. They were paid two dollars a'week. The working hours of all the girls ex- tended fron five o'clock in the morning until seven in the evening, with one half-hour each for breakfast and dinner. Even the doffers were forced to be on duty nearly fourteen hours a day. This was the greatest hardship in the lives of these children ..... Those of the mill girls who had homes generally worked from eight to ten nonths in the year; the rest of the tinge was spent with parents or friends. A few taught school during the summer months..... Help was too valuable to be ill-treated..... Except in lrare instances the rights of the mill girls were secure. They were subject to no extortion, and, if they did extra work, they were always paid in full. Their own account of labour done by the piece was always accepted. They kept the figures and were paid accordingly. Though their hours of labour were long, yet they were not overworked. They were obliged to tend no more looms and frames than they could easily,take care of, and they had plenty of time to sit and rest. I have known a girl to sit twenty or thirty minutes at a time.'