The Market Revolution

Transcription

1 The Market Revolution Expansion of Industry Both Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson had quite different visions of what they hoped the United States would become. Each had taken steps to put policies and practices in place that might enable their respective visions to become reality. The generation coming to maturity in the first part of the nineteenth century had the opportunity to give shape to the visions of the founding generation, particularly in the northern and western regions of the country. It was then and there that a market revolution took place. Spurred by new developments in manufacturing, transportation, and commerce, the American economy was on the move. Factories at Lowell, Massachusetts, and elsewhere initially employed a largely female labor force, which was, at least temporarily, attracted by the possibilities presented. Video: The Working Women of Lowell Towns built around large textile mills began to appear in the northeastern United States as a result of the cotton boom in the early nineteenth century. The Working Women of Lowell focuses on one such town, Lowell, Massachusetts, the female laborers who worked there, and the economic and social changes that resulted. Look for answers to these questions when watching the video: Why did women enter the factory labor force at this time? What was life like for women working in the textile mills? How did this experience change their lives? How successful was collective action by workers at this time? How did immigrants affect the labor movement? Who were these immigrants? Why were they coming to America? Video script: Music introduction Actor, Female: At first, the sight of so many bands, and wheels, and springs in constant motion, was very frightful.

2 Narrator: The cotton boom of the early 19th century fueled the first large-scale manufacturing in the United States. Textile mills began to spring up across the Northeast, and towns grew up around them to house their workers. This innovation not only changed the textile industry it transformed the social landscape as well. Tom Dublin, State University of New York, Binghamton University: With the development of the carding machine, spinning frame and the power loom and the growth of textile production in factory settings, we begin to see the birth of a female labor force. They re beginning to see possibilities. They re beginning to see the possibilities for consumer goods that weren t there before. They re beginning to have some questions about what the possibilities are in the countryside for them, whether or not there really are opportunities for them. They re going to the city to earn money for themselves, sometimes to help their families but almost certainly to put away something toward their own marriages later in life at a time when families are beginning to have a bit of trouble assuring all their children a place in the countryside. Narrator: In 1813, Francis Cabot Lowell, a clothing manufacturer, returned to Boston energized by an invention he had seen while on a business trip in England. He reconstructed a power loom from memory, then went on to establish several textile factories along the banks of the Merrimack River. The town of Lowell, Massachusetts was born. By 1830, more than 6,000 young women were employed in eight different mills in Lowell alone. These women, most of them between the ages of 16 and 23, labored in hot, poorly ventilated workrooms surrounded by noisy machines. Tom Dublin: For this effort, standing on their feet twelve, thirteen hours a day, they made, in the 1830s, maybe $3.50, $3.25 a week, so they made four or five cents an hour would be what they were paid. Out of that three dollars and something a week, they d pay $1.25 a week for their room and board in the boarding house. But this meant that they could save $1.75, maybe $2 a week and over time, some of them might develop a bit of a savings account in the local savings bank and have some money to take back to them when they were done. Narrator: Harriet Hanson Robinson came to Lowell in 1834, when her mother took a job running a company boarding house. At the age of ten, Harriet went to work in one of the Lowell factories as a bobbin girl. Actor, Harriet Hanson Robinson: I can see myself now, racing down the alley, between the

3 spinning frames, carrying in front of me a bobbin-box bigger than I was. We mites had to be very swift, so as not to keep the spinning-frames stopped long. Narrator: Harriet worked her way up from bobbin girl to tending a spinning frame and then to a better paying, skilled position as a drawing-in girl. Actor, Harriet Hanson Robinson: We drew in, one by one, the threads of the warp, through the harness and the reed, and so made the beams ready for the weaver s loom. Narrator: In 1834 and 1836, the female workers banded together to protest attempts to lower their wages. Actor, Harriet Hanson Robinson: When the day came on which the girls were to turn out, those in the upper rooms started first, and so many of them left that our mill was at once shut down. Then, when the girls in my room stood irresolute, I became impatient, and started on ahead. I marched out, and was followed by the others. Narrator: But by 1840, the fledgling women s labor movement at Lowell was undercut by an increasing supply of immigrant workers. Tom Dublin: There was a ready supply of Irish immigrant workers to come into the mills and as the Irish come into the mills more and more, you begin to see the mills changing character. As the mills grow between let s say the 1840s and the 1860s, they don t tend to build as many boarding houses, so more and more of the workers are expected to find their own homes somewhere in Lowell. More and more of them come to Lowell as whole families with the women working in the mills, perhaps the men working on canals or doing unskilled labor in Lowell. So that as the wages relatively go down and as the workforce is transformed from a rural migrant labor force to an immigrant labor force, what particularly distinguished Lowell from other places, begins to disappear. Narrator: In 1848, Harriet, at age 24, left her job in the mill to marry William Robinson, a Lowell newspaper editor. They remained in town. Many Lowell girls, having tasted city life, chose not to return to the hard, rural existence of their parents. Tom Dublin: You find a number of women who had been mill operatives become active in the woman s rights movement that evolves. So that there definitely are people who I would say became familiar with the idea that women could have a public presence and could protest ill

4 treatment. And they carried that over from the class issues that they first addressed while working in the mills to more political and social issues for women generally in American society. Actor, Female: Woman is never thought to be out of her sphere at home, in the nursery, in the kitchen, over a hot stove cooking from morning till evening, over a washtub, or toiling in a cotton factory fourteen hours per day. But let her once step out, plead the cause of right and humanity, plead the wrongs of her slave sister of the South, or the operative of the North, and a cry is raised against her, out of her sphere. End of video. Video: Progress in Print This video briefly examines the personal, social, and political effects of newspapers and printed works in the early nineteenth century. Look for answers to these questions when watching the video: How did writings published at Lowell reflect the progress in printing during this era? How did the press affect literacy? In general, how did the press, public life, and popular amusements affect culture? Video script: Music introduction Actor. Female Journalist: We should look upon each other something as a band of orphans do. We re fatherless and motherless. We re alone and surrounded by temptation. Let us caution each other. Let us watch over and endeavor to improve each other. Let us strive to promote each other s comfort and happiness. I say let us all strive to do this; and if we succeed, it will finally be acknowledged that factory girls shine forth in ornaments more valuable than gold watches. Narrator: Newspapers at Lowell provided factory girls with an opportunity to express themselves, and often to defend themselves, in print. The Lowell Offering was a literary magazine with the mission of showing what factory girls could do without sacrificing their

5 femininity. The voice of industry was a labor newspaper that focused more on social reform. The Lowell Offering and The Voice of Industry were just two among a plethora of publications that flourished during the 1830s. Joyce Appleby: It s just incredible the number of printing presses and newspapers and reform movements and religious movements that use print media. This, of course, puts a tremendous premium on literacy, so that all these little rural areas had formed districts so at least their children will go to school maybe fifteen months in a ten-year life, but they ll become literate. So this is not just related to economic development, it also has something to do with political development but you can see how they re interactive. You have a more literate public; then you have people that make more of a demand for printed works. You have a demand for printed works, you ve got occupations for more writers. It s interactive and mutually enhancing, these developments. End of video. Activity: Check Your Understanding The working women in Lowell, Massachusetts experienced a life style structured by strict boarding house rules and demanding work hours at the mill. Nevertheless, mill work provided options not present on the farm. The women could earn their own money and purchase some consumer goods for themselves. In the 1830s, the widespread use of print media led to increased literacy. The expansion and use of newspapers and magazines spread the word on various topics of interest. To be more informed, people had to become more literate.