Essay On Women Working At The Lowell Textile Mill

Until fairly recent times, women were freely oppressed in many, if not all, areas. Likewise, fair treatment of workers is a fairly recent idea. Before Teddy Roosevelt and his trust-busting administration, big business was in, and the worker was a tool more than a human. How much worse is it then, to be a woman and a factory worker at the same time? The women working for the Lowell Textile Mill experienced horrid conditions and had to fight against oppression as women and for worker’s rights.
The Working conditions of the woman at the Lowell textile mill were extremely poor. The journalists at The Harbinger in 1836 gave an account of their visit to a textile mill. One of the first deplorable conditions the mention is the level of noise, saying, “The din and clatter of these five hundred looms… seemed such an atrocious violation of one of the faculties of the human soul, the sense of hearing” (The Harbinger). These journalists took note that most girls attended three looms, and that the most that should be expected of a person physically, in their opinion, is to attend two (The Harbinger). They …show more content…
The oppression of the employer was so great that any sort of rebellious behaviour would have been put down, and if the outcry escalated as would the counter actions from the employer. That in conjunction with women’s limited rights during the period would make it virtually impossible for the Lowell women to become any serious threat to their employer. Thankfully, as word spread of the tortured position of the mill women, the market began correcting itself and the population of girls working at the textile mills reduced. As Harriet Hanson Robinson describes in Loom and Spindle or Life Among the Early Mill Girls, “after a time...the best portion of the girls left and went to...the other employments that were fast opening to