Darfur
Darfur
Living as women in the 19th century was extremely different then living as women now. Female textile workers of Lowell Massachusetts in the 19th century were forced to work in poor working areas where they were underpaid and over used in order to try and make a daily living for their families. One might characterize working as a female textile worker in the 19th century as a blessing, or one might characterize it as a curse. If I was a 19th century female textile worker in 1840, I would characterize the labors as both. Although they faced long hours of hard work and labor and worked in grueling conditions, many female textile workers remained an important part of the textile workforce for years because of their hard work and dedication, and held nearly two-thirds of all textile jobs in Lowell.
The female textile workers of Lowell were housed in company boarding houses. More than half of the women were employed by the Hamilton Company where they lived in boarding houses that were right next to the mills which they worked in. The female textile workers put in many hours of hard labor and work, and would have to then go home to a place that was directly adjacent to where they worked.
“They worked, in these years, an average of 73 hours a week. Their work day
ended at 7:00 or 7:30 pm, and in the hours between supper and the 10:00 pm
curfew imposed by management on residents of company boardinghouses,
there was little time to spend with friends living off the corporation” (Women,
Work, and Protest in the Early Lowell Mills).
The work schedule for all of the women was very long and grueling. They were underpaid and over worked, working 73 hours a week.
Women were barley able to have and spend any time with anyone outside of the textile workforce. Not only were these women in some ways forced to make friends with each other because they were unable to have any outside connections, they also lived in very terrible and poor conditions.
“The first entrance into a factory boarding house seemed something dreadful. The
room looked strange and comfortless, and the women cold and heartless; and
when she sat down to the supper table, where among more than twenty girls, all
but one were strangers, she could not eat a mouth full.” (Offering, I, 169).
The female textile workers not only were working endless hours to make ends meet and to try to support themselves and their families, but they were also forced to live in areas that were not very homely. Living conditions, that were cold crowded and uncomfortable.
In 1834, 800 of Lowells female textile workers went on strike-
“To protest a proposed reduction in their wages. They marched to numerous mills
in an effort to induce others to join them; and, at an outdoor rally, they petitioned
others to discontinue their labors until terms of reconciliation are made. Their
petition concluded:
Resolved,