The factory he planned to build near Boston would create new jobs rather than replace home spinners and weavers. Lowell got the idea to build textile mills during his trip to Britain in Britain was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and its many new textile mills inspired Lowell to build similar, but better, mills in the United States, according to the book Introduction of the Power Loom, and Origin of Lowell by Nathan Appleton:. Francis C. Lowell, at Edinburgh, where he had been passing some time with his family.
We had frequent conversations on the subject of the Cotton Manufacture, and he informed me that he had determined, before his return to America, to visit Manchester, for the purpose of obtaining all possible information on the subject, with a view to the introduction of the improved manufacture in the United States. I urged him to do so, and promised him my co-operation. He returned in He and Mr. Patrick T. Jackson had agreed to give up all other business and take the management of the concern.
After returning to the U. The Waltham mill was the first mill in the United States that could process raw cotton into finished cloth in one process and all under one roof with the help of its water-driven power loom, which is an apparatus used to weave yarn or thread into finished cloth.
Up until the time of the Industrial Revolution, looms were powered by a person via a foot pedal but the power loom was mechanized and powered by a line shaft driven by a source of running water, such as a river, which sped up the weaving process significantly.
As a result, the power loom is considered one of the most important inventions of the industrial revolution. The Lowell System was different from other textile manufacturing systems in the country at the time, such as the Rhode Island System which instead spun the cotton in the factory and then farmed the spun cotton out to local women weavers who produced the finished cloth themselves.
Compared to these other textile mills, the Lowell system was unprecedented and revolutionary for its time, according to the book Life and times of Francis Cabot Lowell:. His system, however, differed markedly from Philadelphia homespun or the craft-factory model used in Rhode Island. Slater ran small spinning mills, using copies of the English machinery, while Lowell developed new machines for his large factory and did spinning and weaving under power all under one roof.
Slater adhered to the old craft system while Lowell built labor-saving machines that required only a few weeks of training to master the repetitive tasks. Slater built small mills with a small number of spindles, while the mill at Waltham contained thousands of spindles and several looms watched over by hundreds of workers.
The conservative Slater clung to his tried-and-true methods of production while Lowell leaped ahead with his modern factory using the machines of mass production. This Lowell System was faster and more efficient and completely revolutionized the textile industry. It eventually became the model for other manufacturing industries in the country.
One of the problems Lowell faced in setting up his factory was finding workers. At the time, America was an agricultural society and many Americans were hesitant to work in a factory, according to the book Encyclopedia of the Industrial Revolution:.
While European factories relied upon large, landless, urban populations whose reliance on the wage system gave them few economic choices, land was readily available to most Americans who desired it.
As a result, Americans were generally unwilling to work in factory conditions, preferring instead the economic independence of agricultural labor. Many Americans, in fact, saw the European factory system as inherently corrupt and abusive.
Additionally, since the American population was small, hired labor was expensive. In order to address this problem, Lowell designed a new business strategy to attract labor. As mill machinery greatly reduced the need for excessive human strength, Lowell did not necessarily need workers who were physically strong, but instead needed workers that could be hired cheaply.
Lowell found his employees in the girls and young women of the surrounding countryside. We are under restraints, but they are voluntarily assumed; and we are at liberty to withdraw from them, whenever they become galling or irksome. Neither have I ever discovered that any restraints were imposed upon us but those which were necessary for the peace and comfort of the whole, and for the promotion of the design for which we are collected, namely, to get money, as much of it and as fast as we can; and it is because our toil is so unremitting, that the wages of factory girls are higher than those of females engaged in most other occupations.
It is these wages which, in spite of toil, restraint, discomfort, and prejudice, have drawn so many worthy, virtuous, intelligent, and well-educated girls to Lowell, and other factories; and it is the wages which are in great degree to decide the characters of the factory girls as a class.
Brownson may rail as much as he pleases against the real injustice of capitalists against operatives, and we will bid him God speed , if he will but keep truth and common sense upon his side. Still, the avails of factory labor are now greater than those of many domestics, seamstresses, and school-teachers; and strange would it be, if in money-loving New England, one of the most lucrative female employments should be rejected because it is toilsome, or because some people are prejudiced against it.
Yankee girls have too much independence for that. And now, if Mr. Brownson is a man , he will endeavor to retrieve the injury he has done;. Read the introduction, view the images of the two original documents, and read the edited excerpts. Then apply your knowledge of American history to answer the following questions:. The men in the images are engaged in factory work, construction of skyscrapers, and working on the railroads. Using the Lowell and Brownson documents and the information from the stamps, develop an essay indicating the type of employment opportunities available to women in the s and almost a century later in the s.
History Resources. Lowell Mill Girls and the factory system, Factory masters would lock workers in during hour workdays, six days a week. Work was monotonous and sometimes dangerous. Occasionally these conditions led to violent action by workers. During the Luddite Rebellion, groups of hand weavers became convinced that power looms were responsible for their lower wages and increasing unemployment.
So, they organized themselves into groups and set out at night in disguises to smash the machines. Although such reactions to industrial change were not the norm, Lowell was concerned and wished to avoid any similar chaos in his factory. Indeed, he wanted to make arrangements that encouraged the physical well-being and moral character of his workers. He recruited healthy and well-educated young women from farming families. Although they worked long hours, these women received food and board and Lowell paid them in cash.
The company hired women considered respectable as chaperones, required the workers to attend religious services, and provided opportunities for them to educate themselves. These living arrangements made it easier to convince daughters from respected farming families to come to the mill to live and work temporarily. Lowell was not the only entrepreneur to bring the production of textiles to the United States.
But he was the first to do so with a vertically integrated system, thus introducing the modern factory to the United States.
Henry Clay also visited the factory in and praised its accomplishments in a speech to the House of Representatives. During the War of , a large number of businessmen invested in manufacturing textiles. After the war ended, Britain flooded the United States with cloth, sometimes even taking a loss in order to damage the American textile manufacturing business.
Lowell argued in Washington for the government to take measures that would protect the growing textile industry. With the cooperation of William Lowndes and John C. Calhoun , he successfully advocated for the Tariff of , a duty on cotton cloth. Lowell died in Investors looking for a new spot for a textile mill established the city of Lowell, Massachusetts, named in honor of Francis Lowell.
By the late nineteenth century, it had a population of almost 40,, with the majority of working-age people employed in the textile industry. Initially, his system continued to find success but by the mid-nineteenth century it began to decline. Cotton overproduction lowered the price of finished cloth. Massachusetts Historical Society Collection Guides. Edited by Joel Mokyr. Oxford University Press, Elvira, Andres.
Lamphier and Rosanne Welch. Jeremy, David I. The West: Encounters and Transformations.
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