Using the primary source document in your module answer the following: How does the “Lowell Offering” counter or respond to the position of Orestes Brownson?
Using the primary source document in your module answer the following: How does the “Lowell Offering” counter or respond to the position of Orestes Brownson?
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Using the primary source document in your module answer the following: How does the “Lowell Offering” counter or respond to the position of Orestes Brownson?
![Lowell Mill Girls and the factory system, 1840
Introduction/Background:
Lowell, Massachusetts, named in honor of Francis Cabot Lowell, was
founded in the early 1820s as a planned town for the manufacture of
textiles. It introduced a new system of integrated manufacturing to the
United States and established new patterns of employment and urban
development that were soon replicated around New England and
elsewhere. By 1840, the factories in Lowell employed at some estimate s
more than 8,000 textile workers, commonly known as mill girls or factory
girls. These "operatives" -so-called because they operated the looms and
other machinery-were primarily women and children from farming
backgrounds. The Lowell mills were the first hint of the industrial revolution
to come in the United States, and with their success came two different
views of the factories. For many of the mill girls, employment brought a
sense of freedom. Unlike most young women of that era, they were free
from parental authority, were able to earn their own money, and had
broader educational opportunities. Many observers saw this challenge to
the traditional roles of women as a threat to the American way of life.
Others criticized the entire wage - labor factory system as a form of slavery
and actively condemned and campaigned against the harsh working
conditions and long hours and the increasing divisions between workers
and factory owners. The Transcendentalist reformer Orestes Brownson first
published "The Laboring Classes" in his journal, the Boston Quarterly
Review, in July 1840. It is an attack on the entire wage system but
particularly focuses on how factory jobs affect the mill girls: ""She has
worked in a Factory," Brownson argues, "is almost enough to damn to
infamy the most worthy and virtuous girl." In response, "A Factory Girl"
published a defense of the mill girls in the December 1840 issue of the
Lowell Offering, a journal of articles, fiction, and poetry written by and for
the Lowell factory operatives. The author was probably Harriet Jane Farley,
a mill girl who eventually became editor of the Lowell Offering. [1]
[1] "The Lowell Offering Index," by Judith Ranta, Center for Lowell History,
University of Massachusetts Lowell Libraries,
http://library.uml.edu/clh/index.Html.
Authors – Orestes Brownson and A Factory Girl:
Orestes Brownson, The Laboring Classes: An Article from the Boston
Quarterly Review, Boston: Benjamin H. Greene, 1840.
The operatives are well dressed, and we are told, well paid. They are said
to be healthy, contented, and happy. This is the fair side of the picture...
There is a dark side, moral as well as physical. Of the common operatives,
few, if any, by their wages, acquire a competence ...2 the great mass
wear out their health, spirits, and morals, without becoming one whit better
off than when they commenced labor. The bills of mortality in these factory
villages are not striking, we admit, for the poor girls when they can toil no
longer go home to die. The average life, working life we mean, of the girls
that come to Lowell, for instance, from Maine, New Hampshire, and
Vermont, we have been assured, is only about three years. What becomes
of them then? Few of them ever marry; fewer still ever return to their native
places with reputations unimpaired. "She has worked in a Factory," is](/v2/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcontent.bartleby.com%2Fqna-images%2Fquestion%2Fb22c1114-74ad-43a8-9406-1e10012a6a47%2Fd9829ee0-4ce6-4006-a90d-13a5c80c082a%2Ff6fimdu_processed.jpeg&w=3840&q=75)
Transcribed Image Text:Lowell Mill Girls and the factory system, 1840
Introduction/Background:
Lowell, Massachusetts, named in honor of Francis Cabot Lowell, was
founded in the early 1820s as a planned town for the manufacture of
textiles. It introduced a new system of integrated manufacturing to the
United States and established new patterns of employment and urban
development that were soon replicated around New England and
elsewhere. By 1840, the factories in Lowell employed at some estimate s
more than 8,000 textile workers, commonly known as mill girls or factory
girls. These "operatives" -so-called because they operated the looms and
other machinery-were primarily women and children from farming
backgrounds. The Lowell mills were the first hint of the industrial revolution
to come in the United States, and with their success came two different
views of the factories. For many of the mill girls, employment brought a
sense of freedom. Unlike most young women of that era, they were free
from parental authority, were able to earn their own money, and had
broader educational opportunities. Many observers saw this challenge to
the traditional roles of women as a threat to the American way of life.
Others criticized the entire wage - labor factory system as a form of slavery
and actively condemned and campaigned against the harsh working
conditions and long hours and the increasing divisions between workers
and factory owners. The Transcendentalist reformer Orestes Brownson first
published "The Laboring Classes" in his journal, the Boston Quarterly
Review, in July 1840. It is an attack on the entire wage system but
particularly focuses on how factory jobs affect the mill girls: ""She has
worked in a Factory," Brownson argues, "is almost enough to damn to
infamy the most worthy and virtuous girl." In response, "A Factory Girl"
published a defense of the mill girls in the December 1840 issue of the
Lowell Offering, a journal of articles, fiction, and poetry written by and for
the Lowell factory operatives. The author was probably Harriet Jane Farley,
a mill girl who eventually became editor of the Lowell Offering. [1]
[1] "The Lowell Offering Index," by Judith Ranta, Center for Lowell History,
University of Massachusetts Lowell Libraries,
http://library.uml.edu/clh/index.Html.
Authors – Orestes Brownson and A Factory Girl:
Orestes Brownson, The Laboring Classes: An Article from the Boston
Quarterly Review, Boston: Benjamin H. Greene, 1840.
The operatives are well dressed, and we are told, well paid. They are said
to be healthy, contented, and happy. This is the fair side of the picture...
There is a dark side, moral as well as physical. Of the common operatives,
few, if any, by their wages, acquire a competence ...2 the great mass
wear out their health, spirits, and morals, without becoming one whit better
off than when they commenced labor. The bills of mortality in these factory
villages are not striking, we admit, for the poor girls when they can toil no
longer go home to die. The average life, working life we mean, of the girls
that come to Lowell, for instance, from Maine, New Hampshire, and
Vermont, we have been assured, is only about three years. What becomes
of them then? Few of them ever marry; fewer still ever return to their native
places with reputations unimpaired. "She has worked in a Factory," is
![[1] "The Lowell Offering Index," by Judith Ranta, Center for Lowell History,
University of Massachusetts Lowell Libraries,
http://library.uml.edu/clh/index.Html.
Authors – Orestes Brownson and A Factory Girl:
Orestes Brownson, The Laboring Classes: An Article from the Boston
Quarterly Review, Boston: Benjamin H. Greene, 1840.
The operatives are well dressed, and we are told, well paid. They are said
to be healthy, contented, and happy. This is the fair side of the picture...
There is a dark side, moral as well as physical. Of the common operatives,
few, if any, by their wages, acquire a competence...2 the great mass
wear out their health, spirits, and morals, without becoming one whit better
off than when they commenced labor. The bills of mortality in these factory
villages are not striking, we admit, for the poor girls when they can toil no
longer go home to die. The average life, working life we mean, of the girls
that come to Lowell, for instance, from Maine, New Hampshire, and
Vermont, we have been assured, is only about three years. What becomes
of them then? Few of them ever marry; fewer still ever return to their native
places with reputations unimpaired. "She has worked in a Factory," is
almost enough to damn to infamy the most worthy and virtuous girl.
A Factory Girl, "Factory Girls," Lowell Offering, December 1840
Whom has Mr. Brownson slandered? ... girls who generally come from
quiet country homes, where their minds and manners have been formed
under the eyes of the worthy sons of the Pilgrims, and their virtuous
partners, and who return again to become the wives of the free intelligent
yeomanry of New England and the mothers of quite a proportion of our
future republicans. Think, for a moment, how many of the next generation
are to spring from mothers doomed to infamy! ... It has been asserted that
to put ourselves under the influence and restraints of corporate bodies, is
contrary to the spirit of our institutions, and to that love of independence
which we ought to cherish. ... 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..
.. Mr. 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; ... though he
will find error, ignorance, and folly among us, (and where would
them not?) yet he would not see worthy and virtuous girls consigned to
infamy, because they work in a factory.
find](/v2/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcontent.bartleby.com%2Fqna-images%2Fquestion%2Fb22c1114-74ad-43a8-9406-1e10012a6a47%2Fd9829ee0-4ce6-4006-a90d-13a5c80c082a%2F569jkef_processed.jpeg&w=3840&q=75)
Transcribed Image Text:[1] "The Lowell Offering Index," by Judith Ranta, Center for Lowell History,
University of Massachusetts Lowell Libraries,
http://library.uml.edu/clh/index.Html.
Authors – Orestes Brownson and A Factory Girl:
Orestes Brownson, The Laboring Classes: An Article from the Boston
Quarterly Review, Boston: Benjamin H. Greene, 1840.
The operatives are well dressed, and we are told, well paid. They are said
to be healthy, contented, and happy. This is the fair side of the picture...
There is a dark side, moral as well as physical. Of the common operatives,
few, if any, by their wages, acquire a competence...2 the great mass
wear out their health, spirits, and morals, without becoming one whit better
off than when they commenced labor. The bills of mortality in these factory
villages are not striking, we admit, for the poor girls when they can toil no
longer go home to die. The average life, working life we mean, of the girls
that come to Lowell, for instance, from Maine, New Hampshire, and
Vermont, we have been assured, is only about three years. What becomes
of them then? Few of them ever marry; fewer still ever return to their native
places with reputations unimpaired. "She has worked in a Factory," is
almost enough to damn to infamy the most worthy and virtuous girl.
A Factory Girl, "Factory Girls," Lowell Offering, December 1840
Whom has Mr. Brownson slandered? ... girls who generally come from
quiet country homes, where their minds and manners have been formed
under the eyes of the worthy sons of the Pilgrims, and their virtuous
partners, and who return again to become the wives of the free intelligent
yeomanry of New England and the mothers of quite a proportion of our
future republicans. Think, for a moment, how many of the next generation
are to spring from mothers doomed to infamy! ... It has been asserted that
to put ourselves under the influence and restraints of corporate bodies, is
contrary to the spirit of our institutions, and to that love of independence
which we ought to cherish. ... 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..
.. Mr. 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; ... though he
will find error, ignorance, and folly among us, (and where would
them not?) yet he would not see worthy and virtuous girls consigned to
infamy, because they work in a factory.
find
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