Response 1

Story of the Ladies of Lowell

I remember visiting the Boott Cotton Mills Museum and the Mill Girls Exhibit like it was yesterday, mainly because by the time I started writing this post, it was yesterday. I was amazed with the mills because for how dangerous they were and how awful the conditions were working there, this was the place where the industrial revolution took place in the U.S. The way they made textiles back in the 1800s is severely outdated now, but it was still very interesting to see the machines that the mill girls worked to make the textiles. Actually seeing them up close, I could only just hear how loud they were, but since they didn't actually have any cotton in them to weave, I could only imagine the horrible life-threatening conditions the weave room created for the mill girls.

After I saw these, I thought back to The Daring Ladies of Lowell by Kate Alcott, and I realized; day in and day out, Alice, Lovey, and all of the other mill girls, some of which were as young as nine or ten years old, like Ellie the bobbing girl. They all worked here 12-14 hours a day, and the horrible conditions in the mills made them prone to lung cancer and other diseases. I had already felt bad because I had a bit of an idea of how working in the mills was like but after seeing the looms up close and seeing it through Alice's eyes in Ladies of Lowell, it only made the image of working there everyday seemed impossible.

Touring through the museum, I learned more on the history of the mill girls and their importance in terms of advocating for equal rights for women. Though they were generally outspoken, girls like Lovey Cornell were very strong-willed and wanted to speak out about the dangers of the mills. A strong point that I swear I only realized until near the middle of the book, was that the book itself was a work of fiction. Even though the book was fiction, the story behind the story is true. There was a real girl named Sarah Cornell, who was also a young mill girl who was murdered and sparked a huge trial for the murderer, not for the murder itself, but more on the social issues. In the author's note that says that the murder was based off of a real murder, I wanted to learn more, so I looked up more info, but I was amazed when it was very similar to the murder in the book.

Another fact I heard while reading the book was even after the hard work and the horrible conditions of the mills, they were only paid 3 dollars a week. I couldn't imagine working in a horrible place like that and make only 3 dollars an hour. The first job I ever had, I made 8 dollars an hour and in no way at all did I have to risk my life. To be fair though, it was 1832, so the dollar then was probably worth multiple times what the dollar is worth now. But still, living in the overly crowded boarding houses next door to the mills (which we went and saw), a very sizeable portion of those wages was reserved for rent to continue living in the boarding houses. Alice hopefully believed after the rent, she could "earn enough to help my father with his bills and save so I never have to work on a farm again" (pg. 2).

Looking back to equal rights movements back in the day vs. now, people say that the equal rights movements today aren't nearly as important as the ones from 60 years or 200 years ago, where women and people of color really did have almost no rights and they seemed meaningful because they actually meant something. They're not entirely wrong. There's still stuff to be done now, but obviously, there was more to do and much more at stake for the mill girls. Despite wanting more rights in general, better wages and safer conditions to work in (which should be a given), that job at the mill and their limited space in the boarding houses was really all they had. A lot of the mill girls who protested and went on strike were arrested and/or fired. They really counted on the strikes to actually work, and it was good they did. Nowadays, at protests now, there can still be consequences for protests, but they probably won't be as severe as those of 200 years ago. But does it make current equal rights movements any less important? No!

My big point that I was trying to get across was that these mill girls were some of the most influential figures for women's rights who have gone "under the radar", I guess. I have heard of the mill girls in previous history classes, as women who worked in the dangerous conditions of the cotton mills, but I had no idea about how significant they really were. The murder of Sarah Cornell sparked a huge debate with the trial, between the religious groups and the mill owners who feared for their own reputations, while the workers were only getting angrier and angrier about the dangerous conditions of the mills and the low pay that came with working in them.

 Lovey's murder made the air so volatile, it affected the relationship of Alice and Samuel Fiske, the sympathetic son of the mill's owner, and for the worse. She became attracted to him, and he became attracted to her. After Lovey was murdered, Alice became torn between loyalty to her friend and to Sam. I was saddened by the death and the way it affected everyone, but it only helped the Ladies of Lowell gain the rights they rightfully deserved.

After reading the Daring Ladies of Lowell and visiting the cotton mills where they worked, and learning more on the issues and the events that defined the women's rights movements in Lowell, I'm just amazed I haven't learned why the mill girls were as significant as they were., and I'm just amazed they aren't as well known as they should be!