This mutual acquaintanceship was of great advantage. They discussed the books they read, debated religious and social questions, compared their thoughts and experiences, and advised and helped one another. And so their mental growth went on, and they soon became educated far beyond what their mothers or their grandmothers could have been. The girls also stood by one another in the mills; when one wanted to be absent half a day, two or three others would tend an extra loom or frame apiece, so that the absent one might not lose her pay. At this time the mule and spinning-jenny had not been introduced; two or three looms, or spinning-frames, were as much as one girl was required to tend, more than that being considered “double work.”
The inmates of what may be called these literary households were omniverous readers of books, and were also subscribers to the few magazines and literary newspapers; and it was their habit, after reading their copies, to send them by mail or stage-coach to their widely scattered homes, where they were read all over a village or a neighborhood; and thus was current literature introduced into by and lonely places.
From an article in The Lowell Offering, (“Our Household,” signed H. T.,) I am able to quote a sketch of one factory boarding-house interior. The author said, “In our house there are eleven boarders, and in all thirteen members of the family. I will class them according to their religious tenets as follows: Calvinist Baptist, Unitarian, Congregational, Catholic, Episcopalian, and Mormonite, one each; Universalist and Methodist, two each; Christian Baptist, three. Their reading is from the following sources: They receive regularly fifteen newspapers and periodicals; these are, the Boston Daily Times, the Herald of Freedom, the Signs of the Times, and the Christian Herald, two copies each; the Christian Register, Vox Populi, Literary Souvenir, Boston Pilot, Young Catholic’s Friend, Star of Bethlehem, and The Lowell Offering, three copies each. A magazine, one copy. We also borrow regularly the Non-Resistant, the Liberator, the Lady’s Book, the Ladies’ Pearl, and the Ladies’ Companion. We have also in the house what perhaps cannot be found anywhere else in the city of Lowell,—a Mormon Bible.”
The “magazine” mentioned may have been The Dial, that exponent of New England Transcendentalism, of which The Offering was the humble contemporary. The writer adds to her article: “Nothwithstanding the divers faiths embraced among us, we live in much harmony, and seldom is difference of opinion the cause of dissensions among us.”
Novels were not very popular with us, as we inclined more to historical writings and to poetry. But such books as “Charlotte Temple,” “Eliza Wharton,” “Maria Monk,” “The Arabian Nights,” “The Mysteries of Udolpho,” “Abellino, the Bravo of Venice,” or “The Castle of Otranto,” were sometimes taken from the circulating library, read with delight, and secretly lent from one young girl to another.
Our religious reading was confined to the Bible, Baxter’s “Saints’ Rest,” “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” “The Religious Courtship,” “The Widow Directed,” and Sunday-school books.
It was fortunate for us that we were obliged to read good books, such as histories, the English classics, and the very few American novels that were then in existence. Cheap editions of Scott were but just publishing; “Pickwick,” in serial numbers, soon followed; Frederika Bremer was hardly translated; Lydia Maria Child was beginning to write; Harriet Beecher Stowe was busy in her nursery, and the great American novel was not written,—nor yet the small one, which was indeed a blessing!
There were many representative women among us who did not voice their thoughts in writing, and whose names are not on the list of the contributers to The Offering. This was but one phase of their development, as many of them have exerted a widespread influence in other directions. They graduated from the cotton-factory, carrying with them the results of their manual training; and they have done their little part towards performing the useful labor of life. Into whatever vocation they entered they made practical use of the habits of industry and perseverance learned during those early years, and they have exemplified them in their stirring and fruitful lives.
In order to show how far the influence of individual effort may extend, it will be well to mention the after-fate of some of them. One became an artist of note, another a poet of more than local fame, a third an inventor, and several were among the pioneers in Florida, in Kansas, and in other Western States. A limited number married those who were afterwards doctors of divinity, major-generals, and members of Congress; and these, in more than one instance, had been their work-mates in the factory.
And in later years, when, through the death of the bread-winner, the pecuniary support of those dependent on him fell to their lot, some of these factory-girls carried on business, entered the trades, or went to college and thereby were enabled to practise in some of the professions. They thus resumed their old-time habit of supporting the helpless ones, and educating the children of the family.