Loom and spindle

by Harriet Jane Hanson Robinson

This was the genius of mechanical industry, which would build the cotton-factory, set in motion the loom and the spinning-frame, call together an army of useful people, open wider fields of industry for men and (which was quite as important at that time) for women also. For hitherto woman had always been a money-saving, rather than a money-earning, member of the community, and her labor could command but small return. If she worked out as servant, or “help,” her wages were from fifty cents to one dollar a week; if she went from house to house by the day to spin and weave, or as tailoress, she could get but seventy-five cents a week and her meals. As teacher her services were not in demand, and nearly all the arts, the professions, and even the trades and industries, were closed to her, there being, as late as 1840, only seven vocations, outside the home, into which the women of New England had entered.[1]

[1] These were teaching, needlework, keeping boarders, factory labor, type-setting, folding and stitching in book-binderies. According to the census of 1885 (that of 1895 is not yet tabulated), wherein the subject of “Woman in Industry” was first specialized, by Hon. Carroll D. Wright, there are 113 industries, which, subdivided, make 17,357 separate occupations. Women have found employment in 4,467 of these, while of the 113 general branches, they are found in all but seven.

The Middlesex Canal was one of the earliest factors in New England enterprise. It began its course at Charlestown Mill-pond, and ended it at Lowell. It was completed in 1804, at the cost of $700,000, and was the first canal in the United States to transport both passengers and merchandise. Its charter was extinguished in 1859, in spite of all opposition, by a decision of the Supreme Court. And thus, in less than sixty years, this marvel of engineering skill, as it was then considered, which was projected to last for all time, was “switched off the track” by its successful rival, the Boston and Lowell Railroad, and, with the stage-coach and the turnpike road became a thing of the past.

The course of the old Middlesex Canal can still be traced, as a cow-path or a woodland lane, and in one place, which I have always kept in remembrance, very near the Somerville Station on the Western Division of the Boston and Maine Railroad, can still be seen a few decayed willows, nodding sleepily over its grass-grown channel and ridgy paths,—a reminder of those slow times when it took a long summer’s day to travel the twenty-eight miles from Boston to Lowell.

The Boston and Lowell Railroad, probably the first in the United States, went into operation in 1835. I saw the first train that went out of Lowell, and there was great excitement over the event. People were gathered along the street near the “deepot,” discussing the great wonder; and we children stayed at home from school, or ran barefooted from our play, at the first “toot” of the whistle. As I stood on the sidewalk, I remember hearing those who stood near me disputing as to the probable result of this new attempt at locomotion. “The ingine never can start all them cars!” “She can, too.” “She can’t.” “I don’t believe a word of it.” “She’ll break down and kill everybody,” was the cry.

But the engine did start, and the train came back, and the Boston and Lowell Railroad continued an independent line of travel for about the same number of years as its early rival; when, by the “irony of fate,” its individuality was merged in that of a larger and more powerful organization,—the Boston and Maine Railroad, of which, in 1895, it became only a section or division. But let us not regret too much this accident of time, for who knows what will become of this enormous plant during the next fifty years, when our railways, perhaps, may be laid in the “unfeatured air.”

The first factory for the manufacture of cotton cloth in the United States was erected in Beverly, Mass., in 1787, and in 1790 Samuel Slater established the cotton industry in Pawtucket, R.I.; but the first real effort to establish the enterprise was in Lowell, where a large wooden building was erected at the Wamesit Falls, on the Concord River, in 1813.

The history of Lowell, Mass., is not identical with that of other manufacturing places in New England, and for two reasons: first, because here were gathered together a larger number of factory people, and among them were the first who showed any visible sign of mental cultivation; and, second, because it was here that the practice of what was called “The Lowell factory system” went into operation, a practice which included the then new idea, that corporations should have souls, and should exercise a paternal influence over the lives of their operatives. As Dr. John O. Green of Lowell, in a letter to Lucy Larcom, said: “The design of the control of the boarding-houses and their inmates was one of the characteristics of the Lowell factory system, early incorporated therein by Mr. Francis Cabot Lowell and his brother-in-law, Patrick T. Jackson, who are entitled to all the credit of the acknowledged superiority of our early operatives.”

Cotton-mills had also been started in Waltham, Mass., where the first power-loom went into operation in 1814; but, for lack of water-power, these could be carried on to a limited extent only. It was therefore resolved, by gentlemen interested, that the “plant” should be moved elsewhere, and water privileges were sought in Maine, New Hampshire, and in Massachusetts. Finally, Pawtucket Falls, on the Merrimack River, was selected, as a possible site where a large manufacturing town could be built up. Here land was bought, and the place, formerly a part of Chelmsford, set off in 1826, was named Lowell, after Francis Cabot Lowell, who, through his improvements, was practically the inventor of the power-loom, and the originator of the cotton-cloth manufacture as now carried on in America.

Kirk Boott, the agent of the first corporation, (as the mills, boarding-houses,—the whole plant was called), was a great potentate in the early history of Lowell, and exercised almost absolute power over the mill-people. Though not an Englishman, he had been educated in England, had imbibed the autocratic ideas of the mill-owners of the mother country, and many stories were told of his tyranny, or his “peculiarities,” long after he ceased to be a resident.