Loom and spindle

by Harriet Jane Hanson Robinson

The fourth class, lords of the spade and the shovel, by whose constant labor the building of the great factories was made possible, and whose children soon became valuable operatives, lived at first on what was called the “Acre,” a locality near the present site of the North Grammar schoolhouse. Here, clustered around a small stone Catholic Church, were hundreds of little shanties, in which they dwelt with their wives and numerous children. Among them were sometimes found disorder and riot, for they had brought with them from the ould counthrey their feuds and quarrels, and the “Bloody Fardowners” and the “Corkonians” were torn by intestinal strife. The boys of both these factions agreed in fighting the “damned Yankee boys,” who represented to them both sides of the feud on occasion; and I have seen many a pitched battle fought, all the way from the Tremont Corporation (then an open field) to the North Grammar schoolhouse, before we girls could be allowed to pursue our way in peace.

We were obliged to go to school with our champions, the boys, for we did not dare to go alone. These “Acreites” respected one or two of us from our relationship to the “bullies,” as some of the fighting leaders of our boys were called; and when caught alone by Acreites coming home from school, we have been in terror of our lives, till we heard some of them say, in a language used by all sides, air-o-there owes-o-gose e-o-the ooly-o-boos’ ister-o-see. (There goes the bully’s sister.) This language was called Hog Latin by the boys; but it is found in one of George Borrows’ books, as a specimen of the Rommany or gypsy language. These fights were not confined to the boys on each side; after mill-hours the men joined in the fray, and evenings that should have been better employed were spent in carrying on this senseless warfare. The authorities interfered, and prevented these raids of the Acreites upon the school-children, and the warfare was kept within their own domain. It lasted after this for more than ten years, and was ended by the “bloody battle” of Suffolk Bridge, in which a young boy was killed.

The agents were paid only fair salaries, the overseers generally two dollars a day, and the help all earned good wages. By this it will be seen that there were no very rich persons in Lowell, nor were there any “suffering poor,” since every man, woman, and child, (over ten years of age) could get work, and was paid according to the work each was capable of doing.

The richest young lady of my time was the daughter of a deceased mill-owner; her income, it was said, was six hundred dollars a year! And many of the factory girls made from six to ten dollars a week! out of this, to be sure, they paid their board, which was one dollar and twenty-five cents a week.[2]

[2] In addition to this, the corporation paid twenty-five cents a week to the boarding-house keeper, for each operative. But this sum was soon withdrawn, the girls were obliged to pay it themselves, and this was one of the grievances which caused the first strike among the Lowell factory operatives.

By this it will be seen that there could not have been much aristocracy of wealth; but (as in most manufacturing cities to-day), there was a class feeling, which divided the people, though not their interests. For, as has been said, the corporation guarded well the interests of its employees; and as the mill-hands looked to the factories for their support, they worked as one man (and one woman) to help increase the growing prosperity of the city, which had given to them a new and permanent means of earning a livelihood.

The history of Lowell gives a good illustration of the influence of woman, as an independent class, upon the growth of a town or a community.

As early as 1836, ten years after its incorporation, Lowell began to show what the early mill girls and boys could do towards the material prosperity of a great city. It numbered over 17,000 inhabitants,—an increase of over 15,000 during that time.

In 1848 over one-half of the depositors in the Lowell Institution for Savings were mill-girls, and over one-third of the whole sum deposited belonged to them,—in round numbers, $101,992; and the new-made city showed unmistakable signs of becoming, what it was afterwards called, the “Manchester of America.” But the money of the operatives alone could not have so increased the growth and social importance of a city or a locality. It was the result, as well, of the successful operation of the early factory system, managed by men who were wise enough to consider the physical, moral, and mental needs of those who were the source of their wealth.

Free co-educational schools were established in Lowell as early as 1830-1832, and a rule was made by the several corporations that every child under fourteen should attend them three months in the year.