While the flag of independence,
O’er our noble nation flies.”
In 1843 the girls in the cotton mills of Pittsburg, Pa., whose working hours had been from five o’clock in the morning till a quarter of seven in the evening, rebelled also, when their employers attempted to increase the time one hour each day without extra pay. Two years later they co-operated with the factory girls of New England, concurring in the proposal to “declare their independence of the oppressive manufacturing power” unless the work day was limited to ten hours.
The policy of these fighters for better conditions is outlined in the constitution of the “Lowell Female Labor Reform Association,” which had been organized in 1845. Article IX says:
“The members of this association disapprove of all hostile measures, strikes and turn-outs until all pacific measures prove abortive, and then that it is the imperious duty of everyone to assert and maintain that independence which our brave ancestors bequeathed to us and sealed with their blood.”
The spirit of these working women is likewise shown in the preamble adopted at the annual meeting of the association in January, 1846. It reads:
“It now only remains for us to throw off the shackles which are binding us in ignorance and servitude and which prevent us from rising to that scale of being for which God designed us. With the present system of labor it is impossible. There must be reasonable hours for manual labor and a just portion of time allowed for the cultivation of the mental and moral faculties, and no other way can the great work be accomplished. It is evident that with the present system of labor the minds of the mass must remain uncultivated, their morals unimproved. Shall we, operatives of America, the land where democracy claims to be the principle by which we live and by which we are governed, see the evil daily increasing which separates more widely and more effectually the favored few and the unfortunate many without one exertion to stay the progress? God forbid! Let the daughters of New England kindle the spark of Philanthropy in every heart till its brightness shall fill the whole earth.”
Not satisfied with securing thousands of signatures of factory operatives, who petitioned the legislature for a ten-hour day, prominent members of the union went before the Massachusetts legislative committee early in 1845 and testified as to the conditions in textile mills. This was the first American governmental investigation of labor conditions, and it was due almost solely to the petitions of the working women. About the same time the union appointed a committee to investigate and expose false statements published in newspapers concerning the factory operatives. Nor was this all. In their work of publicity they did not hesitate to call public men to account for assailing or ignoring their movement.
The chairman of the legislative committee, before whom the working girls had testified, was the representative from the Lowell district, and should, therefore, have shown special interest in the complaints of the girls. Instead, he had treated them in a high-handed manner, withholding at the same time from the Legislature some of the most important facts presented by the Lowell girls. The latter expressed their just indignation in the following resolution, which was circulated before the elections of that year:
“Resolved, That the Female Labor Reform Labor Association deeply deplore the lack of independence, honesty and humanity in the committee to whom were referred sundry petitions relative to the hours of labor, especially in the chairman of that committee; and as he is merely a corporation machine, or tool, we will use our best endeavors and influence to keep him in the “City of Spindles,” where he belongs, and not trouble Boston folks with him.”