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LOOM AND SPINDLE

OR

Life Among the Early Mill Girls

WITH A SKETCH OF

^'THE LOWELL OFFERING'' AND SOME OF ITS CONTRIBUTORS

BY

HARRIET H. ROBINSON

AUTHOR OF " WARRINGTON PHN PORTRAITS," " MASSACHUSETTS IN THB WOMAN SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT," " THE NEW PANDORA," ETC.

INTRODUCTION

BY THE

HONORABLE CARROLL D. WRIGHT

^Wffrk is a shame tc notje ; the ^kai.te is v^t to he workins.^^ — Hesiod

NEW. YORK : 46 East 14TH Street

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY

BOSTON : 100 Purchase Street

r?

Copyright, 1898, By Thomas Y. Ckowell & Company,

Ttpographt by C. J. Peters <fe Sox, Boston.

Pkesswokk by S. J. Pakkhill &. Co.

INTRODUCTION.

Whenever the history of economic condi- tions in this country shall be written, the author will express his gratitude for all works giving the details of especial epochs and phases of in- dustrial life. Among them he will find no more interesting experience than that attending the entrance of women to the industrial field. The author of "Loom and Spindle" contributes something more than her personal experiences at Lowell during the early years of the textile factories, — she contributes an inside view of the workings of a new system of labor, which had been transplanted from England, and which originated with the application of power to spin- ning and weaving.

The attractions of good wages and comfort- able environment were the inducements held out by American manufacturers at Lowell to secure a class of operatives which should bring success to their experiment. The prejudice against mill operatives, as shown by investiga-

IV INTRODUCTION.

tions in England, would otherwise have delayed the establishment of the factory in America; that is, the factory as controlled by a central power. With the attractions offered, it was natural that the women of New England should accept situations as weavers, spinners, etc., in the great textile works ; but they brought with them their educational and religious training; and, as they were grouped together, it was natural also that they should continue the cul- tivation of their minds, especially under the broadening influences of mental contact. It is this aspect of the factory system to which Mrs. Kobinson has addressed herself. It was an ex- perience in which she took part ; she saw it all, and was a part of it. She, with her associates, chief among whom were Harriot F. Curtis, a writer who attained an enviable position, the Currier sisters, Mrs. Chamberlain, Eliza Jane Cate, Harriet Farley, the sculptress Margaret Foley, Lydia S. Hall, Lucy and Emmeline Lar- com, Sarah Shedd myi first teacher, and others, who became well known in literary, benevolent, and other walks in public life, gave character to the early factory days in New England, which are usually referred to not only as unique in their features, but for the purpose of supporting the idea that modern conditions are not as

INTRODUCTION. V

attractive, and that there has been a thorough deterioration not only in the people employed in factories, but in their home-life. Something of this note is sounded in the last chapter of this book ; yet it must be recognized that the factory system has been and is a power in civ- ilization, — a factor in developing it, in truth.

The factory girl of the early period was not degraded through her employment or her sur- roundings. She stepped out of factory life into professional or semi-professional occupations. She was succeeded by a class originally beneath her, the members of which have in their turn graduated from the factory, and stepped into higher callings. This process has been repeated, the destiny of the factory being ever to reach down and lift people up out of lowly into higher conditions. This gives the surface ap- pearance of deterioration, when the real fact is that through the factory the lower orders, so far as mental capacity is concerned, are being constantly elevated. The author sees this, yet naturally cannot help regretting that the heterogeneity of the factory population — na- tives coming from many lands, with differing social ideas, with little or no training, with few opportunities for advancement, with low earning capacity, and with varied languages —

VI INTR OB UCTION.

has changed the atmosphere of the factory com- munity. The human lives involved are worth more in this atmosphere than they were in the cloddish labor oat of which they have risen.

" Loom and Spindle," valuable as it is for its details of economic history, for the inspiration which comes from studying the lives and char- acters of noble women, teaches the lesson which the author and her associates taught, — that whatever is honest in employment is in the ser- vice of God. Their lives emphasize the fact that the modern system of industry has exercised a wonderful influence in securing intellectual stimulation, and in dignifying every honest

calling.

CARROLL D. WRIGHT.

Washington, May, 1898.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

Introduction iii

I. Lowell Sixty Years Ago 1

II. Child-Life in the Lowell Cotton Mills, 25

in. The Little Mill-Girl's Alma Mater . 40

IV. The Characteristics of the Early Fac- tory Girls 60

Y. Characteristics (Continued) 83

YI. The Lowell Offering and its Writers . . 97

YII. The Loioell Offering {Continued) .... 109

Yin. Brief Biographies of some of the Wri- ters FOR The Lowell Offering .... 132

IX. The Cotton Factory of To-day . . . 202

Vll

LOOM AND SPINDLE.

CHAPTER I.

LOWELL SIXTY YEARS AGO.

" That wonderful city of spindles and looms, And thousands of factory folk."

The life of a people or of a class is best illus- trated by its domestic scenes, or by character sketches of the men and women who form a part of it. The historian is a species of mental photographer of the life and times he attempts to portray ; he can no more give the whole his- tory of events than the artist can, in detail, bring a whole city into his picture. And so, in this record of a life that is past, I can give but incomplete views of that long-ago faded land- scape, views taken on the spot.

It is hardly possible to do this truthfully with- out bringing myself into the picture, — a solitary traveller revisiting the scenes of youth, and see- 1

2 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

ing with young eyes a city and a people living in almost Arcadian simplicity, at a time which, in view of the greatly changed conditions of factory labor, may well be called a lost Eden for that portion of our working-men and work- ing-women.

Before 1836 the era of mechanical industry in New England had hardl}^ begun, the industrial life of its people was yet in its infancy, and nearly every article in domestic use that is now made by the help of machinery was then " done b}^ hand." It was, with few exceptions, a rural population, and the material for clothing was grown on the home-farm, and spun and woven by the women. Even in comparatively wealthy families, the sons were sent to college in suits of homespun, cut and made by the village seam- stress, and every household was a self-producing and self-sustaining community. " Homespun was their only wxar," homespun their lives.

There was neither railway, steamboat, tele- graph, nor telephone, and direct communication was kept up by the lumbering stage-coach, or the slow-toiling canal, which tracked its sinuous way from town to city, and from State to State. The daily newspaper was almost unknown, and the " news of the day " was usually a week or so behind the times. Money was scarce, and most

LOWELL SIXTY TEAES AGO. 3

of the retail business was done by " barter " — so many eggs for a certain quantity of sugar, or so much butter or farm produce for tea, coffee, and other luxuries. The people had plenty to eat, for the land, though sterile, was well culti- vated; but if the children wanted books, or a better education than the village school could give them, the farmer seldom had the means to gratify their wishes.

These early New Englanders lived in pastoral simplicity. They were moral, religious, and per- haps content. They could say with truth, —

*' We are the same things that oiir fathers have been, We see the same sights that our fathers have seen, We drink the same stream, we feel the same sun, And run the same course that our fathers have run."

Their lives had kept pace for so many years with the stage-coach and the canal that they thought, no doubt, if they thought about it at all, that they should crawl along in this way forever. But into this life there came an ele- ment that was to open a new era in the activi- ties of the country.

This was the genius of mechanical industry, which would build the cotton-factor}^ set in motion the loom and the spinning-frame, call together an army of useful people, open wider

4 LOOM AND SPINDLE,

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 de- mand, 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.^

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 1700,000, and was the first canal in the

1 These were teaching, needlework, keeping boarders, fac- tory labor, type-setting, folding and stitching in book-binderies. According to the census of 1885 (that of 1895 is not yet tabu- lated), wherein the subject of " Woman in Industry " was first specialized, by Hon. Carroll D. Wright, there are 113 indus- tries, 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.

LOWELL SIXTY YEARS AGO. 5

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, Avas " switched off the track " by its successful rival, tlie Boston and Lowell Railroad, and, with the stage-coach and the turn- pike 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, xery near the Somerville Station on the Western Division of the Boston and Maine Railroad, can still be seen a few de- cayed 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 opera- tion 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.

6 LOOM AND SPINDLE,

or ran barefooted from our play, at the first '' toot " of the whistle. As I stood on the side- walk, 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 I " " 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 con- tinued 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 Avill be- come of this enormous plant during the next fifty 3^ears, when our railways, perhaps, may be laid in the " unfeatured air."

The first factory for the manufacture of cot- ton cloth in the United States was erected in Beverly, Mass., in 1787, and in 1790 Samuel Slater established the cotton industry in Paw- tucket, R.I. ; but the first real effort to establish the enterprise was in Lowell, where a large

LOWELL SIXTY YEARS AGO, 1

wooden building was erected at tlie Wamesit Falls, on tlie 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 cultiva- tion; 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 pater- nal 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 sys- tem, 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 oper- atives."

Cotton-mills had also been started in Wal- tham, Mass., where tlie first power-loom went into operation in 1814; but, for lack of water- power, these could be carried on to a limited extent onl}-. It was therefore resolved, by gen-

8 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

tlemen interested, that the "plant" should be moved elsewhere, and water privileges were sought in Maine, New Hampshire, and in Mas- sachusetts. Finally, Pawtucket Falls, on tlie Merrimack River, was selected, as a possible site where a large manufacturing town could be built up. Here land was bought, and the place, for- merl}^ a part of Chelmsford, set off in 1826, w^as named Lowell, after Francis Cabot Lowell, who, through his improvements, was practically the inventor of the power-loom, and the origi- nator 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 th mill-owners of the mother country, and many stories were told of his t3^ranny, or his " peculi- arities," long after he ceased to be a resident.

Of his connection with the early history of Lowell, it is stated that, before the water-power was discovered there, he went as agent of the purchasers, to Gardiner, Me., and tried to buy of R. H. Gardiner, Esq., the great water privilege

LOWELL SIXTY YEARS AGO. 9

belonging to his estate. Mr. Gardiner would not sell, but was willing to lease it. Kirk Boott would not agree to this, or Lowell might now have been on the Kennebec in Maine. Then he came to Chelmsford, and saw the great Merri- mack River and its possibilities, and set himself shrewdly to work to buy land on its banks, in- cluding the water-power. He represented to the simple farmers tliat he was going to raise fruit and wool, and they, knowing nothing of *' mill privileges," believed him, and sold the greatest water-power in New England for almost nothing. When they discovered his real design in buying the land, and the chance for making money that they had lost, they were angry enough. A song was made about it, and sung by everybody. It began thus : —

There came a young man from the old countree, The Merrimack River he happened to see, What a capital place for mills, quoth he,

Ri-toot, ri-noot, ri-toot, ri-noot, riumpty, ri-tooten-a.

The next verse told how he swindled the farmers by inducing them to sell the water- power (for nothing: —

And then these farmers so cute, They gave all their lands and timber to Boott, Ri-toot, ri-noot, etc.

10 LOOM AND SPINDLE,

He was not popular, and the boys were so afraid of him that they would not go near him willingly, for many of them had known what it was to have his riding-whip come down on their backs. There is one still living who remembers how it felt. This old boy remembers that one Fourth of July Kirk Boott raised the English and American flags over his house, with the Stars and Stripes under the English colors ; he would not change them at the suggestion of an indignant mob who had gathered, and they did it for him. Kirk Boott's house and garden were located on the spot where the Boott Corpora- tion now stands. The house was a very fine mansion and stood near the river, and the gar- den was a wonder to everybody, fruit and flow- ers were brought to such perfection. So he did fulfil his promise after a sort to the former own- ers of the land, for he raised fruit on some of it, and the wool he raised, metaphorically, and pulled (as the song intimated) over the eyes of the deluded farmers.

The Merrimack Manufacturing Company was incorporated in 1822, a factory was built, and the first cotton clotli was made in 1823. It was coarse in texture, — the kind that might be used to "shoot pease through," — though it was not sleazy, but thick and firm, something like thin

LOWELL SIXTY YEARS AGO. 11

sail-clotli, and it costs " two and threepence " (thirty-seven and one-half cents) a yard.

The first calico printing done in Lowell was on the Merrimack Corporation, and the prints were of very poor texture and color. The groundwork was madder, and there was a white spot in it for a figure ; it cost about thirty cents a yard. This madder-color was tlie product of an extensive cowyard in the vicinity of the print-works, and the prints were ''warranted not to fade."

I had a gown of this material, and it proved a garb of humiliation, for the white spots washed out, cloth and all, leaving me covered with eye- let-holes. This so amused my witty brother that, whenever I wore it, he accused me of being more "holy than righteous." Dyers and calico print- ers were soon sent for from England, and a long low block on the Merrimack Corporation was built for their accommodation and called the " English Row." When they arrived from the old country they were not satisfied with the wages, which were not according to the agree- ment, and they would not go to work, but left the town with their families in a large wagon with a band of music. Terms were made with them, however, and they returned, and estab- lished in Lowell the art of calico printing.

12 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

The *' Print Works " was a great mystery in its early days. It had its secrets, and it was said that no stranger was allowed to enter certain rooms, for fear that the art would be stolen. The first enduring color in print was an indigo blue. This was the groundwork, and a minute white spot sprinkled over it made the goods lively and pretty. It wore like '' iron," and its success was the first step toward the high stand- ard in the market once held b}^ the " Merrimack Print."

Before 1840, the foreign element in the fac- tory population was almost an unknown quan- tity. The first imigrants to come to Lowell were from England. The Irishman soon followed ; but not for many years did the Frenchman, Ital- ian, and German come to take possession of the cotton -mills. The English were of the artisan class, but the Irish came as "hewers of wood and drawers of water." The first Irishwomen to work in the Lowell mills were usually scrub- bers and waste-pickers. They were always good-natured, and when excited used their own language ; the little mill-children learned many of the words (which all seemed to be joined together like compound words), and these mites would often answer back, in true Hibernian fashion. These women, as a rule, wore peiisaiit

LOWELL SIXTY YEARS AGO. 13

cloaks, red or blue, made with hoods and sev- eral capes, in summer (as they told the chil- dren), to "kape cool," and in winter to "kape warrum/' They were not intemperate, nor "bit- terl}^ poor." They earned good wages, and they and their children, especially their children, very soon adapted themselves to their changed condi- tions of life, and became as '' good as anybody."

To show, the close connection in family de- scent of the artisan and the artist, at least in the line of color, it may be said here that a grandson of one of the first blue-dyers in this country is one of the finest American marine painters, and exhibited pictures at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893.

In 1832 the factory population of Lowell was divided into four classes. The agents of the corporations were the aristocrats, not because of their wealth, but on account of the ofBce they held, which was one of great responsibilit}^, re- quiring, as it did, not only some knowledge of business, but also a certain tact in managing, or utilizing the great number of operatives so as to secure the best return for their labor. The agent was also something of an autocrat, and tliere was no appeal from his decision in matters affecting the industrial interests of those who were employed on his corporation.

14 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

The agents usually lived in large houses, not too near the boarding-houses, surrounded by beautiful gardens which seemed like Paradise to some of the home-sick girls, who, as they came from their work in the noisy mill, could look with longing eyes into the sometimes open gate in the higli fence, and be reminded afresh of their pleasant country homes. And a glimpse of one handsome woman, the wife of an agent, reading by an astral lamp in the early evening, has always been remembered by one young girl, who looked forward to the time when she, too, might have a parlor of her own, lighted by an astral lamp!

The second class were the overseers, a sort of gentry, ambitious mill-hands who had worked up from the lowest grade of factory labor ; and they usually lived in the end-tenements of the blocks, the short connected rows of houses in which the operatives were boarded. However, on one corporation, at least, there was a block devoted exclusively to the overseers, and one of the wives, who had been a factory girl, put on so many airs that the wittiest of her former work-mates fastened the name of '' Puckers- ville " to the whole block where the overseers lived. It was related of one of these quondam factory girls, that, with some friends, she once

LOWELL SIXTY TEARS AGO. 15

re-visited the room in which she used to work, and, to show her genteel friends her ignorance of her old surroundings, she turned to the over- seer, who was with the party, and pointing to some wheels and pulleys over her head, she said, " What's them things up there ? "

The third class were the operatives, and were all spoken of as "girls" or "men;" and the "girls," either as a whole, or in part, are the subject of this volume.

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 Gram- mar schoolhouse. Here, clustered around a small stone Catholic Church, were hundreds of little shanties, in which they dwelt with their wives and numerous children. Amongr them were sometimes found disorder and riot, for they had brought with them from the ould counthrey their feuds and quarrels, and the " Bloody Far- downers " and the " Corkonians " were torn by intestinal strife. The boys of both these fac- tions agreed in fighting the "damned Yankee boys," who represented to them both sides of the feud on occasion ; and I have seen many a

16 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

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 com- ing 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 do- main. 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.

LOWELL SIXTT YEARS AGO. 17

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 ac- cording to the work each was capable of doing.

The richest young lady of my time was the daughter of a deceased mill-owner; her in- come, it was said, was six hundred dollars a year ! And many of the factorj^ girls made from six to ten dollars a week I out of this, to be sure, they paid their board, which was one dol- lar and twenty-five cents a week.^

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

1 In addition to this, the corporation paid twenty-five cents a -week to the boarding-house keeper, for each operative. But this sum \ras 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.

18 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

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 incorpora- tion, 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 1843 over one-half of the depositors in the Lowell Institution for Savings were mill- girls, and over one-third of the whole sum depos- ited belonged to them, — in round numbers, $101,992; and the new-made city showed un- mistakable signs of becoming, what it was after- wards called, the '' Manchester of America." But the money of the operatives alone could not have so increased the growth and social impor- tance of a city or a locality. It was the result, as w^ell, of the successful opei'ation of the earh' factory system, managed by men wdio 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

LOWELL SIXTY YEARS AGO. 19

in Lowell as early as 1830-1832, and a rule was made by the several corporations tliat every child under fourteen should attend them three months in the je'dv.

Master Hills taught the North Grammar School, after it occupied its present site. I re- member him in 1835; and I pause when I think of this teacher, and wonder if, in some other sphere, he remembers whipping a little girl to overcome her persistent denials of an accusation made against her, thereby forcing her to tell a lie. She was accused by one of her schoolmates of taking a one cent multiplication table from her desk, and tearing it in two. For this slight of- fence, he, a strong man, unheeding her denials of the charge, with a heavy strap, struck with his whole strength on the tender palm of the little liand of a child of scarcely ten years. He punished her till she could not see, for pain and terror, and then she gave in, ivJiipped into a Ue^ and said she did it.

The punishment over she staggered to her seat, thinking that at last it was all over. But the end was not yet, for she had to learn by this early experience that one is but the beginning of a sum, and that she must tell many lies and keep on telling them, in order to maintain her position. Her little schoolmates said, " Why

20 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

did you not say sooner that 3- ou did it, and save yourself all that whipping ? " She could not tell them the truth, for they would not believe her. Her dear mother said, " If you wanted an- other multiplication table, why did you not ask me for one?" But she could not even con- fess the truth to her. Her good aunt accosted her with, " You sinner ! do you not know w^hat becomes of liars ? " She could not justify herself to avert that awful fate, and so she went on throwing out lie after lie (a heavy ballast), to save herself and to maintain her standing as a liar, till she was heartily sick of the whole mat- ter, and wished that she had stuck to the truth, even if the master had killed her.

I have known Master Hills to go secretly be- hind a boy, who was playing at his desk, and strike him with a heavy strap across the back. Whipping was an every-day occurrence, and wa.s done before all the children during school hours. A boy was made to lie across a chair, and was whipped in that position — not always through his clothing. Let us charitably hope that this cruel treatment of children was the fault of the times and of the arbitrary rule that was thought necessary to govern a community in those days. The day of children's rights had not yet dawned.

Master Jacob Graves followed I\Ir. Hills, and

LOWELL SIXTY YEAHS AGO. 21

he was the first teacher that I remember who used moral suasion, and instilled into our minds what honor among children meant. He taught us to be truthful for truth's sake, his rule was mild and pleasant, he never punished with the rod, and his kind, remonstratino" voice was more powerful than any whipping. In later life, many of his scholars sorrowed with him in his misfor- tunes, and now his memory lives in their hearts, a tender and pleasant recollection.

The first church edifice built in Lowell was St. Anne's. It was built under Kirk Boott's reign ; and, without regard to the difference of the religious opinions of the operatives, the Epis- copal form of service was adopted. Every oper- ative on the Merrimack corporation was obliged to pay thirty-seven and a half cents a month toward the support of this church. This was considered unjust by the help, many of whom were '' dissenters," and they complained so loudly at the extortion, which was not in the contract, that the tax was soon discontinued.

The Freewill Baptist Church was built largely of money belonging to over one hundred factory girls, who were induced by Elder Thurston's promises of large interest to draw their money from the savings-bank, and place it in his hands. These credulous operatives did not even receive

22 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

the interest of their money, but, believing in him as an ekler of the church, they were persuaded, even a second time, to let him have their sav- ings. This building has had a curious and eventful history, " from grave to ga}^ from lively to severe." According to Mr. Cowley's history of Lowell, nothing had succeeded in it ; and, to a believer in retributive justice, it would seem as if even the building deserved to be under a ban till those hard earnings were restored. The money wasted there represents so much of lost opportunity of education, lost means of ccmfort and maintenance, lost ability to keep or help the dear ones at home.

Early in the history of Lowell, Universalism became popular, and a large congregation, mostly young people, Avere soon gathered. This quite frightened those of certain other sects, and their ministers preached openly against the new doc- trine ; discussions and controversies were rife, and whether there was a hell or not, was the chief topic of the da}^ among the factory people. That there was not was, of course, the more agree- able, and, with tlie fearless ones, the more popu- lar side. There was a very benighted idea in the minds of many as to what this new religion really was, and " Infidel," and " Atheist," were the names applied by other denominations.

LOWELL SIXTY YEARS AGO. 23

Doctrinal feeling was strong, and young people who went with the " awful Universalists " re- ceived no favor from the other sects. The Uni- tarians also came under the ban, but the Univer- salists were the more condemned; and the good work they tried to do was hindered in more than one direction by this unchristian persecution.

As a matter of local history, it may be well to add here, that in its earlier days Lowell fur- nished quite a number of distinguished men. Among its physicians may be mentioned Dr. Elisha Bartlett, who was widely known as a man of scientific culture and of many accom- plishments ; the Daltons, father and sons, later of Boston; and Dr. Gilraan Kimball, the cele- brated surgeon. Lieutenant-Governor Hunt- ington also practised medicine there, as did Dr. John O. Greene, the antiquary. Wendell Phil- lips was in a law-of!ice, and John Nesmith, man- ufacturer, was lieutenant-governor during a part of Governor Andrew's term of office. In Free- soil days John G. Whittier edited a paper there, and John H. Warland and H. Hastinofs Weld were in the same profession. Colonel William Schouler began editorial life in Lowell, assisted by William S. Robinson ('' Warrington "), who went from Concord, Mass., in 1842. Mr. Rob- inson also published The Lowell American, one

24 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

of the first Freesoil papers, from 1849 to 1854. William Wortlien, of the firm of D. Appleton & Co. of New York, was formerly of Lowell, a Worthen being one of the founders of the city. Warren Colburn of " Colburn's Sequel," the mathematician, was agent of the Merrimack Mills. John P. Robinson, who was so severely lampooned by the poet Lowell (" John P. Robin- son, he "), moved to Lowell from Dover early in life. The Hon. Gustavus Vasa Fox, once Assistant Secretary of the Navy, lived with his mother on the Tremont Corporation. Major- General B. F. Butler was one of its most widely known citizens. Henry F. Durant, the founder of Wellesley College, studied law in the office of his father, William Smith, and Major-General N. P. Banks was bobbin-boy, and afterward edi- tor there. Tlie late Rev. W. H. Cudworth, and J. W. Hanson, D.D., now of Chicago, were cous- ins and Lowell boj's, and were both chaplains of Massachusetts regiments during the Civil War. James McNeil Whistler, the painter, was born in Lowell, in 1834.

Lowell has never been a book-publishing place; but it is a curious fact that the first American edition of Ha3^ward's translation of "Faust" was published there in 1840 by Daniel Bixby, afterward of New York.

CHILD-LIFE IN THE COTTON-MILLS. 'Zb

CHAPTER II.

CHILD-LIFE IN THE LOWELL COTTON-MILLS.

In attempting to describe the life and times of the early mill-girls, it has seemed best for me to write my story in the first person ; not so much because my own experience is of importance, as that it is, in some respects, typical of that of many others who lived and worked with me.

Our home was in Boston, in Leverett Court, now Cotting Street, where I was born the year the corner-stone was laid for the Bunker Hill Monument, as my mother told me always to re- member. We lived there until I was nearly seven years of age, and, although so young, I can remember very vividly scenes and incidents which took place at that time. We lived un- der the shadow of the old jail (near where Wall Street now runs), and we children used to hear conversation, not meant for small ears, between the prisoners and the persons in the court who came there to see them.

All the land on which the North Union Sta-

26 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

tion now stands, with tlie railway lines con- nected with it, and also the site of many of the streets, particularly Lowell Street, was then a part of the Mill-pond, or was reclaimed from tlie Bay. The tide came in at the foot of Leverett Court, and we could look across the water and see the sailing vessels coming and going. There the down-east wood-coasters landed their freight; many a time I have gone "chipping" there, and once a generous j^oung skipper offered me a stick of wood, which I did not dare to take. In 1831, under the shadow of a great sorrow, w^hich had made her four children fatherless, — the oldest but seven years of age, — my mother was left to struggle alone ; and, although she tried hard to earn bread enough to fill our hun- gry mouths, she could not do it, even with the help of kind friends. And so it happened that one of her more wealthy neighbors, who had looked with longing eyes on the one little daughter of the family, offered to adopt me. But my mother, who had had a hard experience in her youth in living amongst strangers, said, " No ; while I have 6ne meal of victuals a day, I will not part with my children." I always remembered this speech because of the word " victuals," and I wondered for a long time what this good old Bible word meant.

CHILD-LIFE IN THE COTTON-MILLS. 27

My father was a carpenter, and some of his fellow-workmen helped my mother to open a little shop, where she sold small stores, candy, kindling-wood, and so on, but there was no great income from this, and we soon became poorer than ever. Dear me! I can see the small shop now, with its jars of striped candy, its loaves of bread, the room at the back where we all lived, and my oldest brother (now a "D.D.") sawing the kindling-wood which we sold to the neighbors.

That was a hard, cold winter; and for warmth's sake my mother and her four children all slept in one bed, two at the foot and three at the head, — but her richer neighbor could not get the little daughter; and, contrar}^ to all the modern notions about hygiene, we were a healthful and a robust brood. We all, except the baby, went to school every day, and Satur- day afternoons I went to a charity school to learn to sew. My mother had never complained of her poverty in our hearing, and I had ac- cepted the conditions of my life Avith a child's trust, knowing nothing of the relative difference between poverty and riches. And so I went to the sewing-school, like any other little girl w^ho was taking lessons in sewing and not as a " charity child ; " until a certain day when some-

28 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

thing was said by one of the teachers, about me, as a "poor little girl," — a thoughtless remark, no doubt, such as may be said to-day in " char- ity schools." When I went home I told my mother that the teacher said I was poor, and she replied in her sententious manner, "You need not go there again."

Shortly after this my mother's widowed sister, Mrs. Angeline Cud worth, who kept a factory boarding-house in Lowell, advised her to come to that city. She secured a house for her, and my mother, with her little brood and her few household belongings, started for the new fac- tory town.

We w^ent by the canal-boat. The Governor Sullivan, and a long and tiresome day it was to the weary mother and her four active chil- dren, though the children often varied the scene by walking on the tow-path under the Lombardy poplars, riding on tlie gates when the locks were swung open, or buying glasses of water at the stopping-places along the route.

When we reached Lowell, we were carried at once to my aunt's house, whose generous spirit had well provided for her hungr}^ relations ; and we children were led into her kitchen, where, on the longest and whitest of tables, lay, oh, so many loaves of bread !

CHILD- LIFE IN THE COTTON-MILLS. 29

After our feast of loaves we walked with our mother to the Tremont Corporation, where we were to live, and at the old No. 5 (which im- print is still legible over the door), in the first block of tenements then built, I began my life among factory people. My mother kept forty boarders, most of them men, mill-hands, and she did all her housework, with what help her chil- dren could give her between schools ; for we all, even the baby three years old, were kept at school. My part in the housework was to wash the dishes, and I was obliged to stand on a cricket in order to reach the sink!

My mother's boarders were many of them young men, and usually farmers' sons. They were almost invariably of good character and behavior, and it was a continual pleasure for me and my brothers to associate with them. I was treated like a little sister, never hearing a word or seeino- a look to remind me that I was not of the same sex as my brothers. I played checkers with them, sometimes " beat- ing," and took part in their conversation, and it never came into my mind that they were not the same as so many "girls." A good object- lesson for one who was in the future to main- tain, by voice and pen, her belief in the equality of the sexes !

30 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

I had been to school constantly until I was about ten years of age, when my mother, feeling obliged to have help in her work besides what I could give, and also needing the money which I could earn, allowed me, at my urgent request (for I wanted to earn money like the other little girls), to go to work in the mill. I worked first in the spinning-room as a " doffer." The doffers were the very youngest girls, whose work was to doff, or take off, the full bobbins, and replace them with the empty ones.

I can see myself now, racing down the alley, between the spinning-frames, carrying in front of me a bobbin-box bigger than I was. These mites had to be very swift in their movements, so as not to keep the spinning-frames stopped long, and they worked only about fifteen min- utes in every liour. The rest of the time was their own, and when the overseer was kind they were allowed to read, knit, or even to go out- side the mill-yard to play.

Some of us learned to embroider in crewels, and I still have a lamb worked on cloth, a relic of those early days, when I was first taught to improve my time in the good old New England fashion. When not doffing, we were often al- lowed to go home, for a time, and thus we were able to help our mothers in their housework.

CHILD-LIFE IN THE COTTON-MILLS. 31

We were paid two dollars a week ; and how proud I was when my turn came to stand up on the bobbin-box, and write my name in the paymaster's book, and how indignant I was when he asked me if I could "write." " Of course I can," said I, and he smiled as lie looked down on me.

The working-hours of all the girls extended from five o'clock in the morning until seven in the evening, with one-half hour for breakfast and for dinner. Even the doffers were forced to be on duty nearly fourteen hours a day, and this was the greatest hardship in the lives of these children. For it was not until 1842 that the hours of labor for children under twelve years of age were limited to ten per day; but the " ten-hour law " itself was not passed until long after some of these little doffers were old enough to appear before the legislative commit- tee on the subject, and plead, by their presence, for a reduction of the hours of labor.

I do not recall any particular hardship con- nected with this life, except getting up so early in the morning, and to this habit, I never was, and never shall be, reconciled, for it has taken nearly a lifetime for me to make up the sleep lost at that early age. But in every other re- spect it was a pleasant life. We were not hur-

32 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

ried any more than was for our good, and no more work was required of us than we were able easily to do.

Most of us children lived at home, and we were well fed, drinking both tea and coffee, and eating substantial meals ^besides luncheons) three times a day. We had very happy hours with the older girls, many of whom treated us like babies, or talked in a motherly way, and so had a good influence over us. And in the long winter evenings, when we could not run home between the doffings, we gathered in groups and told each other stories, and sung the old-time songs our mothers had sung, such as " Barbara Allen," '' Lord Lovell," " Captain Kid," " Hull's Victory," and sometimes a hymn.

Among the ghost stories I remember some that would delight the hearts of the "Society for Psychical Research." The more imagina- tive ones told of what they had read in fairy books, or related tales of old castles and dis- tressed maidens ; and the scene of their adven- tures was sometimes laid among the foundation stones of the new mill, just building.

And we told each other of our little hopes and desires, and what we meant to do when we grew up. For we had our aspirations ; and one of us, who danced the "shawl dance," as she

CHILD-LIFE IN THE COTTON-MILLS. 33

called it, in the spinning-room alley, for the amusement of her admiring companions, dis- cussed seriously with another little girl the scheme of their running away together, and joining the circus. Fortunately, there was a grain of good sense lurking in the mind of this gay little lassie, with the thought of the mother at home, and the scheme was not carried out.

There was another little girl, whose mother was suffering with consumption, and who went out of the mill almost every forenoon, to buy and cook oysters, which she brought in hot, for her mother's luncheon. The mother soon went to her rest, and the little daughter, after tasting the first bitter experience of life, followed her. Dear Lizzie Osborne ! little sister of my child- soul, such friendship as ours is not often re- peated in after life ! Many pathetic stories might be told of these little fatherless mill-chil- dren, who worked near their mothers, and who went hand in hand with them to and from the mill.

I cannot tell how it happened that some of us knew about the English factory children, who, it was said, were treated so badly, and were even whipped by their cruel overseers. But we did know of it, and used to sino-, to

34 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

a doleful little tune, some verses called, " The Factory Girl's Last Day." I do not remember it well enough to quote it as written, but have refreshed my memory by reading it lately in Robert Dale Owen's writings: —

"THE FACTORY GIRKS LAST DAY.

"'Twas on a winter morning,

The weather wet and wild, Two hours before the dawning

The father roused his child. Her daily morsel bringing,

The darksome room he paced. And cried, 'The bell is ringing —

My hapless darling, haste!'

The overlooker met her

As to her frame she crept; And with his thong he beat her,

And cursed her when she wept. It seemed as she grew weaker,

The threads the often er broke, The rapid wheels ran quicker.

And heavier fell the stroke."

The song goes on to tell the sad story of her death while her '' pitying comrades " were carrying her home to die, and ends: —

CHILD-LIFE IN THE COTTON-MILLS. 35

"That night a chariot passed her,

While on the ground she lay; The daughters of her master,

An evening visit pay. Their tender hearts were sighing,

As negroes' wrongs were told, "While the white slave was dying

Who gained her father's gold."

In contrast with this sad picture, we thought of ourselves as well off, in our cosey corner of the mill, enjojdng ourselves in our own way, with our good mothers and our warm suppers awaiting us when the going-out bell should ring.

Holidays came when repairs to the great mill- wheel were going on, or some late spring freshet caused the shutting down of the mill ; these were well improved. With what freedom we enjoyed those happy times ! My summer play- house was the woodshed, which my mother al- ways had well filled ; how orderly and with what precision the logs were sawed and piled with the smooth ends outwards ! The catacombs of Paris reminded me of my old playhouse. And here, in my castle of sawed wood, was my vacation retreat, where, with my only and beloved wooden doll, I lunched on slices of apple cut in shape so as to represent what T called •' German half-

36 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

moon pakes." I piled up my bits of crockery with sticks of cinnamon to represent candy, and many other semblances of things, drawn from my mother's housekeeping stores.

The yard which led to the shed was always green, and here many half-holiday duties were performed. We children were expected to scour all the knives and forks used by the forty men- boarders, and my brothers often bought them- selves off by giving me some trifle, and I was left alone to do the whole. And what a pile of knives and forks it was I But it was no task, for did I not have the open yard to work in, with the sky over me, and the green grass to stand on, as I scrubbed away at my "stent"? I don't know why I did not think such long tasks a burden, nor of my work in the mill as drudgery. Perhaps it was because I expected to do my part towards helping my mother to get our living, and had never heard her com|)lain of the hardships of her life.

On other afternoons I went to walk with a playmate, who, like myself, was full of romantic dreams, along the banks of the Merrimack River, where the Indians had still their tents, or on Sundays, to see the "new converts" baptized. These baptizings in the river were very com- mon, as the tanks in the churches were not

CHILD-LIFE IN THE COTTON-MILLS, 37

considered apostolic by the early Baptists of Lowell.

Sometimes we rambled by the "race-way" or mill-race, which carried the water into the flume of the mill, along whose inclining sides grew wild roses, and the " rock-loving colum- bine ; " and we used to listen to see if Ave could hear the blue-bells ring, — this was long before either of us had read a line of poetry.

The North Grammar school building stood at the base of a hilly ridge of rocks, down which we coasted in winter, and where in summer, after school-hours, we had a little cave, where we some- times hid, and played that we were robbers ; and together we rehearsed the dramatic scenes in " Alonzo and Melissa," " The Children of the Abbe}^" or the " Three Spaniards ; " we were turned out of doors with Amanda, we exclaimed " Heavens ! " with Melissa, and when night came on we fled from our play-house pursued by the dreadful apparition of old Don Padilla through the dark windings of those old rocks, towards our commonplace home. " Ah ! " as some writer has said, " if one could only add the fine imagi- nation of those early days to the knowledge and experience of later years, what books might not be written ! "

Our home amusements were very original.

o8 LOOM AXD SPINDLE.

We had no toys, except a few homemade articles or devices of our own. I had but a single doll, a wooden-jointed thing, with red cheeks and staring black eyes. Playing-cards were tabooed, but my elder brother (the incipient D.D.), who had somehow learned the game of high-low- jack, set about making a pack. The cards were cut out of thick 3^ellow pasteboard, the spots and figures were made in ink, and, to disguise their real character, the names of the suits were changed. Instead of hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs, they were called charit}^ love, benev- olence, and faith. The pasteboard was so thick that all together the cards made a pile at least two or three feet high, and they had to be shuf- fled in sections ! He taught my second brother and me the game of high-low-jack ; and, with delightful secrecy, as often as we could steal away, we played in the attic, keeping the cards hidden, between whiles, in an old hair trunk. In playing the game we got along very well with the names of the face-cards, — the " queen of charity," the ''king of love," and so on; but the "ten-spot of faith," and particularly the " two-spot of benevolence " (we had never heard of the " deuce ") was too much for our sense of humor, and almost spoiled the "rigor of the game."

CHILD-LIFE 7JY THE COTTON-MILLS. 39

I was a "little doffer " until I became old enough to earn more money; then I tended a spinning-frame for a little while ; and after that I learned, on the Meriimack corporation, to be a drawinof-in crirl, wliich was considered one of the most desirable employments, as about only a dozen girls were needed in each mill. We drew in, one by one, the threads of the warp, through the harness and the reed, and so made the beams ready for the weaver's loom. I still have the two hooks I used so long, com- panions of many a dreaming hour, and preserve them as the "badge of all my tribe" of draw- in g-in girls.

It may be well to add that, although so many changes have been made in mill-work, during the last fifty years, by the introduction of ma- chinery, this part of it still continues to be done by hand, and the drawing-in girl — I saw her last winter, as in my time — still sits on her high stool, and with her little hook patiently draws in the thousands of threads, one by one.

40 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

CHAPTER III.

THE LITTLE MILL-GIEL's ALMA MATER.

The education of a cliild is an all-around pro- cess, and lie or she owes only a part of it to school or college training. The child to Avhom neither college nor school is open must find his whole education in his surroundings, and in the life he is forced to lead. As the cotton-factory was the means of the early schooling of so large a number of men and women, who, without the opportunity thus afforded, could not have been mentally so well developed, I love to call it their Alma Mater. For, without this incentive to labor, this chance to earn extra money and to use it in their own way, their influence on the times, and also, to a certain extent, on modern civilization, would certainly have been lost.

I had been to school quite constantly until I was nearly eleven years of age, and then, after going into the mill, I went to some of the even- ing schools that had been established, and which were always well filled with those who desired

THE MILL-GIRL'S ALMA MATER. ' 41

to improve their scant education, or to supple- ment what they had learned in the village school or academy. Here might often be seen a little girl puzzling over her sums in Colburn's Arithmetic, and at her side another " girl " of fifty poring over her lesson in Pierpont's Na- tional Reader.

Some of these schools were devoted to special studies. I went to a geography school, where the lessons were repeated in unison in a monot- onous sing-song tone, like this : " Lake Winni- peg ! Lake V^mwipeg ! Lake Tiiicaca ! Lake Titicaca ! Mem^h.iQmagog ! Mem^hvQmagog \ " and also to a school where those who fancied they had thoughts were taught by Newman's Rhetoric to express them in writing. In this school, the relative position of the subject and the predicate was not always well taught by the master ; but never to mix a metaphor or to confuse a simile was a lesson he firmly fixed in the minds of his pupils.

As a result of this particular training, I may say here, that, while I do not often mix meta- phors, I am to this day almost as ignorant of what is called '' grammar " as Dean Swift, who, when he went up to answer for his degree, said he " could not tell a subject from a predicate ; " or even James AVhitcomb Rile}^ who said he

42 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

"would not know a nominative if he should meet it on the street."

The best practical lesson in the proper use of at least one grammatical sentence was given to me by my elder brother (not two years older than I) one day, when I said, "I done it." " You done it ! " said he, taking me by the shoul- der and looking me severely in the face ; " Don't you ever let me hear you say I done it again, unless you can use have or had before it." I also went to singing-school, and became a mem- ber of the church choir, and in this way learned many beautiful hymns that made a lasting im- pression on the serious part of my nature.

The discipline our work brought us was of great value. We were obliged to be in the mill at just such a minute, in every hour, in order to doff our full bobbins and replace them with empty ones. We went to our meals and re- turned at the same hour every day. We worked and played at regular intervals, and thus our hands became deft, our fingers nimble, our feet swift, and we were taught daily habits of regu- larity and of industry ; it was, in fact, a sort of manual training or industrial school.

Some of us were fond of reading, and we read all the books we could borrow. One of my mother's boarders, a farmer's daughter from

THE MILL-GIEUS ALMA MATER. 43

"the State of Maine," had come to Lowell to work, for the express purpose of getting books, usually novels, to read, that she could not find in her native place. She read from two to four volumes a week ; and we children used to get tliem from the circulating library, and return them, for her. In exchange for this, she allowed us to read her books, while she was at work in the mill; and what a scurrying there used to be home from school, to get the first chance at the new book !

It was as good as a fortune to us, and all for six and a quarter cents a week ! In this Avay I read the novels of Richardson, Madame D'Ar- blay, Fielding, Smollett, Cooper, Scott, Captain Marryatt, and many another old book not in- cluded in Mr. Ruskin's list of " one hundred good books." Passing through the alembic of a child's pure mind, I am not now conscious that the reading of the doubtful ones did me any lasting harm. But I should add that I do not advise such indiscriminate reading among young people, and there is no need of it, since now there are so many good books, easy of ac- cess, which have not the faults of tliose I was obliged to read. Then, there was no choice. To- day, the best of reading, for children and young people, can be found everywhere.

44 LOOM AND SPINDLE,

" Lalla Rookh " was the first poem I ever read, and it awoke in me, not only a love of poetry, but also a desire to try my own hand at verse-making.

And so the process of education went on, and I, with many another "little doffer," had more than one chance to nibble at the root of knowl- edge. I had been to school for three months in each year, until I was about thirteen years old, when my mother, who was now a little better able to do without my earnings, sent me to the Lowell High School regularly for two years, adding her constant injunction, " Improve jout mind, try and be somebody." There I w^as taught a little of everything, including French and Latin; and I may say here that my "little learning," in French at least, proved "a danger- ous thing," as I had reason to know some years later, when I tried to speak my book-French in Paris, for it might as well have been Choctaw, when used as a means of oral communication with the natives of that fascinating city.

The Lowell high school, in about 1840, was kept in a wooden building over a butcher's shop, but soon afterwards the new high school, still in use, was provided, and it was co-educational. How well T remember some of the boys and girls, and I recall them with pleasure if not witK

THE MILL-GIBUS ALMA MATER. 45

affection. I could name them now, and have noted with pride their success in life. A few are so high above the rest that one would be surprised to know that they received the princi- pal part of their school education in that little high school room over the butcher's shop.

I left the high scliool when fifteen years of age, my school education completed; though after that I took private lessons in German, drawing, and dancing ! About this time my elder brother and I made up our minds that our mother had worked hard long enough, and Ave prevailed on her to give up keeping boarders. This she did, and while she remained in Lowell we supported the home by our earnings. I was obliged to have my breakfast before daylight in the winter. My mother prepared it over night, and while I was cooking and eating it I read such books as Stevens's " Travels " in Yucatan and in Mexico, Tasso's " Jerusalem Delivered," and " Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life." My elder brother was the clerk in the counting- room of the Tremont Corporation, and the agent, Mr. Charles L. Tilden, — whom I thank, where- ever he may be, — allowed him to carry home at night, or over Sunday, any book that might be left on his (the agent's) desk ; by this means I read many a beloved volume of poetry, late

46 LOOM And spindle.

into tlie night and on Sunday. Longfellow, in particular, I learned almost by heart, and so re- tentive is the young memory that I can repeat, even now, whole poems.

I read and studied also at my work ; and as this was done by the job, or beam, if I chose to have a book in my lap, and glance at it at inter- vals, or even write a bit, nothing was lost to the "corporation."

Lucy Larcom, in her "New England Girl- hood," speaks of the windows in the mill on whose sides were pasted newspaper clippings, which she calls " window gems." It was very common for the spinners and weavers to do this, as they were not allowed to read books openly in the mill ; but they brought their favorite "pieces" of poetry, hymns, and extracts, and pasted them up over their looms or frames, so that they could glance at them, and commit them to memory. We little girls were fond of read- ing these clippings, and no doubt they were an incentive to our thoughts as well as to those of the older girls, who went to " The Improvement Circle," and wrote compositions.

A year or two after this I attempted poetry, and my verses began to appear in the news- papers, in one or two Annuals, and later in The Lowell Offering.

I

THE MILL-GIRVS ALMA MATER. 47

In 1846 I wrote some verses which were pub- lished in the Loiuell Journal^ and these caused me to make the acquaintance of the sub-editor of that paper, who afterwards became my life companion. I speak of this here because, in my early married life, I found the exact help that I needed for continued education, — the leisure to read good books, sent to my husband for re- view, in the quiet of my secluded home. For I had neither the gowns to wear nor the disposi- tion to go into society, and as my companion was not willing to go without me, in the long evenings, when the children were in bed and I was busy making " auld claes look amaist as good as new," he read aloud to me countless books on abstruse political and general subjects, which I never should have thouo-ht of reading for myself.

These are the "books that have helped me." In fact, of all the books I have read, I remember but very few that have not helped me. Thus I had the companionship of a mind more mature, wiser, and less prone to unrealities than my OAvn ; and if it seems to the reader that my story is that of one of the more fortunate ones among the working-girls of my time, it is because of this needed help, which I received almost at the beginning of my womanhood. And for this,

4:8 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

as well as for those early days of poverty and toil, I am devoutly and reverently thankful.

The religious experience of a young person oftentimes forms a large part of the early edu- cation or development; and mine is peculiar, since I am one of the very few persons, in this country at least, who have been excommunicated from a Protestant church. And I cannot speak of this event without showing the strong sec- tarian tendencies of the time.

As late as 1843-1845 Puritan orthodoxy still held sway over nearly the whole of New Eng- land; and the gloomy doctrines of Jonathan Ed- wards, now called his " philosophy," held a mighty grasp on the minds of the people, all other denominations being frowned upon. The Episcopal church was considered "little better than the Catholic," and the Universalists and the Unitarians were treated with even less tol- erance by the " Evangelicals " than any sect outside these denominations is treated to-day. The charge against the Unitarians was that they did not believe all of the Bible, and that they preached " mere morality rather than re- ligion."

My mother, who had sat under the preaching of the Rev. Paul Dean, in Boston, had early drifted away from her hereditary church and

THE MILL-GIRL' S ALMA MATER. 49

its beliefs ; but she had always sent her chil- dren to the Congregational church and Sunday- school, not wishing, perhaps, to run the same risk for their souls that she was willing to take for her own, thus keeping us on tlie '' safe side," as it was called, Avitli regard to our eternal sal- vation. Consequently, we were well taught in th^ belief of a literal devil, in a lake of brim- stone and fire, and in the " wrath of a just God."

The terrors of an imaginative child's mind, into which these monstrous doctrines were poured, can hardly be described, and their last- ing effect need not be dwelt upon. It was nat- ural that young people who had minds of their own should be attracted to the new doctrine of a Father's love, as well as to the ministers who preached it ; and thus in a short time the mill girls and boys made a large part of the congre- gation of those "unbelieving " sects which had come to disturb the " ancient solitary reign " of primitive New England orthodoxy.

I used often to wish that I could go to the Episcopal Sunday-school, because their little girls were not afraid of the devil, were allowed to dance, and had so much nicer books in their Sunday-school library. " Little Henry and his Bearer," and "The Lady of the Manor," in whicli was the story of '• The Beautiful Estelle,'*

50 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

were lent to me ; and the last-named was a delight and an inspiration. But the little ^' orthodox " girls were not allowed to read even religious novels; and one of my work-mates, whose name would surprise the reader, and who afterwards outgrew such prejudices, took me to task for buying a paper copy of Scott's '' Red- gauntlet," saying, "Why, Hattie, do you not know that it is a novel? "

We had frequent discussions among ourselves on the different texts of the Bible, and debated such questions as, " Is it a sin to read novels ? " "Is it right to read secular books on Sunday? " or, "Is it wicked to play cards or checkers?" By this it will be seen that we were made more familiar wdth the form, than w^ith the spirit or the teaching, of Christianity.

In the spring of 1840 there was a great revival in Lowell, and some of the little girls held prayer- meetings, after school, at each other's houses, and many of them "experienced religion." I went sometimes to these meetings, and one night, when I was walking home by starlight, for the days were still short, one of the older girls said to me, " Are you hapj)y ? " " Do you love Jesus ? " " Do you want to be saved ? " — " Wh}-, yes," I answered. " Then you have experienced religion," said the girl ; " you are converted."

THE MILL-GIRL'S ALMA MATES. 51

I was startled at the idea, but did not know how to deny it, and I went home in an exalted state of feeling ; and, as I looked into the depths of the heavens above me, there came to my youthful mind the first glimmer of thought on spiritual themes.

It was an awakening, but not a conversion, for I had been converted from nothing to nothing. I was at once claimed as a "young convert," went to the church prayer-meeting, told my " ex- perience " as directed, and was put on probation for admission to the church. Meanwhile, I had been advised not to ask my mother's consent to this step, because she was a Universalist, and might object. But I did not follow this advice ; and when I told her of my desire, she simply answered, " If you think it will make you any happier, do so, but I do not believe you will be satisfied." I have always been very thankful to my mother for giving me this free- dom in my young life, —

"Not to be followed houi'ly, watched and noosed," —

this chance in such an important matter to learn to think and to act for myself. In fact, she always carried out this principle, and never to my recollection coerced her children on any

OZ LOOM AND SPINDLE.

important point, but taught them to "see for themselves."

When the clay came for me to be admitted into the church, I, with many other little girls, was sprinkled ; and, when I stood up to repeat the creed, I can truly say that I knew no more what were the doctrines to which I was expected to subscribe, than I did about the Copernican System or the Differential Calculus. And I might have said, with the disciples at Ephesus, I '^ have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost." For, although I had been regularly to church and to Sundaj^-school, I had never seen the Articles of Belief, nor had I been instructed concerning the doctrines, or the sacredness of the vow I was about to take upon me. Nor, from the frequent backsliding among the young converts, do I think my case was a singular one, although, so far as I know, I was the only one who backslid enough to be excom- municated.

And later, when I was requested to sub- scribe to the Articles of Belief, I found I could not accept them, particularly a certain part, which related to the day of judgment and what would follow thereafter. I have reviewed this document, and am able to quote the exact words which were a stumbling-block to me.

THE MILL-GIRL'S ALMA MATER. 53

*' We believe . . . that at the day of judg- ment the state of all will be unalterably fixed, and that the punishment" of the wicked and the happiness of the righteous will be end- less."

When the service was over, I went home, feeling as if I had done something wrong. I thought of my mother, whom my cluirch peo- ple called an " unbeliever ; " of my dear little brother who had been drowned, and whose soul might be lost, and I was most unhappy. In fact, so serious was I for many days, that no doubt my church friends thought me a most promising young convert.

Indeed I was converted, but not in the way they supposed ; for I had begun to think on re- ligious subjects, and the more I thought the less I believed in the doctrines of the church to which I belonged. Doubts of the goodness of God filled my mind, and unbelief in the Father's love and compassion darkened my young life. What a conversion ! The beginning of long years of doubt and of struggle in search of spiritual truths.

After a time I went no more to my church meetings, and began to attend those of the Uni- versalists ; but, though strongly urged, as a "come-outer," to join that body, I did not do so.

54 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

being fearful of subscribing to a belief whose mysteries I could neither understand nor ex- plain.

Hearing that I was attending the meetings of another denomination, my church appointed three persons, at least one of whom was a dea- con, to labor with me. They came to our house one evening, and, while my mother and I sat at our sewing, they plied me with questions relat- ing to my duty as a church member, and argu- ments concerning the articles of belief; these I did not know how to answer, but my mother, who had had some experience in " religious" dis- putes, gave text for text, and I remember that, althouofh I trembled at her boldness, I thoug-ht she had the best of it.

Meanwhile, I sat silent, with downcast eyes, and when they threatened me with excommuni- cation if I did not go to the church meetings, and " fulfil my covenant," I mustered up cour- age to say, with shaking voice, " I do not be- lieve ; I cannot go to your church, even if you do excommunicate me."

When my Universalist friends heard of this threat of excommunication, they urged the prep- aration of a letter to the church, giving my reasons for non-attendance ; and this was pub- lished in a Lowell newspaper, July 30, 1842.

THE MILL-GIRL\S ALMA MATER. 55

In this letter, which my elder brother helped me to prepare, — in fact, I believe wrote the most of it, — several aro-uments ao^ainst the Articles of Belief are given ; and the letter closes with a request to " my brothers and sisters," to erase my name from "your church books rather than to follow your usual course, common in cases similar to my own, to excommunicate the here- tic."

This request was not heeded, and shortly after a committee of three was " then appointed to take fartlier steps ; " and this committee re- ported that they had " visited and admonished " me Avithout success ; and in November, 1842, the following vote was passed, and is recorded in the church book : —

«' Xov. 21, 18i2.

Whereas, it appears that ]\Iiss Harriet Hanson has violated her covenant with this church, — first, by re- peated and regular absence from the ordinances of the gospel, second, by embracing sentiments deemed bj^ this church heretical ; and ichereas, measures have been taken to reclaim her, but ineffectual ; therefore,

Voted, that we withdraw our fellow^ship from the said Miss Hanson until she shall give satisfactory evidence of repentance."

And thus, at seventeen years of age, I was excommunicated from the church of my ances-

bb LOOM AND SPINDLE.

tors, and for no fault, no sin, no crime, but simply because I could not subscribe conscien- tiously to doctrines which I did not comprehend. I relate this phase of my youthful experience here in detail, because it serves to show the methods which w^ere then in use to cast out or dispose of those members who could not sub- scribe to the doctrines of the dominant church of New England.

For some time after this, I was quite in dis- grace with some of my work-mates, and was called a " heretic " and a " child of perdition " by my church friends. But, as I did not agree, even in this, with their opinions, but went my "ain gait," it followed that, although I remained for a time something of a heretic, I was not an unbeliever in sacred things nor did I prove to be a " child of perdition." But this experience made me very unhappy, and gave me a distaste for religious reading and thinking, and for man}^ years the Bible was a sealed book to me, until I came to see in the Book, not the letter of dogma, but rather the spirit of truth and of revelation. This experience also repressed the humorous side of mj nature, which is every one's birthright, and made me for a time a sort of youthful cynic ; and I allowed myself to feel a certain contempt for those of my work -mates

THE MILL-GIRU S ALMA MATER. bl

who, tliough they could not give clear reason for their belief, still remained faithful to their "covenant."

Tliere were two or three little incidents con- nected with this episode in my life that may be of interest. A little later, when I thought of applying for the position of teaching in a public school, I was advised by a well-meaning friend not to attempt it, "for," the friend added, " you will not succeed, for how can a Univer- salist pray in her school ? "

Several years after my excommunication, when I had come to observe that religion and " mere morality " do not always go together, I had a final interview with one of the deacons who had labored with me. He was an overseer in the room where I worked, and I had no- ticed his familiar manner with some of the girls, who did not like it any better than I did ; and one day, when his behavior was unusually offen- sive, I determined to speak to him about it.

I called him to my drawing-in frame, where I was sitting at work, and said to him some- thing like this : " I have hard work to believe that you are one of those deacons who came to labor with a young girl about belonging to your clmrch, I don't think you set the example of good works you then preached to me." He

58 L002I AND SPINDLE.

gave me a look, but did not answer ; and shortly- after, as I might have expected, I received an *' honorable discharge " from his room.

But let me acknowledge one far-reaching benefit that resulted from my being admitted to the Orthodox church, a benefit which came to me in the summer of 1895. Because of my bap- tism, administered so long ago, I was enabled to officiate as god-mother to my grandchild and namesake, in Pueblo, Colorado, — one among the first of the little girls born on a political equality with the little boys of that enlight- ened State, born, as one may say, with the bal- lot in her hand ! And to any reader who has an interest in the final result of my religious experience, I may add, that, as late as 1898, I became a communicant of the Episcopal Church.

When the time came for me to become en- gaged to the man of my choice, having always believed in the old-fashioned idea that there should be no secrets between persons about to marry, I told him, among my other shortcom- ings, as the most serious of all, the story of my excommunication. To my great surprise, he laughed heartily, derided the whole affair, and wondered at the serious view I had always taken of it; and later he enjoyed saying to

THE MILL-GIRL'S ALMA MATEIi. 59

some of his gentlemen friends, as if it were a good joke, ''Did you know my wife bad been excommunicated from the cburcb?"

And I too, long since bave learned, tbat no creed —

" Can fix our doom, Xor stay the eternal Love from His intent, While Hope remaining bears her verdant bloom."

60 LOOM AND SPINDLE,

CHAPTER IV. .

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EARLY FACTORY GIRLS.

When I look back into the factory life of fifty or sixty years ago, I do not see what is called "a class " of young men and women go- ing to and from their daily work, like so many ants that cannot be distinguished one from an- other ; I see them as individuals, with personal- ities of their own. This one has about her the atmosphere of her early home. That one is im- pelled by a strong and noble purpose. The other, — what she is, has been an influence for good to me and to all womankind.

Yet they were a class of factor}^ operatives, and were spoken of (as the same class is spoken of now) as a set of persons who earned their daily bread, whose condition was fixed, and who must continue to spin and to weave to the end of their natural existence. Nothing but this was expected of them, and they were not supposed to be capable of social or mental improvement.

THE EARLY FACTORY GIRLS. 61

That they could be educated and developed into something more than mere work-people, was an idea that had not yet entered the public mind. So little does one class of persons really know about the thoughts and aspirations of another ! It was the good fortune of these early mill-girls to teach the people of that time that this sort of labor is not degrading ; that the operative is not only " capable of virtue," but also capable of self-cultivation.

At the time the Lowell cotton-mills were started, the factory girl was the lowest among women. In England, and in France particularly, great injustice had been done to her real charac- ter; she was represented as subjected to influ- ences that could not fail to destroy her purity and self-respect. In the eyes of her overseer she was but a brute, a slave, to be beaten, pinched, and pushed about. It was to overcome this prejudice that such high wages had been offered to women that they might be induced to become mill-girls, in spite of the opprobrium that still clung to this " degrading occupation." At first only a few came ; for, though tempted by the high wages to be regularly paid in "cash," there were many who still preferred to go on working at some more genteel employment at seventy- five cents a week and their board.

62 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

But in a short time the prejudice against fac- tory labor wore away, and the Lowell mills be- came filled with blooming and energetic New England women. They were naturally intelli- gent, had mother-wit, and fell easily into the ways of their new life. They soon began to as- sociate with those who formed the community in which they had come to live, and were invited to their houses. They went to the same church, and sometimes married into some of the best families. Or if they returned to their secluded homes again, instead of being looked down upon as " factory girls " by the squire's or the law- yer's family, they were more often welcomed as coming from the metropolis, bringing new fash- ions, new books, and new ideas with them.

In 1831 Lowell was little more than a fac- tory village. Several corporations were started, and the cotton-mills belonging to them were building. Help was in great demand ; and stories were told all over the country of the new factory town, and the high wages that were offered to all classes of work-people, — stories that reached the ears of mechanics' and farmers' sons, and gave new life to lonely and dependent women in distant towns and farmhouses. Into this Yankee El Dorado, these needy people be- gan to pour by the various modes of travel

THE EARLY FACTORY GIRLS. 63

known to those slow old days. The stage-coach and the canal-boat came every day, always filled with new recruits for this army of useful people. The mechanic and machinist came, each with his home-made chest of tools, and oftentimes his wife and little ones. The widow came with her little flock and her scanty housekeeping goods to open a boarding-house or variety store, and so provided a home for her fatherless children. Many farmers' daughters came to earn money to complete their wedding outfit, or buy the bride's share of housekeeping articles.

Women with past histories came, to hide their griefs and their identity, and to earn an honest living in the " sweat of their brow." Single young men came, full of hope and life, to get money for an education, or to lift the mortgage from the home-farm. Troops of young girls came by stages and baggage-wagons, men often being employed to go to other States and to Canada, to collect them at so much a head, and deliver them at the factories.

A very curious sight these country girls pre- sented to young eyes accustomed to a more modern style of things. When the large cov- ered baggage-wagon arrived in front of a block on the corporation, they would descend from it, dressed in various and outlandish fashions,

64 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

and with their arms brimful of bandboxes con- taining all their worldly goods. On each of these was sewed a card, on which one could read the old-fashioned New England name of the owner. And sorrowful enough they looked, even to the fun-loving child who has lived to tell the story ; for they had all left their pleasant country homes to try their fortunes in a great manufacturing town, and they were homesick even before they landed at the doors of their boarding-houses. Years after, this scene dwelt in my memory; and Avhenever anyone said any- thing about being homesick, there rose before me the picture of a young girl with a sorrowful face and a big tear in each eye, clambering down the steps at the rear of a great covered wagon, holding fast to a cloth-covered bandbox, drawn up at the top with a string, on which was sewed a paper bearing the name of Plumy Clay!

Some of these girls brought diminutive hair trunks covered with the skin of calves, spotted in dun and white, even as when they did skip and play in daisy-blooming meads. And when several of them were set togj-ether in front of one of the blocks, they looked like their living counterparts, reposing at noontide in the ad- jacent field. One of this kind of trunks has

THE EARLY FACTORY GIRLS. 65

been handed down to me as an heirloom. The hair is worn off in patches ; it cannot be invigo- rated, and it is now become a hairless heirloom. Within its hide-bound sides are safely stowed away the love-letters of a past generation, — love-letters that ag^itated the hearts of the o^rand- parents of to-day ; and I wonder that their resist- less ardor has not long ago burst its wrinkled sides. It is relegated to distant attics, with its ancient crony, "ye bandbox," to enjoy an honored and well-earned repose.

Ah me ! when some of us, its contemporaries, are also past our usefulness, gone clean out of fashion, may we also be as resigned, yea, as willing, to be laid quietly on some attic shelf !

These country girls had queer names, which added to the singularity of their appearance. Samantha, Triphena, Plumy, Kezia, Aseneth, Elgardy, Leafy, Ruhamah, Lovey, Almaretta, Sarepta, and Florilla Avere among them.

Their dialect was also very peculiar. On the broken English and Scotch of their ancestors was ingrafted the nasal Yankee twang ; so that many of them, when they had just come daoum^ spoke a language almost unintelligible. But the severe discipline and ridicule which met them was as good as a school education, and they were soon taught the " city way of speaking."

66 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

Their dress was also peculiar, and was of the plainest of homespun, cut in such an old-fash- ioned style that each young girl looked as if she had borrowed her grandmother's gown. Their only head-covering was a shawl, which was pinned under the chin ; but after the first pay- day, a "shaker" (or "scooter") sunbonnet usu- ally replaced this primitive head-gear of their rural life.

But the early factory girls were not all coun- try girls. There were others also, who had been taught that " work is no disgrace." There were some who came to Lowell solely on ac- count of the social or literary advantages to be found there. They lived in secluded parts of New England, where books were scarce, and there was no cultivated society. They had comfortable homes, and did not perhaps need the money thQj would earn ; but they longed to see this new "City of Spindles," of which they had heard so much from their neighbors and friends, who had gone there to work.

And the fame of the circulating libraries, that were soon opened, drew them and kept them there, when no other inducement would have been sufficient.

The laws relating to women were such, that a husband could claim his wife Avherever he found

THE EARLY FACTORY GIRLS. 67

her, and also the children she was trying to shield from his influence ; and I have seen more than one poor woman skulk behind lier loom or her frame when visitors were a})proaching the end of the aisle where she worked. Some of these were known under assumed names, to prevent their husbands from trusteeing their wages. It was a very common thing for a male person of a certain kind to do this, thus depriv- ing his wife of all her wages, perhaps, month after month. The wages of minor children could be trusteed, unless the children (being fourteen years of age) were given their time. Women's wages were also trusteed for the debts of their husbands, and children's for the debts of their parents.

As an instance, my mother had some finan- cial difficulties when I was fifteen years old, and to save herself and me from annoyance, she gave me my time. The document reads as follows : —

" Be it known that I, Harriet Hanson, of Lowell, in consideration that my minor daughter Harriet J. has taken upon herself the whole burden of her own sup- port, and has undertaken and agreed to maintain herself henceforward without expense to me, do hereby release and quitclaim unto her all profits and wages which she may her^fter earn or acquire by her skill or labor in any occupation, — and do hereby dioclaim all right to

68 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

collect or interfere with the same. And I do give and release unto her the absolute control and disposal of her own time according to her own discretion, without in- terference from me. It being understood that I am not to be chargeable hereafter with any expense on her account.

(Signed) Harriet Haxson. July 2, 1840."

It must be remembered that at this date woman had no property rights. A widow could be left without her share of her husband's (or the family) property, a legal '' incumbrance " to his estate. A father could make his will with- out reference to his daughter's share of the in- heritance. He usually left her a home on the farm as long as she remained single. A woman was not supposed to be capable of spending her own or of using other people's money. In Mas- sachusetts, before 1840, a woman could not le- gally be treasurer of her own sewing-society, unless some man were responsible for her.

The law took no cognizance of woman as a money-spender. »She was a ward, an appendage, a relict. Thus it happened, that if a woman did not choose to marr}^, or, when left a widow, to re-marry, she had no choice but to enter one of the few employments open to her, or to be- come a burden on the charity of some relative.

THE EARLY FACTORY GIRLS. 69

In almost ev6ry New England home could be found one or more of these women, sometimes welcome, more often unwelcome, and leading joy- less, and in many instances unsatisfactoiy, lives. The cotton-factory was a great opening to these lonely and dependent women. From a condi- tion approaching pauperism they were at once placed above want ; they could earn money, and spend it as they pleased ; and could gratify their tastes and desires without restraint, and with- out rendering an account to anybody. At last they had found a place in the universe ; they were no longer obliged to finish out their faded lives mere burdens to male relatives. Even the time of these women was their own, on Sundays and in the evening after the day's work was done. For the first time in this country woman's labor had a money value. She had become not only an earner and a producer, but also a spender of money, a recognized factor in the political econoni}^ of her time. And thus a long upward step in our material civilization was taken ; woman had begun to earn and hold her own money, and through its aid had learned to think and to act for herself.

Among the older women who sought this new employment were very many lonely and de- pendent ones, such as used to be mentioned in

70 LOOM AND SPIXDLE.

old wills as " incumbrances " and " relicts," and to whom a chance of earning money was indeed a new revelation. How well I remember some of these solitary ones ! As a child of eleven years, I often made fun of them — for children do not see the pathetic side of human life — and imitated their limp carriage and inelastic gait. I can see them now, even after sixty years, just as they looked, — depressed, modest, mincing, hardly daring to look one in the face, so shy and sylvan had been their lives. But after the first pay-day came, and they felt the jingle of silver in their pockets, and had begun to feel its mercurial influence, their bowed heads were lifted, their necks seemed braced with steel, the}^ looked 3^ou in the face, sang blithely among their looms or frames, and walked with elastic step to and from their work. And when Sun- day came, homespun was no longer their only Avear; and how sedately gay in their new attire they walked to church, and how proudly they dropped their silver fourpences into the contri- bution-box ! It seemed as if a great hope im- pelled them, — the harbinger of the new era that was about to dawn for them and for all women-kind.

In passing, let me not forget to pay a tribute, also, to those noble single and widowed women,

THE EARLY FACTORY GIRLS. 71

who are "set solitary in families," but whose presence cements the domestic fabric, and whose influence is unseen and oftentimes unappreci- ated, until the}^ are taken away and the integral part of tlie old home-life begins to crumble.

Except in rare instances, the rights of the early mill-girls Avere secure. They were subject to no extortion, if they did extra work they were always paid in full, and their own account of labor done by the piece was always accepted. They kept the figures, and were paid accord- ingly. This was notably the case with the wea- vers and drawing-in girls. Though the hours of labor were long, they were not over-worked ; they were obliged to tend no more looms and frames than they could easily take care of, and they had plenty of time to sit and rest. I have known a girl to sit idle twenty or thirty min- utes at a time. They were not driven, and their work-a-day life was made easy. They were ti-eated Avith consideration by their employers, and there was a feeling of respectful equality between them. The most favored of the girls were sometimes invited to the houses of the dig- nitaries of the mills, showing that the line of social division was not rigidly maintained.

Their life in the factory was made pleasant to them. In those days there was no need of ad-

72 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

vocating the doctrine of the proper relation between employer and employed. Help was too valuable to be ill-treated. If these early agents, or overseers, had been disposed to exercise un- due authority, or to establish unjust or arbitrary laws, the high character of the operatives, and the fact that women employees were scarce would have prevented it. A certain agent of one of the first corporations in Lowell (an old sea-captain) said to one of his boarding-house keepers, " I should like to rule my help as I used to rule my sailors, but so many of them are women I do not dare to do it."

The knowledge of the antecedents of these operatives was the safeguard of their liberties. The majority of them were as w^ell born as their "overlookers," if not better; and they were also far better educated.

The agents and overseers were usually mar- ried men, with families of growing sons and daughters. They were members, and sometimes deacons, of the church, and teachers in the same Sunday-school with the girls employed under them. They were generally of good morals and temperate habits, and often exercised a good influence over their help. The feeling that the agents and overseers were interested in their welfare caused the girls, in turn, to feel an

THE EAULY FACTORY GIULS. 73

interest in the work for which their employers were responsible. The conscientious among them took as much pride in spinning a smooth thread, drawing in a perfect web, or in making good cloth, as they would have done if the ma- terial had been for their own wearing. And thus was practised, long before it was preached, that principle of true political economy, — the just relation, the mutual interest, that ought to exist between employers and employed.

Those of the mill-girls who had homes gener- ally worked from eight to ten months in the year ; the rest of the time was spent with parents or friends. A few taught school during the summer months.

When we left the mill, or changed our place of work from one corporation to another, we were given an " lionorable discharge." Mine, of which I am still quite proud, is dated the year of my marriage, and is as follows : —

" Harriet J. Hanson has been employed in the Boott Cotton INIills, in a dressing-room, twenty-five months, and is honorably discharged."

(Signed) J. F. Trott. Lowell, July 25, 1&48."

The chief characteristics of the early mill- girls may be briefly mentioned, as showing the

74 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

material of wliicli tliis new community of work- ing-women was composed. Concerning their personal appearance, I am able to quote from a magazine article written by th^ poet John G. Whittier, then a resident of Lowell. He thus describes, —

"THE FACTORY GIRLS OF LOWELL.

" Acres of girlhood, beauty reckoned by the square rod, — or miles by long measure ! the young, the grace- ful, the gay, — the flowers gathered from a thousand hillsides and green valleys of Xew England, fair un- veiled Xuns of Industry, Sisters of Thrift, and are ye not also Sisters of Charity dispensing comfort and hope and happiness around mau}^ a hearthstone of jour na- tive hills, making sad faces cheerful, and hallowing age and poverty with the sunshine of your youth and love ! Who shall sneer at your calling ? AMio shall count your vocation otherwise than noble and ennobling ? "

Of their literary and studious habits, Pro- fessor A. P. Peabody, of Harvard University, gives his opinion in an article written not long ago in the Atlantic 3Iontlily. He say^s, " During the palmy daj^s of Tlte Loivell Offering I used every winter to lecture for the Lowell Lyceum. Not amusement, but instruction, was then the lecturer's aim. . . . The Lowell Hall was al- ways crowded, and four-fifths of the audience

THE EARLY FACTORY GIRLS. 75

were factory-girls. When the lecturer entered, almost every girl had a book in her hand, and was intent upon it. When he rose, the book was laid aside, and paper and pencil taken instead; and there were very few who did not carry home full notes of what they had heard. I have never seen anywhere so assiduous note-taking. No, not even in a college class, ... as in that assembly of young women, laboring for their subsistence."

To introduce a more practical side of their character I will quote an extract from a letter received not long ago from a gentleman in the Detroit Public Library, which says, '' The factory-girls went to Lowell from tlie hills of Vermont when I was a boy, numbers of them from every town in my county (Windsor) ; and it was considered something of a distinction to have worked for ' the corporation,' and brought home some hard cash, Avhich in many and many cases went to help lift a mortgage on the farm, or to buy something needed for the comfort of the old folks, or to send a younger brother or sister to the Academy. I knew several of tliese girls who brought home purses from Lowell which looked big in those days, and I recall one who is still living in my native town of Pomfret."

It may be added liere, that the majority of

76 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

the mill-girls made just as good use of their money, so newly earned, and of whose value they had hitherto known so little. They were necessarily industrious. They were also frugal and saving. It was their custom on the first day of every month, after paying their board- bill (11.25 a week), to put their wages in the savings-bank. There the money stayed, on in- terest, until they withdrew it, to carry home or to use for a special purpose. It is easy to see how much good this sum would do in a rural community where money, as a means of exchange, had been scarce. Into the barren homes many of them had left it w^ent like a quiet stream, carrying with it beauty and re- freshment. The mortgage was lifted from the homestead; the farmhouse was painted; the barn rebuilt; modern improvements (including Mrs. Child's " Frugal Housewife " — the first American cook-book) were introduced into the mother's kitchen, and books and newspapers began to ornament the sitting-room table.

Some of the mill-girls helped maintain wid- owed mothers, or drunken, incompetent, or inva- lid fathers. Many of them educated the younger children of the family, and young men were sent to college with the money furnished by the un- tiring industr}^ of their women relatives.

THE EARLY FACTORY GIRLS. 11

Indeed, the most prevailing incentive to our labor was to secure the means of education for some male member of the family. To make a gentleman of a brother or a son, to give him a college education, was the dominant thought in the minds of a great many of these provident mill-girls. I have known more than one to give every cent of her wages, month after month, to her brother, that he might get the education necessary to enter some profession. I have known a mother to work years in this way for her boy. I have known women to educate by their earnings young men who were not sons or relatives. There are men now living who were helped to an education by the wages of the early mill-girls.

In speaking of this subject, Mr. Thomas Went- worth Higginson says, —

" I think it was the late President Walker who told me that in his judgment one-quarter of the men in Har- vard College were being carried through by the special self-denial and sacrifices of women. I cannot answer for the ratio ; but I can testify to having been an instance of this myself, and to having known a never-ending series of such cases of self-devotion."

Lowell, in this respect, was indeed a remark- able town, and it might be said of it, as of

78 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

Thrums in " Auld Licht Idyls," "There are scores and scores of houses in it that have sent their sons to college (by what a struggle), some to make their way to the front in their profes- sions, and others, perhaps, despite their broad- cloth, never to be a patch upon their parents."

The early mill-girls were religious by nature and by Puritan inheritance, true daughters of those men and women who, as some one has said, " were as devoted to education as they were to religion ; " for they planted the church and the schoolhouse side by side. On entering the mill, each one was obliged to sign a " regulation paper " which required her to attend regularly some place of public worship. They were of many denominations. In one boarding-house that I knew, there were girls belonging to eight different religious sects.

In 1843, there were in Lowell fourteen regu- larly organized religious societies. Ten of these constituted a " Sabbath School Union," which consisted of over five thousand scholars and teachers ; three-fourths of the scholars, and a large proportion of the teachers, were mill-girls. Once a year, every Fourth of July, this " Sab- bath School Union," each section, or division, under its own sectarian banner, marched in pro- cession to the grove on Chapel Hill, where a pic-

THE EARLY FACTORY GIRLS. 79

nic was held, with lemonade, and long speeches by the ministers of the different churches, — speeches which the little boys and girls did not seem to think were made to be listened to.

The mill-girls went regularly to meeting and " Sabbath-school ; " and every Sunday the streets of Lowell were alive with neatly dressed young women, going or returning therefrom. Their fine appearance on "the Sabbath" was often spoken of by strangers visiting LoAvell.

Dr. Scoresby, in his "American Factories and their Operatives," (with selections from The Lowell Offeriyig^) holds up the Lowell mill-girls to their sister operatives of Bradford, England, as an example of neatness and good behavior. Indeed, it was a pretty sight to see so many wide-awake young girls in the bloom of life, clad in their holiday dresses, —

""Whose delicate feet to the Temple of God, Seemed to move as if wings had carried them there."

The morals of these girls were uniformly good. The regulation paper, before spoken of, required each one to be of good moral charac- ter; and if any one proved to be disreputable, she was very soon turned out of the mill. Their standard of behavior was high, and the majority kept aloof from those who were suspected of

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wrong-doing. They had, perhaps, less tempta- tion than the working-girls of to-day, since they were not required to dress bej'ond their means, and comfortable homes were provided by their employers, where they could board cheaply. Their surroundings were pure, and the whole atmosphere of their boarding-houses was as re- fined as that of their own homes. They ex- pected men to treat them with courtesy ; they looked forward to becoming the wives of good men. Their attitude was that of the German Frciulein^ who said, '' Treat every maiden with respect, for you do not know whose wife she will be."

But there were exceptions to the general rule, — just enough to prove the doctrine of averages ; there were girls who came to the mill to work whom no one knew anything about, but they did not stay long, the life there being " too clean for them."

The health of the girls was good. The regu- larity and simplicit}^ of their lives, and the plain and substantial food provided for them, kept them free from illness. From their Puritan ancestry tliey had inherited sound bodies and a fair share of endurance. Fevers and similar diseases were rare among them ; they had no time to pet small ailments ; the boarding-house

THE EARLY FACTORY GIRLS. 81

mother was often both nurse and doctor, and so the physician's fee was saved. It may be said that, at that time, there was but one path?/ and no " faith cures " nor any " science " to be supported by the many diseases '' that flesh is heir to."

By reading the weekly newspapers the girls became interested in public events ; they knew all about the Mexican war, and the anti-slavery cause had its adherents among them. Lectures on the doctrine of Fourier were read, or listened to, but none of them were " carried away " with tlie idea of spending their lives in large " phal- ansteries," as they seemed too much like cotton- factories to be models for their own future housekeeping.

The Brook Farm experiment was familiar to some of them ; but the fault of this scheme was apparent to the practical ones who foresaw that a few would have to do all the manual labor and that an undue share would naturally fall to those who had already contracted the working-habit.

Mrs. Amelia Bloomer, one of the early pioneers of the dress-reform movement, found followers in Lowell; and parlor meetings Avere held at some of the boarding-houses to discuss the feasibility of this great revolution in the style of woman's dress. T7ie Loivell Journal of 1850 states that on

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the Fourth of July a party of " Bloomerites " walked in the procession through the public streets, and I7ie London Punch embellished its pages with a neat cartoon, a fashion-plate show- ing the different styles of the Bloomer costume. This first attempt at a reform in woman's dress was ridiculed out of existence by " public opin- ion ; " but from it has been evolved the modern bicycle costume, now worn by women cj^clers.

It seems to have been the fashion of the mill- girls to appear in procession on all public occa- sions. Mr. Cowley, in his " History of Lowell," speaks of President Jackson's visit to that city in 1833. He says : " On the day the President came, all the lady operatives turned out to meet him. They walked in procession, like troops of liveried angels clothed in white [with green- fringed parasols], with cannons booming, drums beating, banners flying, handkerchiefs waving, etc. The old hero was not more moved by the bullets that whistled round him in the battle of New Orleans than by the exhilarating spectacle here presented, and remarked, ' They are very pretty women, by the Eternal ! ' "

CHARACTERISTICS. 83

CHAPTER V.

CHARACTERISTICS (CONTINUED).

One of the first strikes of cotton-factory operatives that ever took place in this country was that in Lowell, in October, 1836. When it was announced that the wages were to be cut down, great indignation was felt, and it was de- cided to strike, en masse. This was done. The mills were shut down, and the girls went in procession from their several corporations to the "grove" on Chapel Hill, and listened to "in- cendiary " speeches from early labor reformers.

One of the girls stood on a pump, and gave vent to the feelings of her companions in a neat speech, declaring that it was their duty to resist all attempts at cutting down the wages. This was the first time a woman had spoken in public in Lowell, and the event caused surprise and consternation among her audience.

Cutting down the wages was not their only grievance, nor the only cause of this strike. Hitherto the corporations had paid twentj^-five

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cents a week towards the board of each opera- tive, and now it was their purpose to have the girls pay the sum ; and this, in addition to the cut in the wages, would make a difference of at least one dollar a week. It was estimated that as many as twelve or fifteen hundred girls turned out, and walked in procession through the streets. They had neither flags nor music, but sang songs, a favorite (but rather inappro- priate) one being a parody on "I won't be a nun."

"Oh ! isn't it a pity, such a pretty girl as I — Should be sent to the factory to pine away and die ? Oh ! I cannot be a slave, I will not be a slave, For I'm so fond of liberty That I cannot be a slave."

My own recollection of this first strike (or " turn out " as it was called) is very vivid. I worked in a lower room, where I had heard the proposed strike fully, if not vehemently, dis- cussed ; I had been an ardent listener to what was said against this attemj^t at '• oppression " on the part of the corporation, and naturally I took sides with tlie strikers. When the day came on which the girls were to turn out, those in the upper rooms started first, and so many of them left that our mill was at once

CHAEACTERISTICS. 85

shut down. Then, when the girls in my room stood irresolute, uncertain what to do, asking each other, " Would you ? " or " Shall we turn out?" and not one of them having the cour- age to lead off, I, who began to think tliey would not go out, after all their talk, became impatient, and started on ahead, saying, with childish bra- vado, "I don't care what you do, /am going to turn out, whether any one else does or not ; " and I marched out, and Avas followed by the others. ■^' ^

As I looked back at the long line that fol- lowed me, I was more proud than I have ever been since at any success I may have achieved, and more proud than I shall ever be again until my own beloved State gives to its women citi- zens the right of suffrage.

Tlie agent of the corporation where I then worked took some small revenges on the sup- posed ringleaders; on the principle of send- ing the weaker to the wall, my mother was turned away from her boarding-house, that func- tionary saying, '•'• Mrs. Hanson, 3T)U could not prevent the older girls from turning out, but your daughter is a child, and her yon could con- trol."

It is hardly necessary to say that so far as results were concerned this strike did no good.

/

86 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

The dissatisfaction of the operatives subsided, or burned itself out, and though the authorities did not accede to their demands, the majority returned to their work, and the corporation went on cuttinor down the wag-es.

And after a time, as the wages became more and more reduced, the best portion of the girls left and went to their homes, or to the other em- plo3^ments that were fast opening to w^omen, until there were very few of the old guard left ; and thus the status of the factory population of New England gradually became what we know it to be to-day.

Some of us took part in a political campaign, for the first time, in 1840, when William H. Harrison, the first Whig President, was elected ; we went to the political meetings, sat in the gallery, heard speeches against Van Buren and the Democratic party, and helped sing the great campaign song beginning : —

" Oh have you heard the news of late?"

the refrain of which was :

*' Tippecanoe and Tyler too, Oh with them M^e'll beat little Van, Van, Van is a used-up man,"

And we named our sunbonnets "log-cabins," and set our teacups (we drank from saucers

CHAEACTERISTICS. 8T

then) in little glass tea-plates, with log-cabiiis impressed on the bottom. The part the Lowell mill-oirls took in these and similar events serves to show how wide-awake and up to date many of these middle-century working- worn en were.

Among the fads of those d^ys may be men- tioned those of the " water-cure " and the " Gra- hamite." The former was a theory of doctoring by means of cold water, used as packs, daily baths, and immoderate drinks. Quite a number of us adopted this practice, and one at least has not even yet wholly abandoned it.

Several members of my mother's family adopted " Professor " Graham's regimen, and for a few months we ate no meat, nor, as he said, "anything that had life in it." It was claimed that this would regenerate the race; that by following a certain line of diet, a person would live longer, do better work, and be able to endure any hardship, in fact, that not what we were, but what we ate, would be the making of us. Two young men, whom I knew, made their boasts that they had " walked from Boston to Lowell on an apple."

We ate fruit, vegetables, and unleavened or whole-wheat bread, baked in little round pats (" bullets," my mother called them), and with- out butter; there were no rellslies. I soon got

88 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

tired of the feeling of " goneness " this diet gave me ; I found that althougli I might eat a pint of mashed potato, and the same quantity of squash, it was as if I had not dined, and I gave up tlie experiment. But my elder brother, who had carried to the extremest extreme this " potato gospel," as Carlyle called it, induced my mother to make his Thanksgiving squash- pie after a receipt of his own. The crust was made of Indian meal and water, and the filling was of squash, water, and sugar! And he ate it, and called it good. But I thought then, and still think, that his enjoyment of the eating was in the principle rather than in the pie.

A few of the girls were interested in phrenol- ogy ; and we had our heads examined by Pro- fessor Fowler, who, if not the first, was the chief exponent of this theory in Lowell. He went about into all the scliools, examining chil- dren's heads. Mine, he said, ''lacked venera- tion ; " and this I supposed was an awful thing, because my teacher looked so reproachfully at me when the professor said it.

A few were interested in Mesmerism; and those of us who had the power to make our- selves en rap2W7't with others tried experiments on "subjects," and sometimes held meetings in tlie evening for that purpose.

CHARACTERISTICS. 89

The life in the boarding-houses was very- agreeable. Tliese houses belonged to the cor- poration, and were usually kept by widows (mothers of mill-girls), who were often the friends and advisers of their boarders.

Among these may be mentioned the mothers of Lucy Larcom; the Hon. Gustavus Vasa Fox, once Assistant Secretary of the Navy ; John W. Hanson, D.D. ; the Rev. W. H. Cudworth; Major General B. F. Butler ; and several others.

Each house was a village or community of itself. There fifty or sixty young women from different parts of New England met and lived together. When not at their work, by natural selection they sat in groups in their chambers, or in a corner of the large dining-room, busy at some agreeable employment ; or they wrote let- ters, read, studied, or sewed, for, as a rule, they were their own seamstresses and dressmakers.

It is refreshing to remember their simplicity of dress ; they wore no ruffles and very few or- naments. It is true that some of them had gold watches and gold pencils, but they were worn only on grand occasions ; as a rule, the early mill-girls were not of that class that is said to be " always suffering for a breast-pin." Though their dress was so simple and so plain, yet it was so tasteful that they were often accused of look-

90 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

ing like ladies ; the complaint was sometimes made that no one could tell the difference in church between the factory-girls and the daugh- ters of some of the first families in the city.

Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, in The Lady's Book, in 1842, speaking of the impossibility of consider- ing dress a mark of distinction, says : " Many of the factory-girls wear gold watches and an imitation at least of all the ornaments which grace the daughters of our most opulent citi- zens."

The boarding-houses were considered so at- tractive that strangers, by invitation, often came to look in upon them, and see for themselves how the mill-girls lived. Dickens, in his "American Notes," speaks with surprise of their home life. He says, " There is a piano in a great many of the boarding-houses, and nearly all the young ladies subscribe to circulating li- braries." There was a feeling of esprit de corps among these households ; any advantage secured to one of the number was usually shared by others belonging to her set or group. Books were exchanged, letters from home were read, and "pieces," intended for the Improvement Circle, were presented for friendly criticism.

There was alwaj^s a best room in the boarding- house, to entertain callers in ; but if any of the

CHARACTERISTICS. 91

girls had a regular gentleman caller, a special evening was set apart each week to receive him. This room was furnished with a carpet, some- times with a piano, as Dickens says, and with the best furniture, including oftentimes the rel- ics of household treasures left of the old-time gentility of the house-mother.

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 be- yond 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 ab- sent one might not lose her pay. At this time the mule and spinning-jenny had not been intro- duced ; 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 liter- ary 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

92 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

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 re- ligious tenets as follows : Calvinist Baptist, Uni- tarian, 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 Chr-istian Herald, two copies each ; the Christian Register, Vox Pojmli, Literary Sou- venir^ Boston Pilot, Yonng Catholic^s Friend, Star of Bethlehem, and Tlie Lowell Offering, three copies each. A magazine, one copy. We also borrow regularly the Non-Resistant, the Libera- tor, the Lady^s Booh, 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."

CRABACTERISTICS. 93

The "magazine" mentioned may nave een The Dial, that exponent of New England Trans- cendentalism, of which The Offering was the humble contemporary. The writer adds to her article : " No th withstanding the divers faitlis embraced among us, we live in much harmony, and seldom is difference of opinion the cause of dissensions amono- us."

o

Novels were not very popular with us, as we inclined more to historical writings and to poe- try. But such books as " Charlotte Temple," ''Eliza Wharton," "Maria Monk," " The Ara- bian Nights," "The Mysteries of Udolpho," " Abellino, the Bravo of Venice," or " The Cas- tle of Otranto," were sometimes taken from the circulating library, read with delight, and se- cretly 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 obliofed to read good books, such as histories, the Eng- lish 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 Bre- mer was hardly translated ; Lydia Maria Child

94 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

was beginning to write ; Harriet Beeclier Stowe was busy in her nursery, and the great Ameri- can 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 con- tributers to TJie Offerifig. 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 per- severance 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 in- dividual 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 divinit}^, major-generals, and members of Con-

CHARACTEBISTICS. 95

gress ; 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, en- tered the trades, or went to college and thereby were enabled to practise in some of the profes- sions. They thus resumed their old-time habit of supporting the helpless ones, and educating the children of the family.

These women were all self-made in the truest sense ; and it is well to mention their success in life, that others, who now earn their living at what is called " ungenteel " employments, may see that what one does is not of so much im- portance as what one is. I do not know why it should not be just as commendable for a woman who has risen to have been once a factory-girl, as it is for an ex-governor or a major-general to have been a '' bobbin-boy." A woman ought to be as proud of being self-made as a man ; not proud in a boasting wa}^ but proud enough to assert the fact in her life and in her works.

All these of whom I speak are widely scattered. I hear of them in the far West, in the South, and in foreign countries, even so far away as the Himalaya Mountains. But wherever they

% LOO 21 AND SPINDLE.

may be, I know that they will join with me in saying that the discipline of their youth helped to make them what they are ; and that the cot- ton-factory was to them the means of educa- tion, their preparatory school, in which they learned the alphabet of their life-work.

Such is the brief story of the life of every-day working-girls ; such as it was then, so it might be to-day. Undoubtedly there might have been another side to this picture, but I give the side I knew best, — the bright side !

the Dislncl Cour

THE LOWELL OFFERING. 97

CHAPTER VI.

THE LOWELL OFFERING AND ITS WRITERS.

One of the most curious phases in the life of New England, and one that must always puzzle the historian of its literature, is its sudden intel- lectual blossoming half a century ago.

Emerson says, " The children of New England between 1820 and 1840 w^ere born with knives in their brains ; " and this would seem to be true, since during or very near that time, were born the majority of those writers and thinkers whose lives have been so recently and so nobly rounded out, — Emerson, Bryant, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, John Pierpont, — they whose influence cannot be overestimated in bringing an ideal element into our hitherto prosaic New England life.

The seeds of this intellectual growth came suddenly, as if blown from some far-off cultured land, and were sown broadcast. Some found a resting-place in this little corner of New England, where were gathered together these daughters

98 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

of Puritan ancestors, and they, too, feeling the intellectnal impetus, were impelled to put in writincr their own crude thoucrhts. Their desire for self-improvement had been to some extent gratified, and they now began to feel the benefit of the educational advantaofes which had been opened to them. As in ^' Mary Barton," the}^ " threw the shuttle with increasing sound, al- though Newton's ' Principia ' lay open before them, to be snatched at in work-hours, but rev- elled over at meal-time or at night."

And the " literary " girls among us would often be seen writing on scraps of paper which we hid " between whiles " in the waste-boxes upon which we sat while waiting for the looms or frames to need attention. Some of these studi- ous ones kept note-books, with abstracts of their reading and studies, or jotted down what they were pleased to call their " thoughts." It was natural that such a thoughtful life should bear fruit, and this leads me to speak of The Lowell Offering^ a publication which was the natural outorrowth of the mental habit of the early mill- girls, for many of the pieces that were printed there were thought out amid the hum of the wheels, while the skilful fingers and well-trained eyes of the writers tended the loom or the frame.

THE LOWELL OFFERING. 99

The idea of organization for literary and edu- cational purposes was first proposed in 1837 by Miss Harriot F. Curtis, perhaps the most pro- gressive of all the mill-girls. She with her im- mediate associates conceived the idea of forming a little society for mental improvement. In The Lowell Offering of January, 1845, is the following account of its formation written by Miss Maria Currier.

" IMPEOYEMENT CIRCLE.

" 111 one of the corporations [the Lawrence] of this city, about eight years ago, might have been seen, on a summer evening, a company of four or five young females, who through the day had labored at their several employ- ments in some one of the factories connected with the corporation. Perhaps they were not ambitious above others of their sex. . . . But wishing to improve the talents which God had given them, they proposed the formation of a society for mutual improvement. An evening was appointed for the proposed purpose ; and having invited a few others to join them, they met at the time appointed. ... A president, vice-president, and secretary were chosen ; a constitution was drafted, and by-laws formed, to which each of the members affixed her name. ... At length a circle on a more exten- sive scale was formed by a gentleman of this city, and a plan conceived of bringing before the world the pro- ductions of inexperienced females ; of showing that in-

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tellect and intelligence might be found even among factory operatives. It was then that The Offering was published ; and many of those who were present at the first meeting of our Improvement Circle were contribu- tors to its pages."

At the first meeting, Miss Curtis delivered a stirring address, in wliich she stated the object and scope of the organization, and the urgent need that existed for all working-women to make an effort to improve their minds.

The club met fortnightly, and each member contributed articles in prose and verse, which were read at the meetings, and subjected to the criticism of those present.

In answer to a letter of enquiry. Miss Curtis writes : " I do not remember who composed the first circle, not even the names of the officers ; but I think Emmeline Larcom was secretary. Farther than that I can only say, I was not any- thing. I never would hold any office, — office brings trammels. I believe I wrote and read the address of which Maria speaks. Louisa and Maria Currier, Emmeline Larcom, Harriet Lees, and possibly Ann Carter were there. ... If you want to know whose brain conceived the idea, I suspect it was I. I was always daring ; the other five were modest and retiring." And thus was formed the first woman's literary club

THE LOWELL OFFERING. 101

in this country, — a remote first cause of the hundreds which now make up the General Fed- eration of Women's Clubs, since it bears the same relation to that flourishing institution as the native crab does to the grafted tree. Some of these early club, or improvement circle women either are, or have been, members of similar or- ganizations in the localities in which they live, and have done their best to incorporate into the constitution of the modern woman's club the idea of " improving the talents God has given them." And if they have continued to live up to this doctrine, no doubt tliey have attained, if not to all they may have desired, at least to all they were capable of achieving, according to their limitations.

It may be well to mention here that Improve- ment Circles continued to be formed, and that in 1843 there were at least five in different parts of the city. I attended one in 1845, connected with The Lowell Offering. It met in the publication office, on Central Street, and was well filled with factory operatives, some of whom had brought their contributions, and waited to hear them read, with quaking hearts and conscious faces. Harriet Farley presided, and from a pile of man- uscript on the table before her selected such con- tributions as she thought the most worthy of a

102 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

public reading. Among these, as I remember, were the chapters of a novel by Miss Curtis, one of Lucy Larcom's prose poems, and some " pieces of poetry." Included in these pieces were some verses in which the wind was described as play- ing havoc with nature to such an extent that —

*' It took the tall trees by the hair, And as with besoms swept the air."

This tremendous breeze, or simile, caused a good deal of mirth among the j^ounger contributors, who had never heard of " The World-Soul," nor read Emerson's line —

" To the green-haired forest free,"

nor Longfellow's "Tlie Building of the Ship," where he speaks of the pine-trees as —

"Shorn of their streaming hair."

Nor yet Wordsworth's sonnet : —

"While trees, dim seen, in frenzied numbers tear The lingering remnant of their yellow hair."

Tliis was mj^ only appearance at the Circle, as I had hitherto been deterred from going by the knowledge that those who went were ex-

THE LOWELL OFFERING. 103

pected to bring a written contribution to be read there. Shortly after this, Miss Farley (one of the editors) invited me to send some- thing to the magazine, and I complied; but I was not an early or a constant contributor.

In 1839, the Rev. Abel C. Thomas and the Rev. Thomas B. Thayer, pastors of the First and Second Universalist Churches in Lowell, estab- lished improvement circles composed of the young people belonging to their respective par- ishes. These meetings were largely made up of young men and women who worked in the mill. They were often asked to speak; but as they persistently declined, they were invited to write what they desired to say, and send it, to be read anonymously at the next meeting. Many of the young women complied with this request, and these written communications were so numerous that they very soon became the sole entertain- ment of what Mr. Thomas called "these intel- lectual banquets."

A selection from the articles read at these meetings was published by Mr. Thomas in pam- phlet form, under the title, " The Lowell Offering^ a Repository of Original Articles written by Females employed in the Mills." Mr. Thomas's own account of his part in establishing the magazine will be found in chapter seven. The

104 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

first series, of four numbers, was issued from October, 1840, to March, 1841 ; and there was such a demand for copies, that a new series began. The Lowell Offering proper, a monthly magazine of thirty-two pages, which was issued regularly by its projector from that time until October, 1842, when it passed into the hands of Miss Harriot F. Curtis and Miss Harriet Farley, both operatives in the Lowell mills.

Under their joint editorship it was published, the first year by William Schouler, but after that by these ladies themselves, who were edi- tors, publishers, and proprietors, until Decem- ber, 1845, when, with the end of Volume V. Miss Curtis retired from the magazine, and The Lowell Offering ceased to exist.

But in September, 1847, Miss Farley resumed the publication of the magazine and issued one copy under the title The New England Offering ; and all those who were or had been factory oper- atives were invited to contribute to its pages.

This magazine was re-issued in 1848, from April to December, continued through 1849, and until March, 1850, when it was discontinued for want of means, and perhaps new contributors. Miss Farley was the editor, publisher, and pro- prietor of The New England Offering.

There are about seven volumes of the maga-

THE LOWELL OFFERING. 105

zines in all, — five of The Lowell Offering^ and two of The New England Offering^ including the first four numbers in 1840, and the odd numbers of 1847 and 1850.

The prospectus of The Lotvell Offering, as issued by its women-editors in 1845, is as fol- lows ; —

THE

LOWELL OFFEEI]!^G,

WRITTEN, EDITED, AND PUBLISHED

BY FEMALE OPERATIVES.

Our magazine is the only one which America has produced, of which no other country has produced the like. The Offer- ing is prima facie evidence, not only of the American " fac- tory-girls," but of the intelligence of the mass of our country. And it is in the intelligence of the mass that the permanency of our republican institutions depends.

And our last appeal is to those who should support us, if for no other reason but their interest in "the cultivation of humanity," and the maintenance of true democracy. There is little but this of which we, as a people, can be proud. Other nations can look upon the relics of a glory come and gone — upon their magnificent ruins — upon worn-out institu- tions, not only tolerated, but hallowed because they are old — upon the splendors of costly pageant — upon the tokens of a wealth, which has increased for ages — but we can take,^ride/ 'Jt^^ in these. We have other and better things. Let us look upon our *' free suffrage," our Lyceums, our Common Schools, our Mechanics' Literary Associations, the Periodical of our La- boring Females ; upon all that is indigenous to our Republic, and say, with the spirit of the Roman Cornelia, These, these are our jewels.

106 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

Terms: One dollar per year in advance. Postage: 100 miles and under, 1^ cents. Over 100, 2h cents. Published at Lowell, Mass., monthly, by

MISSES CURTIS & FARLEY.

In order to combat the prejudice which then existed against "female" editors and publishers, it was thought best (as Mr. Thomas had ad- vised) that the enterprise should be indorsed by some of the leading men of the city ; and in the original document, now before me, these gentlemen said : —

" We wish herewith to express most cheerfully our confidence in their talents and moral worth, and our cordial approbation of the worthy enterprise in which they are engaged. . . . We wish only to witness to all to whom this may come, that Miss Harriet Farley and Miss Harriot Curtis are worthy of entire confidence, and are deserving for themselves and for their enter- prise the hearty support and encouragement of every lover of his country, of every philanthropic citizen. We shall always rejoice to hear of their success. (Signed by) Samuel Lawrence, John Clarke,

Benj. F. French, Homer Bartlett,

J. W. Warren, William Schouler,

William Butterfield, Jacob Robbins, John Avery, George Motley,

Alexander Wright, William Spencer, John Wright. Lowell, Nov. 25, 1843

TBE LOWELL OFFERING. 107

*

It may be well to record the fact, that at this date, according to the Loicell Journal^ there were only three women editors in this country besides Miss Curtis and Miss Farley. These were Cornelia W. Walter of the Boston Tran- script^ Mrs. Green of the Fall River Wampanoag, and Lydia Maria Child of The Anti-Slavery Standard.

In an editorial notice of all these women edi- tors, the Journal says, " The Anti-Slavery Stan- dard^ edited by Lydia Maria Child, is one of the best papers in the country. . . . We do not doubt that the women will have a good influ- ence in this new sphere, as they do in everything else;" and continuing, '•^The Lowell Offering must be made the instrument of great good. In glancing at its contents and reflecting upon the origin of its articles, our respect for woman and her saving and regenerating power is increased a thousand fold."

In order to keep the continuity of the literary history of the early working-girls, it is well to speak of a contemporary publication called The Operatives^ Magazine^ published in Lowell by "an association of females," and edited by Lydia S. Hall and Abby A. Goddard, both factory- girls. The leading editorial stated that "The magazine will contain original articles on re-

108 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

ligious and literary subjects," and added that "those which inculcate the doctrines of the Bible as understood by evangelical Christians, without their peculiarities, will be admitted." Contri- butions were solicited from " operatives of both sexes."

This magazine was published in 1841-1842, when it was merged in The Loicell Offering. Lucy Larcom and her sister Emmeline were contributors, during its existence, to The Oj^era- tives' Magazine^ which may account for the fact that Lucy Larcom did not write for The Loivell Offering (with the exception of some verses in the first series) while it was under the control of Mr. Thomas ; but she became a constant con- tributor after that date, both to The Loiuell Offer- ing and to The New England Offering.

THE LOWELL OFFERING. 109

CHAPTER VII.

THE LOWELL OFFERING (CONTINUED).

The Loivell Offermg was a small, thin maga- zine of about thirty pages, with one column to the page. The price of the first number was six and a quarter cents. Its title-page was plain, with a motto from Gray ; the verse beginning : —

" Full many a gem of pm-est ray serene."

This motto was used for two years, when an- other was adopted : —

" Is Saul also among the prophets ? "

In January, 1845, the magazine had on its out- side cover a vignette, a young girl simply dressed, with feet visible and sleeves rolled up. She had a book in one hand, and her shawl and bonnet were thrown over her arm. She was represented as standing in a very sentimental attitude, contemplating a beehive at her right hand. This vignette was adopted, as the editor said, "To represent the New England school-

110 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

girl, of which our factories are made up, stand- ing near a beehive, emblem of industry and intelligence, and in the background the Yankee schoolhouse, church, and factory." The motto

was : —

"■ The worm on the earth May look up to the star."

This rather abject sentiment was not suited to the independent spirit of most of the contrib- utors, who did not feel a bit like worms ; and in the February number it was changed to one from Bunyan : —

*' And do you think the words of your book are certainly true? "Yea, verily."

The magazine finally died, however, under its favorite motto : —

" Is Saul also among the prophets ? "

The title-page, or outside cover, was copyrighted in 1845.

The Lowell Offering was welcomed with pleased surprise. It found subscribers all over the country. Tlie North Ameyncan Revieiv^ whose literary dictum was more autocratic than it is to-day, indorsed it, and expressed a fair opinion of its literary merit.

THE LOWELL OFFERING. Ill

The editor, John G. Palfrey, said : —

"Many of the articles are such as to satisfy the reader at once, that if he has only taken up The Offering as a phenomenon, and not as what may bear criticism and reward perusal, he has but to own his error, and dis- miss his condescension as soon as may be."

Charles Dickens, in his "American Notes," says : —

"They have got up among themselves a periodical, called The Lowell Offering, whereof I brought away from Lowell four hundred good solid pages, which I have read from beginning to end. Of the merits of The Lowell Offering, as a literary production, I will only ob- serve — putting out of sight the fact of the articles hav- ing been written by these girls after the arduous hours of the day — that it will compare advantageously with a great many English annuals."

Harriet Martineau prompted a fine review of it in the London Athenceum^ and a selection from Volumes I. and II. was published under her direction, called ''Mind Among the Spindles."

This book was issued first in London, in 1844, and republished in Boston in 1845, with an in- troduction by the English editor, Mr. Knight. In a letter to this gentleman. Miss Martineau said, " I had the opportunity of observing the invigorating effect of ' Mind among the Spin-

112 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

dies,' in a life of labor. Twice the wages and half the toil would not have made the girls I saw happy and healthy, without that cultivation of mind which afforded them perpetual support, entertainment, and motive for activity. They were not highly educated ; but they had pleas- ure in books and lectures, in correspondence with home, and had their minds so open to fresh ideas as to be drawn off from thoughts of them- seWes and their own concerns."

English friends were particularly kind in their expressions of approval. One said, " The Loivell Offering is probably exciting more attention in England than any other American publication. It is talked of in the political, as well as in the literary world. ... It has given rise to a new idea, that there may be mind among the spin- dles. . . . The book is a stubborn fact."

President Felton of Harvard University, while in Paris attending a course of lectures on Eng- lish Literature by Philarete Chastles, heard an entire lecture on the history and literary merits of The Lowell Offering,

Thiers, the French historian, carried a volume into the Chamber of Deputies, to show what working-women in a republic could do.

George Sand (Madame Dudevant) thought it a great and wonderful thing that the American

THE LOWELL OFFERING. 113

mill-girls should write and edit a magazine of their own.

Chambers's Edmhurgh Journal gave The Offer- ing a rather hack-handed compliment, which is quoted to show the old-time prejudice against female writers. It said, —

" Constrained to speak candidly, we have found amongst the pieces few which would have any chance of admission into a British periodical above the hum- blest class ; yet it must also be admitted, that even where there is no positive attraction, there is nothing irrecon- cilable with good taste; and some of the articles, the verse as well as the prose, would appear as respectable efforts for females of any rank in life."

It may be said that at one time the fame of The Lowell Off'ering caused the mill-girls to be considered very desirable for wives ; and that young men came from near and far to pick and choose for themselves, and generally with good success. No doubt these young men thought that, if a young woman had the writing talent, rare in those days, she naturally would have other rare talents towards the making of a good wife ; and I can say that my own knowledge, added to recent inquiries, confirms this belief.

The fact was often disputed that a " factory- girl " could write for or edit a magazine, since

114 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

she had hitherto been considered little better than the loom or frame she tended. Inquiries on the subject came to the editors from different parts of the country, and questions like the following were often put to them : " Do the factory-girls really write the articles published in The Offering ? " or, " Do you print them just as they are sent?" or, "Do you revise or re- write them ? "

In the preface to the first volume, Mr. Thomas answered these questions. He says, " The arti- cles are all written by factory-girls, and tve do not revise or re-write them. We have taken less liberty with them than editors usually take with other than the most inexperienced writers." He adds, " Communications much amended in pro- cess of training the writers were rigidly excluded from print ; and such articles only were pub- lished as had been written by females employed in the mills." He continues, "and thus was pub- lished not only the first work written by factory- girls, but also the first magazine or journal writ- ten exclusively by women in all the world."

The contributions to Tlie Offering were on a great variety of subjects. There were allegories, poems, conversations on physiology, astronomy, and other scientific subjects, dissertations on poetry, and on the beauties of nature, didactic

THE LOWELL OFFERING. 115

pieces on highly moral and religious subjects, translations from French and Latin, stories of factory and other life, sketches of local New England history, and sometimes the chapters of a novel. Miss Curtis, in 1840, wrote an arti- cle on "Woman's Rights," in which were so many familiar arguments in favor of the equality of the sexes, that it might have been the pro- duction of the pen of almost any modern advo- cate of woman's rights ; but there was this dif- ference, that the writer, though she felt sure of her ground, was too timid to maintain it against the world, and towards the end throws out the query, " whether public life is, after all, woman's most appropriate and congenial sphere ? " It is a curious coincidence, that at this date the English and the American Anti-Slavery Asso- ciations were at the point of division on this very question.

There is a certain flavor in all The Lowell Offering writings, both in prose and verse, which reminds one of the books read by the authors, and the models they followed in their compo- sitions. The poetry savors of Mrs. Sigourney, Mrs. Hemans, Miss Landon, Mrs. Barbauld, Mil- ton, Pope, Cowper, and Hannah More. Byron's sardonic vein is copied by one or two of the most independent minds among them. The prose

116 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

models of writing were The Spectator, the Eng- lish classics, " Miss Sedgwick's Letters," '' The Vicar of Wakefield," and Lydia Maria Child's writings.

Though the literary character of these writ- ings may not rise to the present standard of such productions, yet at that season of intel- lectual dearth they must have had a certain in- fluence on contemporary literature ; and viewed by the critical eye of a later date, it is found that the selections from The Loivell Offering will compare quite favorably with those in the " Ladies' annuals " of the same date, as, for instance. The Lady's Repository, The Rose of Sharon, The Lily of the Valley, G-ems of Beauty, The Opal, and other like literary curiosities, of which The Loivell Offering may well be ranked as one, and with which, no doubt, it will hold its place in the history of American publications.

These factory-girl writers did not confine their talents within the pages of their own publication. Many of them wrote for the lite- rary newspapers and magazines. One sometimes filled the poet's corner in Zion''s Herald and in the Saturday Evening Gazette; another took that envied place in The Ladies' Casket ; a third sent poetic effusions to The Lowell Courier and Journal.

THE LOWELL OFFERING. 117

These authors represent what may be called the poetic element of factory-life. They were the ideal mill-girls, full of hopes, desires, aspi- rations ; poets of tlie loom, spinners of verse, artists of factorj^-life.

The Lowell Offering did a good work, not only among the operatives themselves, but among the rural population from which they had been drawn. It was almost the only magazine that reached their secluded homes, where it was lent from house to house, read and re-read, and thus set the women to thinking, and added its little leaven of progressive thought to the times in which it lived. Its influence or its memory is not by any means forgotten ; and if a newspaper or magazine which had so brief an ex- istence is so well remembered after at least fifty years, when the novelty of such a publication is all worn away, it shows that it must have had some vitality, something in it worthy of preser- vation.

It was considered good Sunday reading. A friend told me recently that as a child she used to watch for its coming, and how much she liked it, because her father, a clergyman, allowed her to read it on Sunday ; and on that day it was placed on the table with the Bible, while other secular reading-matter was excluded. Another

118 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

has said that she used to get the themes for her " compositions " out of the pages of The Loivell Offering.

The names of The Loivell Offering writers, so far as I have been able to gather them, are as follows : Sarah G. Bagley, Josephine L. Baker, Lucy Ann Baker, Caroline Bean, Ade- line Bradley, Fidelia O. Brown, M. Br3^ant, Alice Ann Carter, Joanna Carroll, Eliza J. Cate, V^^ ^ Betsey Chamberlain, L^A. Choate, Kate Clapp, ' Louisa Currier, Maria Currier, Lura Currier,

Harriot F. Curtis, Catherine Dodge, ^M. A. Dodge, Harriet Farley, Margaret F. Foley, A. M. Fosdick, Abby A. Goddard, M. R. Green, rj , \ L3'dia S>.Hall, Jane B. Hamilton, Harriet Jane Hanson ,3^Eliza Rice Holbrook,! Eliza W. Jen- nings, Hannah Johnson, E. Kidder, Miss Lane, Emmeline Larcom, Lucy Larcom, ip. E. Leavitt, Harriet Lees, Mary A. Leonard^^Sarah E. Mar- tin, Mary J. McAfPee^j:. D. Perver, E. S. Pope, Nancy R. Rainey, Sara\ Shedd, Ellen L. Smith, H ^HsU ^. KMlgVi 1^. Smith, Laura^paulding, Mary Ann Spaulding, Emmeline Spm^ue, S. W. Stewart, Laura Tay, Rebecca C. TlK)mpson, Abby D. Turner, Elizabeth E. Turner^ Jane S. Welch, Caroline H. Whitney, A. E. Wijson, Adeline H. Winship, and Sabra Wriglit, fifiy-seven in all.

Most of the writers signed fic^tious names.

i x^

THE LOWELL OFFERING. 119

such as Ella, Adelaide, Dorcas, Aramantha, Stella, Kate, Oriana, Ruth Rover, lone, Dolly Dindle, Grace Gayfeather, and many others.

In 1848 seven books had been published, writ- ten by contributors to The Lowell Offering. These were " Lights and Shadows of Factory Life," and " Rural Scenes in New England," by Eliza Jane Gate; "Kate in Search of a Hus- , band," "Jessie's Flirtations," and "S. S.^Phi--*^ losophy," b}^ Harriot F. Curtis; "Domestic Sketches " by Abby A. Goddard, and " Shells from the Strand of the Sea of Genius " by Har- riet Farley.

Not many of the lesser lights continued to write after their contributions were no longer in demand for The Offering. But there were a few who had written for the pure love of it, and who, in spite of their other duties, and a re- stricted life, still clung " to the dreams of their youth," and kept up the writing habit, even beyond the verge of the allotted threescore years and ten.

There is hardly a complete set of The Loivell Offering in existence. I have Miss Larcom's copies, which, added to my own, the result of many years of collecting, in the shape of gifts, make as complete a set as I have been able to find. The 1817 copy I never heard of outside

120 LOOM AND SPINDLE. I

my own collection. Mr. Jlf. E. Libbie of Boston has ii^«)i4y a full set, with a rare collection of bibliology relating to the magazine.

The volumes in the State Library are neither perfect nor consecutively bound. A set of The Loivell Offering^ complete to 1847, was sent b}' the mayor of Lowell to the mayor of Paris, "all neatly bound and lettered."

There are odd volumes, no doubt, in libraries or in private collections, but they are not com- plete enough to give an adequate idea of the magazine ; and unless such a book as this were written, an historical record of what is now con- sidered a most interesting phase in the history of early factory labor would not be preserved. I may add to this, that the Lowell Public Li- brary contains the first five volumes, which are The Loivell Offering proper. In closing this brief sketch of The Loivell Offering^ it may be w^ell to quote Mr. Thomas's letter, written to the Vox PopuU^ Lowell, in answer to a re- quest for information with regard to his con- nection with the magazine.

Dear Sir, — Your letter of December 9th, 1872, so- Hcits me to furnish, in some detail, the facts, as I now remember them, respecting the origin and early history of The Lowell Offering, the writers for it, etc.

It would seem, by your epistle, that you have seen.

THE LOWELL OFFERING. 121

and perhaps own, the second and later series of the unique publication, but that you question whether a copy of the first four numbers is in existence- — indicat- ing, I judge, that you have sought for them in vain.

I am happy to inform you that your apprehension of total loss is " ruled out " by my possession of two com- plete sets of those first four numbers, lacking only the printed cover of Number One. You will not be sur- prised that my sons, to whom they belong, are unwilling to part with these memorials of their father's brief resi- dence in Lowell ; but 1 hope that your earnest antiqua- rian call will awaken a response among the hidden or forgotten things of some one of your many readers.

Meanwhile I will endeavor to make a compact state- ment of what you desire, with no more of personality than is necessary to an intelligible narrative.

Number 1 of The Lowell Offering was published in October, 1840. No. 2 was issued in December follow- ing. No. 3 appeared in February, 1841, and No. 4 in March. Printed by A. Watson, 15 Central Street. Each number consisted of sixteen pages small quarto, double columns, in small pica solid, and was sold at re- tail for six and one-fourth cents. I have forgotten how many copies were printed. The third and fourth pages of a plain cover were devoted to advertisements of less than an average of one inch brevier, and in this way we managed to ' make both ends meet.'

In No. 2 appeared the following note, the words in brackets being here inserted in the way of explanation.

" A social meeting, denominated Improvement Circle, was established in this city about a twelve-month since [by the Kev. A. C. Thomas, pastor of the Second Univer-

122 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

salist Church]. At the sessions of this Circle, which have been holden one evening in a fortnight, communications (previously received by the gentleman in charge) have been read, the names of the writers not being announced. The largest range of subject has been allowed : fiction and fact, poetry and prose, science and letters, religion and morals; and in composition the style has been hu- morous or otherwise, according to the various taste or talent of the writers. The reading of these articles has constituted the sole entertainment of the meetings of the Circle. The interest tlius excited has given a remarka- ble impulse to the intellectual energies of our popu- lation.

" At a social meeting for divine worship connected with one of our societies (First Universalist Church, the Rev. T. B. Thayer, pastor), communications, chiefly of a religious character, have been read, during several years past. The alternate weekly session of this Conference was appropriated mainly to communications, and de- nominated Improvement Circle, soon after the institu- tion of the one above mentioned, and the interest has thereby been greatly increased,

" A selection irom the budgets of articles furnished to these Circles, together with a few communications de- rived from other sources, constitutes The Lowell Offering, whereof the two gentlemen in charge of the meetings aforesaid are the editors.

" We have been thus particular, partly to gratify the curiosity of our readers, and partly to call attention to the advantage of such social institutions for improve- ment in knowledge, and in tne art of composition. The meetings being free to all who are disposed to attend,

THE LOWELL OFFERING. 123

they may be likened to so many intellectual banquets, the writers furnishing the feast of reason, while all pres- ent participate in the flow of soul."

Confessedly there was little novelty in the organiza- tion and conduct of these Circles, excepting perhaps that the leaders took special pains in private interviews, and by informal hints and criticisms at the gatherings, to awaken and foster a desire for improvement. But the honorable presentation to the world, in print, of a class of people usually considered ignorant and degraded, was certainly a new thing under the sun.

In the number of The Offering for November, 1842, which was after my removal from Xew England, Miss Harriet Farley, who was then in editorial charge, pub- lished her personal knowledge of the origin, etc., as follows : —

" The gentlemen were at liberty to contribute to the Circle, but they were of no great assistance. Those who were not engaged in the mills were also contributors, but it was soon found that the principal interest of the meetings depended upon the factory-girls.

..." There were at length so many articles of a pro- miscuous character, that it was thought they might form a pleasing variety in a little book. ... To tell the truth, we did not really believe that it would ever come into being. AVe did not believe our articles would do to print — that they were good enough to be put in a book. But there was one who thought otherwise. . . . Then a periodical was spoken of, and it was even suggested that we should edit it. We the editor ! The idea was very awful. We sliould as soon have thought of build- ing a meeting-house ! We shrank so sensitively from

124 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

the proposal that it was not urged, and the projector of the work became its editor.

" We shall never forget our throb of pleasure when we first saw The Lowell Offering in a tangible form, with its bright yellow cover, nor our flutterings of delight as we perused its pages. True, we had seen or heard the articles before, but they seemed so much better in print ! They appeared to be as good as anybody's writings. They sounded as if written by people who never worked at all.

" The Offering was well received by the public, or at least would have been if people had not been so confused and perplexed and mystified and unTaelieving.

" The first number was an experiment, and a successful one. The second, third, and fourth appeared at irregu- lar intervals ; and then it was thought best that it should be permanently established. Hitherto it had been sold singly, or given away, and there had been no subscrip- tion list. With the fifth number commenced a new series, different in form and materially improved in out- ward appearance."

The new series was a monthly of thirty-two pages, large octavo, in long primer, leaded, with embellishments of wood engravings, chiefly of churches in Lowell, also pages of music, the whole put up in neat printed covers.

Communications much amended in the process of training the writers were rigidly excluded from print, and such articles only were published as had been written by females employed in the mills. One article only was afterwards challenged as a jilagiarism. A few of the con- tributions from the first needed only the usual corrections /to fit them for the jjress ; the contributors, besides pos-

THE LOWELL OFFERING. 125

sessing rare native talent, having had the advantages of a Xew England common-school education.

Mostly the writers chose to appear anonymously, not subscribing even their initials ; and X am not at liberty to reveal their names, even if I could remember and designate them all. I have, however, already mentioned Miss Harriet Farley, and may add that she was a daughter of the Rev. Stephen Farley, an aged Unitarian clergyman residing in Amesbury, Mass., a man richer in faith and life than in dimes and dollars. She left home, and vrorked steadily in the mills at Lowell, that she might help a brother through college. I have no hesitation in naming her as a sample of extraordinary genius. She greatly enriched the Circle which was in my charge, and was foremost in every issue of The Offering for several years.

Miss Lydia S. Hall was another contributor whose productions aided largely in the celebrity of The Offering^ especially in the line of poetry. " The Tomb of Wash- ington," " Lowell, a parody on Hohenlinden," " No," and a number of other poetical articles of singular merit, stamped this " Adelaide " as a i^markable writer.

Mis. Betsey Chamberlain, a widow who worked in the mills for the support and education of her two chil- dren, was a constant Circle helper, and vitalized many pages of The Offering by humorous incidents and the wit of sound common sense.

Miss Harriot Curtis, who held a dashing pen, left the mills for a season to attend to a sick friend in Troy. At the date of her return, the contents of the second volume of The Offering had already been made up, where- upon, by my encouragement (suggestion, I believe) she

126 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

wrote a novelette entitled " Kate in Search of a Hus- band," the manuscript of which I sold in her behalf to J. Winchester, a New York publisher, who issued large editions of it. A year or two later she was associated with Miss Farley as editor and proprietor of The Offer- ing. Several " Chapters on the National Sciences " were written by a factory-girl (Eliza J. Gate) in Manchester, N. H. She afterwards w^ote " Lights and Shadows of Factory Life," also " Rural Life in New England," both of which I sold to Winchester in her behalf.

Miss Harriet Lees, S. G. B., E. E. T., H. J., A. B., and many others, are pleasantly in my memory as cor- dial aids ; these memoranda, as you will perceive, reach- ing beyond the first four numbers, concerning which you make special inquiry.

On the second page of the cover of Number 4, issued March 4, 1841, an endeavor to establish The Offering permanently was announced. " Be the number large or small who are disposed to patronize the undertaking, we have concluded to hazard the experiment for one year," the labor and responsibility being wholly my own.

If my ecclesiastical connections had been of the pop- ular order, there could have been no doubt of success ; but I was well known as a Universalist. Sectarian hos- tility, in that day, was of a sort which would not be tol- erated now ; and I had to combat the falsehood that The Offering was a Universalist publication.

The Operatives' Magazine was issued as a rival, or competitor ; and only the superior talent of the contrib- utors to the original work kept it in the ascendant of repute and circulation. I am happy, too, to remember

THE LOWELL OFFERING.

127

that the most influential laymen in the city indorsed my enterprise, as will appear by the following card : —

Lowell, March 7, 1841.

The undersigned have seen the numbers of The Lowell Offering ah-eady issued. Believing the work calculated to do good, and understanding that it is to be permanently estab- lished by means of a subscription list, we take pleasure in rec- ommending it to the patronage of the public generally, and to persons connected with the manufacturing establishment espe- cially.

Elisha Huntington. Samuel Lawrence. Elisha Bartlett. J. W. Warren. Gilman Kimball. Robert Means. B. F. French. J. C. Dalton. John W. Graves, Homer Bartlett. Charles L. Tilden. John Aiken. Alexander Wright. George Motley. John Avery. William Spencer. William Livingston. J. W. Scribner.

J. P. Jewett. Samuel W. Stickney. Daniel Mowe. S. D. York. William Grey. Moody Currier. C. Appleton. John Nesmith. George Mansfield. George Brownell. James G. Carney, W. O. Bartlett. A. D. Dearborne. Hiram Parker. Nathaniel Thurston. Eliphalet Case. J. G. Abbott. John Clark.

Those of your readers who have memories of the Lowell of thirty years ago, will observe that the names of all (or nearly all) the superintendents of the corpo- rations are in this list, and that it includes a liberal rep- resentation of other dignitaries in the city, excepting only the clergy. One of these is indeed in the record;

128 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

but he shortly afterward wished to have his signature cancelled, for the reason that he had placed it there without due consideration ! Whereupon Mr. Case, who passed the paper around, gave indefinite time for con- sideration to all of the rest of the clergy, each having the benefit of a doubt to begin with. 1 must not, how- ever, fail to mention that the Rev. Henry A. JNIiles, of the Unitarian Church, was steadfastly a friend of The Offering from first to last.

I have thus endeavored to answer your inquiries, and will add a few incidents.

In January, 1842, Samuel Lawrence introduced me to Charles Dickens, who was at that time on a tour of inspection in Lowell. In a brief interview, I gave him assurance that all the articles in The Offering were written by the class known as factory-girls. 1 afterward sent him a bound copy of the first volume, new series, which he noticed at some length in " American Notes for Gen- eral Circulation," the following being an extract: —

" They have got up among themselves a periodical called The Lowell Offering . . . whereof I brought away from Lowell four hundred good solid pages, which I have read from beginning to end. ... Of the merits of The Lowell Offering as a literary production, I will only ob- serve, putting entirely out of sight the fact of the arti- cles having been written by these girls after the arduous labors of the day, that it will compare advantageously with a great many English annuals."

A volume entitled " Mind among the Spindles," being a selection from The Offering, was published in England under the auspices, I believe, of Harriet Martineau. She, at all events, was the prompter of a fine review in

THE LOWELL OFFERING, 129

The London Athenceum. This was early in 1843. The compliment was acknowledged by the present of an ele- gantly bound copy of the first and second volumes of the new series, with the inscription : —

•'HARRIET MARTINEAU,

FROM

Harriet Farley, Harriot Curtis, and Harriet Lees."

The distinguished authoress said in reply : " It is welcome as a token of kindness and for its own value, and above all as a proof of sympathy between you and me, in regard to that great subject, the true honor and interests of our sex." She might truly have claimed, in addition, not only that The Offering was the first work written entirely by factory-girls, but the first magazine or journal written exclusively by women, in all the world.

My administration as editor and publisher ceased with the close of the second volume, the numbers of which, as ' copy ' was abundant, having been pushed to completion in advance of regular monthly issues.

And now, after the lapse of more than thirty years of varied experience, I send salutations of grace, mercy, and peace to all, being yet in the flesh, who wished well to that undertaking, and helped it, while I here record happy memories of the friends who have passed behind

the veil.

Truly yours,

Abel C. Thomas. Tacony, Philad., Dec. 29th, 1872."

130 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

Altlionorh the macrazine under its women edit-

o o

ors was a continued success, still, to Mr. Thomas, as its projector and first editor, must be given the credit of bringing before the public these productions ; and too much honor cannot be awarded to him for believing in the capabilities of the young people under his charge, and for utilizing the talent which he found. But for his Improvement Circle The Lowell Offeririg might never have been heard of ; and its wri- ters, if this impetus had not been given to their talents, would never have thought themselves capable of any success in this direction. To improve and cultivate the mind was the injunc- tion urged by this good man upon the working men and women of his time.

The fact that jNIr. Thomas was the grandson of a noted Quaker preacher (Abel Thomas) probably accounts for his inheritance of the idea, first promulgated in this country by that sect, that women have the right and the ability to express their thoughts, both in speaking and in writing ; and he found in Lowell a good field for the application of this principle.

Although a Universalist minister, he was very fond of the Quaker manner of speech, and used the "thee" and "thou" to the end of his life. He was an eloquent and convincing preacher,

THE LOWELL OFFERING. 131

and consecrated his whole life to the work of disseminating the doctrines of his denomination. He married the daughter of Judge Strange Palmer, of Pottsville, Penn., and M. Louise Thomas is well known as taking a prominent part in many social and philanthropic reforms ; it is to her that I am indebted for the privilege of quoting her husband's letter.

Mr. Thomas died Sept. 28, 1880 ; but he had lived to rejoice in the result of his enterprise, though he had little thought, perhaps, of what would be the outcome of his efforts to encour- age the j^'oung people of his church and com- munity. He was a model publisher, since, as two at least of his writers testify, he shared the pecuniary profits of his magazine with its con- tributors.

132 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

CHAPTER VIII.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES OF SOME OF THE WRITERS FOR THE LOWELL OFFERING.

It remains for me to give, so far as I have been able to glean them, the life-stories of a few of the most important of these mill-girl writers, some of them brief indeed, others perhaps of wider significance, but all telling a tale of hon- est toil and earnest aspiration. I begin with Miss Curtis, as senior editor of the magazine.

HARRIOT F. CURTIS,

Editor of the Lovjell Offering.

Among all the writers, Miss Curtis stands out as the pioneer and reformatory spirit. She was fearless in her convictions ; she wrote in advo- cacy of the anti-slavery cause when the real agitation had hardly begun, and in behalf of woman's right to "equal pay for equal labor," five years before the first woman suffrage con- vention was held in this country.

She organized the first known woman's club,

BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 133

and was one of the four women editors of her time. She was the novelist |?ar excelleiice of The Offering^ and had a bold and dashing pen that would have made her fortune in these daj^s of women reporters and interviewers. But she was so startlingl}' original in her speech and in her writings, that it ''made talk," as Samantha Allen says, so different was she from the es- tablished idea of what a " female " should be.

But she was self-centred, and bore with Chris- tian philosophy as well as with pagan silence and stoicism, '-the slings and arrows" of those who could not understand her brave and cour- ageous nature.

Her mind was intensely masculine ; but her life had all the limitations by which the women of her time were bound, and these prevented her from doing the work for which she was best fitted, and from leading that life of freedom from care which is so necessary to the best literary work.

Through her grandmother, Abigail Stratton (Curtis), Harriot could claim direct descent from Miles Stan dish.

She was born Sept. 16, 1813, in Kellyvale (now Lowell), Vt., a little post hamlet on the Missisquoi River, completely surrounded by mountain peaks. The lonely and isolated life

134 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

she was obliged to lead was very distasteful to her, and she early made up her mind to leave her home and seek more concj-enial surround- ings elsewhere. Her father's means were lim- ited ; and after exhausting what education could be obtained in the narrow circle in which she lived, she determined to go to Lowell to work in the factory, and thus earn the money necessary for a year's study at some private school or academy.

Previous to her connection with The Offering.^ Miss Curtis wrote many tales and sketches, and also "Kate in Search of a Husband," one of the first of the " popular novels '' in this country. Her novel, "The Smugglers," was begun in The Offering of November, 1843.

Her connection with The Offering lasted three years ; and during the last two, besides contrib- uting and editing, she also assumed that part of the business management which necessitated her travelling and canvassing for subscribers ; in fact, as she said, she was " the travelling-agent for the firm, and went roaming about the coun- try in search of patrons."

B}^ this means, she not only helped to place the magazine on a paying basis, but made the acquaintance of many distinguished persons. It was chiefly by the efforts of Miss Curtis at this

BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 135

time that The Lowell Offering achieved an almost world-wide fame. When at home she resumed her employment in the mill, as harness-knitter on the Lawrence corporation.

Mr. Thomas, in response to a letter from her asking advice with regard to the business affairs of the magazine, replies : —

" Make your terms cash. You will do well to keep constantly in remembrance that your prosperity almost entirely depends on your individual exertions. Puffing, advertising, scolding, will do little or nothing. Male agents will do little or nothing; but if you go as fe- males, with suitable brief papers signed by eminent men, to show that you are not impostors, you will do well. ... Be careful to guard against the possibility of sus- picion. This you can readily accomplish by certificates from Saml. Lawrence, John Clark, and a few other Low- ellites, countersigned (if convenient) by the governor, Daniel Webster, etc."

In her valedictory at the close of Volume V., Miss Curtis announces that she severs her con- nection with The Offer{7ig for reasons " entirely of a personal nature," and as a parting benison adds : " Friends, Patrons, and Foes (if we have any), may God bless you all with every perfect gift!"

Although her connection with TJie Offering was severed at this date. Miss Curtis remained

136 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

in Lowell until called away by the illness of her mother. She continued her literary labors for a time, and was a corres^jondent of several newspapers. Harriot was the friend and corre- spondent of such men as John Neal, Horace Greeley, Nathaniel P. Willis, and others well known in literary and public life.

She had a taste for politics and wrote intelli- gently on questions that women were not sup- posed to understand. Slie contributed to the Iie2V York Tribune articles so clear and ^ caus- J/ tic, that readers who did not share the common delusion that " H. G." wrote everything in Horace Greeley's paper, thought they must liave been written by a man!

She was the friend and correspondent of " Warrington " (William S. Robinson), and when he was editor of the Boston Daily Republican^ she made a prediction worthy of a male political prophet. In a letter dated May 4, 1848, she writes : —

Friend R., — Probably no doubt exists but some self- sacrificing patriot may be found to accept the office of Chief Magistrate. . . . But who shall be the Whig candidate for this self-sacrifice, seems the most promi- nent question. A few days since I met Horace Greeley, and, as in duty bound, pronounced to him my prophecy of who could not be a successful candidate, although,

BRIEF BIOGBAPHIES. 13T

out of the numerous aspirants for the Whig nomination, I could not prophecy who would be successful. . . . "Will you give the public my assurance that Henry Clay cannot he President of the United States. I don't care who the Democratic nominee may be ; I don't care how divided that party may be in action, nor how great may be the unanimity and enthusiasm of the Whigs ; but I repeat, Henry Clay cannot be President. . . .

I now enter upon the most painful part of her story, and I do it with a heavy heart ; but I feel obliged to tell it, because it illustrates so well the lives which so many " solitary " women were then forced to lead, — lives of poverty, of self-abnegation, and of unselfishness. And in reading, in her letters to me, the sad record of her struggles, I can truly say, that never in all my life of over seventy years have I known of one so cruelly compelled by circumstances to hide the talent which " God had given her," that she might become the angel of mercy to her suffering and needy relatives.

In the heyday of her literary career, she left the work for which she was the best fitted, to take the sole charge of her blind and aged mother, who lived until 1858, '' having suffered all that mortal could suffer." Harriot was her constant attendant day and night, vainly trying, in the mean while, to get some literary work to

138 LOOM AND SPINDLE,

do at her home to help eke out the narrow in- come of the family.

Extracts from her letters written to my hus- band and myself will give some idea of her struggles to obtain remunerative employment.

Sunny Hill, Dracut, Jan. 7, 1849. Dear, dear Friends, — Your kind letter reached me on Friday ; and if you could imagine the " heaps " of good it did me, you would favor me often with such medicine. Nobody writes to me nowadays, and I am left to my despair and desolation. . . . Oh dear ! what a world this is for poor old maids ! but I trust you find it quite comfortable and Paradise-like for brides and bridegrooms, God bless them all ! and more especially you young ones. ... I wish you would show me how I could " earn " anything by writing. I cannot find my way only to write a book, be months about it, and then get a whole $100 for it. That don't pay enough for wear and tear of temper.

Later, in 1860, she writes from the family home in St. Albans, Vt.

" Under present circumstances I do not think I could write a leader. I do not know of anything until it is a week or ten days' old, and my only connection with the living world is the Tribune. I thank you with all my heart for your kind offer about going to New York, but it would be useless. Greeley's introduction to Bonner

BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 139

would not do any good. If I could attract notice, kick up a small tempest, I should feel sure of an invitation from Mr. Bonner. But without some notoriety that has created comment, the angel Gabriel could not get into the Ledger. Without intellectual contact, out of the world, I have grown rusty. A great care, an increasing anxiety, and most painful sympathy for the suffering, have narrowed my thoughts. ... If I could get a little good luck — something to feel pleased about — I think I could wake up to anything. ... I could not earn a dollar here to save my life. Greeley would say, " Yes, you could : there is the needle ; that is useful and wanted, though not half paid." Mr. Greeley does not know that even the resource of the " poor shirtmaker " is denied me. I have lost the use of my thimble finger from one of those awful things, a felon ; and it is misshapen, bent, and stiffened. I assure you, I have had a womanly experience. . . . You see, I am < off the track.' "

After 1860 she ceased trying to secure either fame or money by her literary talents ; and there- after, for almost thirty years, she continued to be the nurse and companion of the remaining invalids of the family, thinking, as she always had done, more of their comfort than she did of the loss of fortune and fame.

If she had devoted all her enerofies to the de- velopment of her talent as a novelist, she might have earned a livelihood, and been a continued success, — enough so, at least, to find a place in

140 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

some of the many volumes of American biog- ^apll3^ But she had the conviction that one has no moral right to live for one's self alone ; and so she gave her all, and spent her life, in the service of those who needed her help. And though often despondent, and almost despairing, she never lost faith in God, nor in his fatherl}^ care over the most afflicted of his children.

I first knew Miss Curtis in about 1844, when she and Miss Farley lived in what was then Dracut, in a little house embowered in roses, which they had named " Shady Nook." The house w^as a sort of literary centre to those who had become interested in The Loivell Offering and its writers ; and there were man 3^ who came from places both near and far to call on the edi- tors, and meet the " girls " who by their pens had made themselves quite noted.

But I did not see much of her until 1848, when we became the firm friends and correspond- ents that we remained until the end of her life. As I remember her at that time, she was of me- dium height, rather inclined to stoutness, with small, white, well-shaped hands, brown hair, large blue eyes, a small nose, full red lips, white teeth well divided, and a head — well, more than a match for most of the women, if not the men, of her set.

BBIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 141

Miss Curtis had many offers of marriage ; but she thought it wrong for a woman to marry for a '' home," or unless she loved the man with a '' love more enduring than life and stronger than death;" and as she did not meet such a man, she could not enter into her ideal marriage. But the friendships she made were warm and lasting, and the friends with whom she was as- sociated have in these pages given their loving tribute to her characteristics and her capabili- ties.

Miss Curtis's literary efforts may be summed up as follows : first, " Kate in Search of a Hus- band, a novel by a Lady Chrysalis," published by J. Winchester, New York, and twice in after years by unknown publishers. The authorship of this novel was claimed by one male writer, and another wrote a counterpart, called " Philip in Search of a Wife."

" Kate " was followed by " The Smugglers," the scene of which was laid in her native town, and " Truth's Pilgrimage, His Wanderings in America and in Other Lands," an allegory. Both of these books were published in contin- ued numbers in The Offering, and the first- named was copyrighted by a Boston firm in 1844, but was not published.

Her last novel, '' Jessie's Flirtations," was

142 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

published first by George Munro in 1846 and afterwards by tlie Harpers ; and it still holds its place in their " Library of Select Novels." A " S. S. Philosophy," her last published book, is ^ full of pithy paragraphs, containing (as her

friend "Warrington" said in the Loivell Jour- naT) "much that is sensible, sound, and salu- tary, as well as some considerable that is saucy and sarcastic." She was for three years co-editor of The Lowell Offering ; in 1854-1855 she was associate editor of the Vox Populi^ a Lowell newspaper; and she also wrote for many lead- ing journals, notably The New York Tribune^ The Loivell Journal^ The Lowell American^ and N. P. Willis's Home Jouriial (N.Y.).

Her nom de plume., " Mina Myrtle," first used by her in the newspapers in 1847, became well known ; it was afterwards approjDriated by another author as " Minnie " Myrtle. (See Wheeler's " Dictionary of the Noted Names of Fiction.")

During her last years Miss Curtis lived on a small farm in Needham, Mass., with her invalid niece, and was cared for and supported by her nephew, George H. Caldwell, bre vetted lieu- tenant-colonel for gallant and meritorious ser- vice at Gettvsburof, the Battle of the Wilderness, ^ and before Petersburg. ^

/ ^ .4 / / /

/ '

BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 143

Miss Curtis died in October, 1889, at the age of seventy-six, leaving tlie invalid niece, who had been her charge for so many years ; but her affection for her " Aunt Harriot " was so strong that she died of ''no seeming disease" a few weeks after her distinguished relative.

THE CURRIER SISTERS.

These were four sisters, named Louisa, Maria, Lura, and Marcia, and at least three of them wrote for The Offering,

They were the daugliters of Mr. John Cur- rier of Wentworth, N.H., and members of Mr. Thomas's congregation and of his Improvement Circle. Maria has put on record an authentic account of the first Improvement Circle (quoted elsewhere) ; but Lura deserves the most ex- tended mention, from the fact that she, as Mrs. Whitney, was the prime mover in establishing a free library in the town of Haverhill, N.H. Mrs. Whitney died before I had thought to write to her for information ; but I am able to quote extracts from the following letter, written by her to Mrs. E. E. T. Sawyer, her early work-mate and lifelong friend, on Jan. 19, 1885.

144 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

" I think I have told you about the library that I had the honor of starting here about four and a half years ago. Now we are talking about a new library building ; and I think we have made a great start, as one man has given us fifteen hundred dollars towards it. . . . As far as our library is concerned, I have accomplished what no one else in this place has done before, and I feel amply repaid in the perusal of some of the interest- ing volumes contained therein."

Mrs. Whitney died April 4, 1889.

ELIZA JANE GATE.

Miss Gate was the eldest daughter of Captain Jonathan Gate, who commanded a company in the war of 1812. She was born in Sanbornton, N.H., in 1812, and soon achieved good rank as a pure, unaffected, and attractive writer. She was most prolific with her pen, and wrote on a large variety of subjects. Her admirers called her "the Edgeworth of New England."

Her contributions to The Offering^ notably

" Susy L 's Diary," " Lights and Shadows of

Factory Life," and " Ghapters on the Natural Sciences," were widely read and commended. Her signature was usually "D." She was a contributor to Peterson^ s^ over the signature of

"By the Author of Susy L 's Diary," and

wrote for Sartain^s and other magazines.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 145

Her obituary notice, copied from the news- papers, said : —

"Miss Gate was the author of at least eight books, three of which were issued by the Baptist Publication Society of Philadelphia, and two by J. Winchester of New York. She was a corresponding member of the New Hampshire Historical Society. She died in Pough- keepsie, N.Y., in 1884. Miss Gate was retiring in her manner, but was of a genial and confiding nature ; and in her character, as well as" in her writings, were blended moral purity with the Ghristian graces."

MRS. BETSEY CHAMBERLAIN.

Mrs. Chamberlain Avas the most original, the most prolific, and the most noted of all the early- story -writers. Her writings were characterized, as Mr. Thomas says, " by humorous incidents and sound common sense," as is shown by her setting forth of certain Utopian schemes of right living.

Mrs. Chamberlain was a widow, and came to Lowell with three children from some "com- munity" (probabl}^ the Shakers), where she had not been contented. She had inherited Indian blood, and was proud of it. She had long, straight black hair, and walked very erect, with great freedom of movement. One of her sons was afterwards connected with the New York Tribune.

146 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

HARRIET FARLEY,

Editor of The Loivell Offering and afterwards of the Neio England Offering.

From her autobiography, published in Mrs. S. J. Hale's book, " The Woman's Record," about 1848, I am so fortunate as to be able to quote Miss Farley's own words with regard to some of the events of her early life before and dur- ing the time of her connection with both the Lowell and the JVew England Offerinr/. Miss Farley says : —

"My father is a Congregational minister, and at the time of my birth was settled in the beautiful town of Claremont, N.H. . . . My mother was descended from the INIoodys, somewhat famous in New England history. One of them was the eccentric Father Moody. Another [his son] was Handkerchief Moody, who wore so many years 'the Minister's Veil.' . . . My father was of the genuine New Hampshire stock, from a pious, industrious, agricultural people ; his brothers being deacons, and some of his sisters married to dea- cons. . . . His grandmother was eminent for her medical knowledge and skill, and had as much practice as is usu- ally given to a country doctor. His mother was a woman of fine character, who exerted herself and sacrificed much to secure his liberal education. ... I was the sixth of ten children, and until fourteen had not that health which promises continued life. ... At fourteen

BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES, 147

years of age I commenced exertions to assist in my own maintenance, and have at times followed the various avocations of New England girls. I have plaited palm- leaf straw, bound shoes, taught school, and worked at tailoring, besides my labors as a weaver in the factory, which suited me better than any other. After my father's removal to the little town of Atkinson, N.IL, he combined the labors of preceptor of one of the two oldest academies of the State with his parochial duties ; and here, among a simple but intelligent people, I spent those years which give tone to the female char- acter. ... I learned something of French, drawing, ornamental needlework, and the usual accomplishments ; for it was the design of my friends to make me a teacher, — a profession for which I had an instinctive dislike. But my own feelings were not consulted. . . . This was undoubtedly wholesome discipline ; but it was car- ried to a degree that was painful, and drove me from my home. I came to Lowell, determined that, if I had my own living to obtain, I would get it in my own way ; that I would read, think, and write ichen I could, without restraint ; that if I did well I would have the credit of it, if ill, my friends should be relieved from the stigma. I endeavored to reconcile them to my lot by a devotion of all my spare earnings to them and their interests. I made good wages ; I dressed economically ; I assisted in the liberal education of one brother, and endeavored to be the guardian angel to a lovely sister. ... It was something so new to me to be praised and encouraged to write that I was at first overw^helmed by it, . . . and it was with great reluctance that I consented to edit ^The Lowell Offering'], and was quite as unwilling at first to

148 LOOM AND SPINDLE,

assist in publishing. But circumstances seem to have compelled me forward as a business woman, and I have endeavored to do my duty. I am now the proprietor of The New England Offering. I do all the publishing, editing, canvassing ; and as it is bound at my office, I can, in a hurry, help fold, cut covers, stitch, etc. I have a little girl to assist me in the folding, stitching, etc. ; the rest, after it comes from the printer's hand, is all my own work. I employ no agents, and depend upon no one for assistance. My edition is four thousand. These details, I trust, are not tedious. I have given them be- cause I thought there was nothing remarkable about The Offering but its source and the mode in which it was conducted."

Of her connection with Mr. Thomas's Im- provement Circle and The Loivell Offering., Miss Farley has said to a friend; "The Circle met in the Sunday-school rooms, and they were not only filled, but crowded. There was a box placed at the entrance, so that, if preferred, the writers could be anonymous ; and sometimes topics were suggested. It seemed almost like an insult when Mr. Thomas first offered payment for these little mental efforts of our leisure hours.

' I can understand this feeling,' he said. ' I was brought up a Quaker, and my grandfather never took pay for preaching. The first money that was ever placed in my hands for this ser- vice seemed to burn into my palms.' There was

BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. 149

a little pile, all in gold, left for our share of the profits of the first series.

'' When I first took the editorial position, I left my regular place to be what is called a ' spare hand.' This gave leisure for what I had to do, and there never was any difficulty about con- tributions. A large bundle of manuscripts left by Mr. Thomas was never resorted to but when some short paper was wanted to fill out a vacant space.

" In the printing-office were Messrs. H«i©^ lt£^ Stearns, Taylor, Brown, th^tl others, always re- ?) spectful, kind, and obliging. In the outer office^^'^to^v^j,/^ was Mr. W. S. Robinson, afterwards known as ^t^^ ' Warrington.' These men would soon have .^"^^iA^^ discovered if there had been false pretences ^

about the writers for the magazine."

In 1847 Miss Farley published a selection from her writings in Tlie Offering^ with other material, entitled " Shells from the Strand of the Sea of Genius ; " she is most fully represented in "Mind Among the Spindles." In 1880 she published a volume of Christmas stories.

Miss Farley married Mr. Dunlevy, an inven- tor, and they had one child, Inez, who married Mr. George Kyle, a humorous writer and come- dian, and died in 1890. Mrs. Dunlevy was liv- ing in New York in 1898.

150 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

MARGARET F. FOLEY.

That broad-browed delicate girl will carve at Rome Faces in marble, classic as her own.

A7i Idyl of Work.

From Miss Foley's letters to Lucy Larcom, and the tender recollections of some of her early and lifelong friends, I am able to piece out a short sketch of this pioneer sculptress.

Margaret Foley \Yas born in Canada, but wliile she was quite young the family moved to the States. When lier father died he left some prop- erty, and she was educated fully up to the stand- ard of the young AA'omen of her day. She tauglit school, and at one time was preceptress of West- port Academy. While there she boarded in Lowell, and on Saturday afternoons she taught classes in drawing and painting, and among her pupils was Lucy Larcom. She always had a piece of clay or a cameo in some stage of ad- vancement, upon which she worked in spare moments.

While at Westport Academy she modelled a bust of Dr. Oilman Kimball, a distinguished surgeon of Lowell. She began her artistic life without any teaching, by carving small figures in wood, or modelling busts in chalk ; and she often gave these as prizes to her pupils.

BRIEF BIOGBAPHIES. 151

She went into the factory to work, that she might share the advantages of the society of other girls who were fond of reading and study, and also that she could enable herself to begin her career as a sculptor.

She did not herself consider that her life in the Lowell factory had any great part in her career, although there is not much doubt that she first conceived the idea of chiselling her thought on the surface of the "smooth-lipped shell " amid the hum of the machinery in the cotton-mill.

She worked a year on the Merrimack corpo- ration; her poems for The Offering are written from there, and signed M. F. F. She then went to Boston, where she opened a studio. While in Boston she suffered great privations, and earned but a scanty support in carving portraits and ideal heads in cameo ; but she worked on hopefully, doing some excellent likenesses, cam- eos, medallions, and a few busts ; among these, one of cabinet size, of Theodore Parker.

Her cameo-cutting was said to be unsurpassed. After seven years of this life, by the aid of kind friends, the wish of her heart was gratified, and she sailed for Rome, where she began to work in larger material, and to make life-size medal- lion portraits with much success and profit.

162 LOOM AND SPINDLE.

She found warm friends there, — Harriet Hos- mer, Mrs. Jameson, Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall, W. W. Stor}', and, best of all, William and Mary Howitt.

From "Mary Howitt, an Autobiography," by her daughter, London, 1889, I am able to give a slight glimpse of the last years of Margaret Foley's life. Mrs. Howitt first speaks of her in 1871, as "the gifted, generous-hearted New England sculptress." In June of that j^ear she went with the Howitts to the Tyrol, where, on setting up housekeeping together, Mrs. Howitt says, —

"Margaret Foley, a born carpenter and in- ventor, set to work and made us all sorts of capital contrivances." She spent several sum- mers at Meran, a residence for invalids, cele-