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 illustrated 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 history 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 landscape, views taken on the spot.
It is hardly possible to do this truthfully without bringing myself into the picture, —a solitary traveller revisiting the scenes of youth, and seeing 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 working-women.
Before 1836 the eve of mechanical industry in New England had hardly 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 by 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 seamstress, and every household was a self-producing and self-sustaining community. “ Homespun was their only wear,” homespun their lives.
There was neither railway, steamboat, telegraph, 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 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 cultivated; 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 perhaps content. They could say with truth, —
“We are the same things that our 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 element 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-factory, set in motion the loom and the spinning-frame, call together an army of useful people, open wider fields of industry for men and (which was quite as important at that time) for women also. For hitherto woman had always been a money-saving, rather than a money-earning, member of the community, and her labor could command but small return. If she worked out as servant, or “help,” her wages were from fifty cents to one dollar a week; if she went from house to house by the day to spin and weave, or as tailoress, she could get but seventy-five cents a week and her meals. As teacher her services were not in demand, and nearly all the arts, the professions, and even the trades and industries, were closed to her, there being, as late as 1840, only seven vocations, outside the home, into which the women of New England had entered.1
1 These were teaching, needlework, keeping boarders, factory labor, type-setting, folding and stitching in book-binderies. According to the census of 1885 (that of 1895 is not yet tabulated), wherein the subject of “‘ Woman in Industry ”’ was first specialized, by Hon. Carroll D. Wright, there are 113 industries, which, subdivided, make 17,357 separate occupations. Women have found employment in 4,467 of these, while of the 113 general branches, they are found in all but seven.
The Middlesex Canal was one of the earliest factors in New England enterprise. It began its course at Charlestown Mill-pond, and ended it at Lowell. It was completed in 1804, at the cost of $700,000, and was the first canal in the United States to transport both passengers and merchandise. Its charter was extinguished in 1859, in spite of all opposition, by a decision of the Supreme Court. And thus, in less than sixty years, this marvel of engineering skill, as it was then considered, which was projected to last for all time, was “switched off the track” by its successful rival, the Boston and Lowell Railroad, and, with the stage-coach and the turnpike road became a thing of the past.
The course of the old Middlesex Canal can still be traced, as a cow-path or a woodland lane, and in one place, which I have always kept in remembrance, very near the Somerville Station on the Western Division of the Boston and Maine Railroad, can still be seen a few decayed willows, nodding sleepily over its grass-grown channel and ridgy paths, —a reminder of those slow times when it took a long summer’s day to travel the twenty-eight miles from Boston to Lowell.
The Boston and Lowell Railroad, probably the first in the United States, went into operation in 1835. I saw the first train that went out of Lowell, and there was great excitement over the event. People were gathered along the street near the “ deepot,” discussing the great wonder ; and we children stayed at home from school, or ran barefooted from our play, at the first “toot” of the whistle. As I stood on the 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!” “She can, too.” “She can’t.” “I don’t believe a word of it.” “She’ll break down and kill everybody,” was the cry.
But the engine did start, and the train came back, and the Boston and Lowell Railroad continued an independent line of travel for about the same number of years as its early rival; when, by the “irony of fate,” its individuality was merged in that of a larger and more powerful organization, — the Boston and Maine Railroad, of which, in 1895, it became only a section or division. But let us not regret too much this accident of time, for who knows what will become of this enormous plant during the next fifty years, when our railways, perhaps, may be laid in the “unfeatured air.”
The first factory for the manufacture of cotton cloth in the United States was erected in Beverly, Mass., in 1787, and in 1790 Samuel Slater established the cotton industry in Pawtueket, R.IJ.; but the first real effort to establish the enterprise was in Lowell, where a large wooden building was erected at the Wamesit Falls, on the Concord River, in 1813.
The history of Lowell, Mass., is not identical with that of other manufacturing places in New England, and for two reasons: first, because here were gathered together a larger number of factory people, and among them were the first who showed any visible sign of mental cultivation; and, second, because it was here that the practice of what was called “ The Lowell factory system ” went into operation, a practice which included the then new idea, that corporations should have souls, and should exercise a paternal influence over the lives of their operatives. As Dr. John O. Green of Lowell, in a letter to Lucy Larcom, said: “The design of the control of the boarding-houses and their inmates was one of the characteristics of the Lowell factory system, early incorporated therein by Mr. Francis Cabot Lowell and his brother-in-law, Patrick T. Jackson, who are entitled to all the credit of the acknowledged superiority of our early operatives.”
Cotton-mills had also been started in Waltham, Mass., where the first power-loom went into operation in 1814; but, for lack of water-power, these could be carried on to a limited extent only. It was therefore resolved, by gentlemen interested, that the “plant” should be moved elsewhere, and water privileges were sought in Maine, New Hampshire, and in Massachusetts. Finally, Pawtucket Falls, on the Merrimack River, was selected, as a possible site where a large manufacturing town could be built up. Here land was bought, and the place, formerly a part of Chelmsford, set off in 1826, was named Lowell, after Francis Cabot Lowell, who, through his improvements, was practically the inventor of the power-loom, and the originator of the cotton-cloth manufacture as now carried on in America.
Kirk Boott, the agent of the first corporation, (as the mills, boarding-houses,— the whole plant was called), was a great potentate in the early history of Lowell, and exercised almost absolute power over the mill-people. Though not an Englishman, he had been educated in England, had imbibed the autocratic ideas of th mill-owners of the mother country, and many stories were told of his tyranny, or his “peculiarities,” long after he ceased to be a resident.
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 belonging to his estate. My. 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 Merrimack River and its possibilities, and set himself shrewdly to work to buy land on its banks, including the water-power. He represented to the simple farmers that 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.
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 Corporation now stands. The house was a very fine mansion and stood near the river, and the garden was a wonder to everybody, fruit and flowers were brought to such perfection. So he did fulfil his promise after a sort to the former owners 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 cloth 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 sail-cloth, 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 the 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 eyelet-holes. This so amused my witty brother that, whenever I wore it, he accused me of being more “holy than righteous.” Dyers and calico printers 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 agreement, 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 established in Lowell the art of calico printing.
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 standard in the market once held by the “ Merrimack Print.”
Before 1840, the foreign element in the factory population was almost an unknown quantity. The first imigrants to come to Lowell were from England. The Irishman soon followed ; but not for many years did the Frenchman, Italian, 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 scrubbers 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 peasant cloaks, red or blue, made with hoods and several capes, in summer (as they told the children), to “kape cool,” and in winter to “ kape warrum,.”” They were not intemperate, nor “ bitterly poor.” They earned good wages, and they and their children, especially their children, very soon adapted themselves to their changed conditions of life, and became as “ good as anybody.”
To show, the close connection in family descent 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 oftice they held, which was one of great responsibility, requiring, 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 there was no appeal from his decision in matters affecting the industrial interests of those who were employed on his corporation.
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 high 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 ‘“ Puckersville” to the whole block where the overseers lived. It was related of one of these quondam factory girls, that, with some friends, she once 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 overseer, 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 Grammarschoolhouse. Here, clustered around a small stone Catholic Church, were hundreds of little shanties, in which they dwelt with their wives and numerous children. Among them were sometimes found disorder and riot, for they had brought with them from the ould counthrey their feuds and quarrels, and the “ Bloody Fardowners” and the “ Corkonians”’ were torn by intestinal strife. The boys of both these factions agreed in fighting the “damned Yankee boys,” who represented to them both sides of the feud on occasion; and I have seen many a pitched battle fought, all the way from the Tremont Corporation (then an open field) to the North Grammar schoolhouse, before we girls could be allowed to pursue our way in peace. We were obliged to go to school with our champions, the boys, for we did not dare to go alone. These “Acreites” respected one or two of us from our relationship to the “bullies,” as some of the fighting leaders of our boys were called ; and when caught alone by Acreites coming home from school, we have been in terror of our lives, till we heard some of them say, in a language used by all sides, air-o-there oweso-gose e-o-the ooly-o-boos’ ister-o-see. (There goes the bully’s sister.) This language was called Hog Latin by the boys; but it is found in one of George Borrows’ books, as a specimen of the Rommany or gypsy language. These fights were not confined to the boys on each side; after mill-hours the men joined in the fray, and evenings that should have been better employed were spent in carrying on this senseless warfare. The authorities interfered, and prevented these raids of the Acreites upon the school-children, and the warfare was kept within their own domain. It lasted after this for more than ten years, and was ended by the “ bloody battle” of Suffolk Bridge, in which a young boy was killed.
The agents were paid only fair salaries, the overseers generally two dollars a day, and the help all earned good wages. By this it will be seen that there were no very rich persons in Lowell, nor were there any “suffering poor,” since every man, woman, and child, (over ten years of age) could get work, and was paid according to the work each was capable of doing.
The richest young lady of my time was the daughter of a deceased mill-owner; her income, it was said, was six hundred dollars a year! And many of the factory girls made from six to ten dollars a week! out of this, to be sure, they paid their board, which was one dollar and twenty-five cents a week.1
By this it will be seen that there could not have been much aristocracy of wealth; but (as in most manufacturing cities to-day), there was a class feeling, which divided the people, though not their interests. For, as has been said, the corporation guarded well the interests of its employees; and as the mill-hands looked to the factories for their support, they worked as one man (and one woman) to help increase the growing prosperity of the city, which had given to them a new and permanent means of earning a livelihood.
The history of Lowell gives a good illustration of the influence of woman, as an independent class, upon the growth of a town or a community.
As early as 1836, ten years after its incorporation, Lowell began to show what the early mill girls and boys could do towards the material prosperity of a great city. It numbered over 17,000 inhabitants, — an increase of over 15,000 during that time.
‘In 1848 over one-half of the depositors in the Lowell Institution for Savings were mill-girls, and over one-third of the whole sum deposited belonged to them,—in round numbers, $101,992; and the new-made city showed unmistakable signs of becoming, what it was afterwards called, the “Manchester of America.” But the money of the operatives alone could not have so increased the growth and social importance of a city or a locality. It was the result, as well, of the successful operation of the early factory system, managed by men who were wise enough to consider the physical, moral, and mental needs of those who were the source of their wealth.
Free co-educational schools were established in Lowell as early as 1830-1832, and a rule was made by the several corporations that every child under fourteen should attend them three months in the year.
Master Hills taught the North Grammar School, after it occupied its present site. I remember 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 offence, 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 hand of a child of scarcely ten years. He punished her till she could not see, for pain and terror, and then she gave in, whipped into a lie, 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 did you not say sooner that you 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 another multiplication table, why did you not ask me for one?” But she could not even confess the truth to her. Her good aunt accosted her with, “ You sinner! do you not know what 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 matter, and wished that she had stuck to the truth, even if the master had killed her.
I have known Master Hills to go secretly behind 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 was 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 Mr. Hills, and 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, remonstrating voice was more powerful than any whipping. In later life, many of his scholars sorrowed with him in his misfortunes, 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 Episcopal form of service was adopted. Every operative 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 the interest of their money, but, believing in him as an elder of the church, they were persuaded, even a second time, to let him have their sayings. This building has had a curious and eventful history, “from grave to gay, 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 comfort 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, were soon gathered. This quite frightened those of certain other sects, and their ministers preached openly against the new doctrine ; discussions and controversies were rife, and whether there was a hell or not, was the chief topic of the day among the factory people. That there was not was, of course, the more agreeable, and, with the fearless ones, the more popular 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.
Doctrinal feeling was strong, and young people who went with the “awful Universalists” received no favor from the other sects. The Unitarians also came under the ban, but the Universalists 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 furnished 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 accomplishments; the Daltons, father and sons, later of Boston; and Dr. Gilman Kimball, the celebrated surgeon. Lieutenant-Governor Huntington also practised medicine there, as did Dr. John O. Greene, the antiquary. Wendell Phillips was in a law-office, and John Nesmith, manufacturer, was lieutenant-governor during a part of Governor Andrew’s term of office. In Freesoil days John G. Whittier edited a paper there, and John H. Warland and H. Hastings 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. Robinson also published The Lowell American, one of the first Freesoil papers, from 1849 to 1854. William Worthen, 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. Robinson, 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 editor there. The late Rev. W. H. Cudworth, and J. W. Hanson, D.D., now of Chicago, were cousins and Lowell boys, 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 Hayward’s translation of “Faust” was published there in 1840 by Daniel Bixby, afterward of New York.
1. In addition to this, the corporation paid twenty-five cents a week to the boarding-house keeper, for each operative. But this sum was soon withdrawn, the girls were obliged to pay it themselves, and this was one of the grievances which caused the first strike among the Lowell factory operatives.
