The Lowell Mills and the Mill Girls

Francis Cabot Lowell, a Boston merchant, toured British mills in 1810 to 1812 and memorized the workings of the power loom. In 1814 his Boston Manufacturing Company at Waltham, Massachusetts, became one of the first mills in America to combine spinning and weaving under one roof. After Lowell's death, his partners built a new mill town named after him, Lowell, Massachusetts, from the 1820s. The 'Lowell system' recruited young, unmarried women from New England farms, housing them in supervised boarding houses.

For many, mill wages offered independence and the chance to save money; some wrote for a magazine, the Lowell Offering. As competition increased, owners cut wages and sped up work, and the women organized 'turnouts', or strikes, in 1834 and 1836, and in 1845 formed a labor reform association led by Sarah Bagley. Over time, Irish immigrants largely replaced the farm women in the mills.