Leibow

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__The Lowell Mill Girls: __ ======

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__ A Worthy Opportunity? __ ======

By: Gracie Leibow
Objective- 1. Determine and separate the pros and cons of working in the Lowell Mills as a young girl.  2 . Argue a position on whether they would work in a mill or not as a young girl

Answer- Some of the pros are the wage/ pay the girls receive, the social life outside of their work, and the conditions of the boardinghouses. Some of the cons are the actual factory working conditions, the strict curfews/ rules of living there, and the long, grueling work hours. The student can choose either to work there, arguing their position with some of the pros listed, or not to work there, arguing with some of the cons listed. It is opinion-based. -__[|This website supports my objective]__

__**Background:**__

In the early 1800s, Francis Cabot Lowell opened textile mills in the town of Waltham, Massachusetts, to spin and weave raw materials into clothes with machines instead of by hand. He decided the best people to hire are young women to operate the machines. They came for the money to send to their family members, and enjoyed it there for the most part. However, they suffered 14-hour workdays, horrible conditions, and even wage cuts by 15% and more. They protested this, but they rarely won in their strikes. Even though it sounds bad, they still had great living conditions in their boardinghouses, and the wages and economic independence offered by these jobs was unheard of for women at the time. So, overall, the Lowell Mills were a great expansion of the opportunities women had to earn a living on their own, and even though they had both pros and cons, they were, for the most part, successful.

This is a picture of what a typical woman working at a typical lowell mill, operating a typical machine spinning cloth would look like. They worked for long hours at these complicated machines. It was very precise, grueling work that these women endured. Picture Citation:--- Web. 25 Mar. 2012. ||
 * < Harrington, Wendy. "Background." //Berwickacademy.org//. Berwick Acad., Apr. 2001.