Freeman 2

more on US industrialization

the first large factories in the US were intentionally not hellish like England

• reduced fears of industrialization
• promoted the idea that progress = more mass produced goods (is that a good thing?)
  

labor was scarce so initially spinning mills in the US were small until the War of 1812 stopped imports from England

• land was cheap and people would rather be farmers
• population was much more spread out
• no poor house system (required people to live in a central poorhouse to get welfare)
  

Jefferson and other leaders were worried about factories before 1812

cotton growing in the US took off only after the invention of the cotton gin in 1793

Frances Cabot Lowell formed a corporation:

• had picked up in England the idea of spinning and weaving in the same factory
• joint stock corporation of merchants looking for new investments (not yet limited liability)
  
• workforce of young women
• mass produced cheap cloth--focus on speed rather than quality or flexibility--for settlers in the west and slaves
  
• used a single selling agent (had more control over distribution)
  
• sold almost entirely to the US market
  
• first factories were in Waltham, moved to what became Lowell for more water power

Lowell:

• the Merrimack river was a good sized river that dropped 30 feet in a series of rapids
  
• there was already a canal around the falls and a transportation canal to the Charles River to Boston, the Middlesex canal
• but only a tiny town built up around the falls, Lowell purchased the canal and land along the river
  

but where was the labor going to come from?

• the Dover Manufacturing Company in New Hampshire invented the boarding house system
• Lowell both had no choice and wanted to avoid child labor and unhealthy factory cities
• young women were no longer essential to family economies, saved up some money for marriage
• emphasis that women would be safe--strict rules not just in the factories but in the boarding houses
• some educational opportunities, but limited because they worked 60+ hours a week
  

Mr. Lowell was proud of the utopian factory system--but at the same time it was the best way to make money

This system only lasted about 20 years before wages were lowered and immigrants increasingly hired
factories were increasingly built in cities using steam power

Lewis Hine photos of child workers and in South Carolina