Francis Cabot Lowell

Francis Cabot Lowell (1775-1817): Mill Workers

Lowell was an American business man for whom Lowell, Massachusetts was named.  He brought the Industrial Revolution to the United States.  His company Boston Manufacturing Company was the first “integrated” textile mill in America which converted raw cotton into finished cloth.  His mills hired women from age 16 to 25 to work the looms.  These “Mill Girls” or “Factory Girls” challenged the “myths of female inferiority and dependence.”  The “Lowell Girls” were well treated in comparison with many other factory workers of the nineteenth century.  They were provided decent lodging and educational programs in their leisure time.  A sample of the cloth produced by a Lowell mill is displayed (on loan from Eleanor Nothelfer).

James Montgomery. A Practical Detail of the Cotton Manufacture of the United States of America; and the State of the Cotton Manufacture of that Country Contrasted and Compared with that of Great Britain; with Comparative Estimates of the Cost of Manufacturing in Both Countries. Glasgow: J. Niven, 1840.