Waltham-Lowell system
The Waltham-Lowell system was a labor and production model employed during the rise of the textile industry in the United States, particularly in New England, during the rapid expansion of the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th century.
The textile industry was one of the earliest to become mechanized, made possible by inventions such as the
Competition grew in the domestic textile industry and wages declined, so workers began to go on strike. Immigration began to grow in the United States, and immigrants often brought skills and were willing to work for lower wages by mid-century, and the system proved unprofitable and collapsed.
Precursor
The precursor to the Waltham-Lowell system was used in
Characteristics
The Waltham-Lowell system pioneered the use of a vertically integrated system.[2] Here there was complete control over all aspects of production. Spinning, weaving, dyeing, and cutting were now completed in a single plant.[3] This large amount of control made it so that no other company could interfere with production. The Waltham mill also pioneered the process of mass production which greatly increased the scale of manufacturing. Water-powered line shafts and belts connected hundreds of power lines. The increase in manufacturing occurred so rapidly that there was no localized labor supply in the early 19th century that could have sufficed.[4] Lowell solved this problem by hiring young women.
Waltham
After the successes of Samuel Slater, a group of investors called
The Boston Associates tried to create a controlled system of labor, unlike the harsh conditions that they observed while in Lancashire, England. The owners recruited young New England farm girls from the surrounding area to work the machines at Waltham. The mill girls lived in company boarding houses and were subject to strict codes of conduct and supervised by older women. They worked about 80 hours a week. Six days per week, they woke to the factory bell at 4:40 a.m. and reported to work at 5 before a half-hour breakfast break at 7. They worked until a lunch break of 30 to 45 minutes around noon. The workers then returned to their company houses at 7 p.m. when the factory closed. This system became known as the Waltham System.
Lowell
The
Decline
Eventually, cheaper and less organized foreign labor replaced the mill girls. Even by the time of the founding of Lawrence in 1845, there were questions being raised about its viability.[6] One of the leading causes of this transition to foreign labor and the demise of the system was the coming of the Civil War. Girls went to be nurses, moved back to their farms, or took positions that men had left when they joined the army.[7] These girls were out of the mills for the duration of the war and, when the mills reopened after the war, the girls were gone because they no longer needed the mills. They had rooted into their new occupations or moved on in life to the point where the mill was no longer suitable for them.[7] The lack of mill girls created a movement towards Irish immigrants.
The Irish community that was building in Lowell, Massachusetts was not exclusively female, unlike the grouping of mill girls in the dormitories.[8] The proportion of male employment at the mill increased which rapidly changed the demographics of the people that worked there.[8] The Lowell plant became heavily dependent on the foreign lower-class, especially the Irish immigrants who flocked to Massachusetts.[2]
See also
- Mills and Factories in the Industrial United States
- Lowell mill girls
References
- Dublin, Thomas (1989). "Review: Lowell, Massachusetts and the Reinterpretation of American Industrial Capitalism". JSTOR 3378079.
- MacDonald, Allan (1937). "Lowell: A Commercial Utopia". JSTOR 360145.
Notes
- ^ No. 384: Samuel Slater
- ^ a b Dublin 1989, p. 160
- ^ Walton 2010, p. 168
- ^ Vance 1966, p. 316
- ISBN 978-1-59869-428-4.
- ^ http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/mhr/2/ford.html Peter A. Ford - "Father of the whole enterprise" Charles S. Storrow and the Making of Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1845–1860
- ^ a b MacDonald 1937, p. 61
- ^ a b Dublin 1975, p. 34