Farm vs. Factory: Citing Evidence This activity asks you to analyze three primary documents about the experiences of young women who worked in textile factories in New England during the 1830s and 1840s. It provides worksheets to guide and support you in writing a paragraph that cites evidence about the documents. Objectives You will understand different aspects of life and work among the young women who worked in textile factories in Lowell, Massachusetts, during the 1830s and 1840s You will understand how to analyze and gather evidence from different types of primary sources Instructions 1. Step 1. Locate the cover illustration from The Lowell Offering, and complete the Lessons in Looking: The Lowell Offering Worksheet. 2. Step 2. After completion, analyze the image from The Lowell Offering by answering the questions below. a. What was The Lowell Offering? b. What are some of the details you see in the picture? What do they stand for or represent? c. What do you think was the artist s point of view about what it was like to work in the Lowell textile factories? Positive or negative? 3. Step 3. Please locate the Farm vs. Factory: Constructing a Paragraph Worksheet. You should arrange the sentences provided into a paragraph that interprets the meaning of the Lowell Offering picture. You can cut and paste the sections in the appropriate order. Be sure to add labels. After completion, draft a brief (that means brief!) explanation as to how you decided which sentence was Claim/Counterclaim and which sentence was Conclusion/Summary. 4. Step 4. You will get to see evidence for a more negative view of factory life. Please locate (1) A Mill Girl Explains Why She is Leaving Factory Life, (2) A Former Mill Girl Remembers the Lowell Strike of 1836, and (3) Farm vs. Factory: Finding and Citing Evidence Worksheet. Please read the two documents and fill in the Finding Evidence portion of the worksheet. 5. Step 5. Now you will write your own paragraph interpreting the evidence from Sarah Rice and Harriet Robinson. You will complete the Citing Evidence and Writing a Paragraph sections of the worksheet. Historical Context When the first American factories were built in places such as Lowell, Massachusetts, many of the workers were young women from New England farms. The opportunity to earn wages, live independently, and experience community with other young women was appealing. But unlike farm work, factories were governed by long hours, strict timetables, loud machines, and repetitive work. The transition from a largely farm based economy to one where many worked for wages in factories began with these early textile mills and proceeded to transform American society.
The Lowell Offering The Lowell Offering was a monthly magazine written by the young women who worked in the Lowell textile mills and published from 1840 to 1845. Its contents included songs, poems, essays, and stories--both serious and humorous--about what it was like to work in the mills. It was first organized and edited by a local minister and supported by the city's textile companies. As this cover illustration suggests, it promoted morality and hard work among the young female workers. SOURCE The Lowell Offering, December 1845. CREATOR Unknown ITEM TYPE Poster/Print
A Former Mill Girl Remembers the Lowell Strike of 1836 Harriet Hanson Robinson began work in Lowell at the age of ten, later becoming an author and advocate of women's suffrage. In 1834 and 1836, the mill owners reduced wages, increased the pace of work, and raised the rent for the boardinghouses. The young female workers went on strike (they called it turning out then) to protest the decrease in wages and increase in rent. In 1898 Robinson published a memoir of her Lowell experiences where she describes the strike of 1836. Cutting down the wages was not their only grievance, nor the only cause of this strike. [Before] the corporations had paid twenty-five cents a week towards the board of each operative, and now it was their purpose to have the girls pay the sum; and this, in addition to the cut in the wages, would make a difference of at least one dollar a week. It was estimated that as many as twelve or fifteen hundred girls turned out, and walked in procession through the streets. They had neither flags nor music, but sang songs, [including] Oh! isn t it a pity, such a pretty girl as I- Should be sent to the factory to pine away and die? Oh! I cannot be a slave, I will not be a slave, For I m so fond of liberty That I cannot be a slave. Vocabulary Advocate: someone who speaks and writes in favor of a cause Suffrage: right to vote Wages: money earned by doing work Memoir: personal account of experiences; autobiography Grievance: cause for complaint Operative: worker in a factory Turned out: went on strike In procession: in an orderly way pine away: slowly lose your health Source: Harriet Hanson Robinson, Loom and Spindle or Life Among the Early Mill Girls (New York, T. Y. Crowell, 1898), 83 86, from History Matters: The U.S. Survey on the Web, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5714/.
A Mill Girl Explains Why She Is Leaving Factory Life Born on a Vermont farm, Sarah Rice left home at age 17 to make it on her own. Eventually she journeyed to Masonville, Connecticut to work in textile mills much like those of Lowell. Rice's first letter was written after she had been weaving in the factory for about four weeks. Her second letter was written after about nine months of mill life. Vocabulary textile mills: factories where machines weave cloth Sunday, Feb. 23, 1845 Dear Father:...I like it quite well [here] as I expected but not as well as housework. To be sure it is a noisy place and we are confined more than I like to be. I do not wear out my clothes and shoes as I do when I do housework. If I can make 2 dollars per week besides my board and save my clothes and shoes I think it will be better than to do housework for nine shillings. I mean for a year or two. I should not want to spend my days in a mill unless they are short because I like a farm too much for that. My health is good now. And I say now that if it does not agree with my health I shall give it up at once. I have been blessed with good health always since I began to work out [of the home]... housework: working for wages in someone else s home board: amount paid for a room and food shillings: kind of money used in 1845 agree with: be good for Sept. 14, 1845 Dear Father:...You surely cannot blame me for leaving the factory so long as I realized it was killing me to work in it. I went to the factory because I expected to earn much more than I can at housework. To be sure I might if I had my health. Could you have seen me at the time or a week before I came away you would have advised me as many others did to leave immediately. Source: Sarah Rice, Letter to Father (Hazelton Rice), 23 February 1845 and 14 September 1845, (Vermont History Society, Hazelton Rice Papers), available from Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts at Lowell Libraries, http://library.uml.edu/clh/all/ric.htm.
Lessons in Looking: The Lowell Offering Part 1: The Lowell Offering Vocabulary: offering: presentation boarding house: a building where workers lived, but were charged for a place to sleep and daily meals. repository: storage area Symbols: Identify and label all of the following in the image: Factory Church Beehive Boarding house Girl with book in one hand and cloth on the other Vines, Flowers, and Trees The artist intended many of these parts of the picture to be symbols to represent positive ideas or values related to the Lowell mill girls. Match the symbol with its meaning. Beehive Religion, moral values Connection to nature Girl with book in one hand and cloth on the other Structure created by bees symbolizing cooperation and hard work Church Vines, Flowers, and Trees Boarding house Place where women could live safely, under adult supervision Mill worker who both produced fabric and cared about learning
Emotional Impact: Complete the following sentence. The feeling you get from this artists presentation of the cover of the magazine is because
Farm vs. Factory: Constructing a Paragraph Cut and paste the following sentences in the correct order to form a complete paragraph. The cover of the magazine makes the girl the center of this new world. Not only was she earning money in the factory, she could express herself in articles she wrote for the magazine. The artist who created this cover image from the Lowell Offering magazine presents a positive view of what life was like for the Lowell mill girls. However, some people saw the new factories at Lowell as a threat to the values of farm life, such as independence, family, religion, and hard work. The symbols presented in the cover are meant to show that the factory towns where the girls lived had a church that the girls could attend and a boardinghouse where they could live safely. Therefore, the overall sense you get from the cover is that life for the mill girls was beneficial, and the values the girls had on the farm wouldn t be lost when they worked in the factories. The feeling you get from all the nature portrayed in the cover is safety and serenity. The message seems to say that as nature allows plants to flourish, a mill girl would be supported by her surroundings.
[CLAIM/COUNTERCLAIM] [CONCLUSION/SUMMARY]
Farm vs. Factory: Finding and Citing Evidence Part 1: Finding Evidence Read the two documents and complete the chart below. A Former Mill Girl Remembers the Lowell Strike of 1836 (Harriet Robinson) A Mill Girl Explains Why She Is Leaving Factory Life (Sarah Rice) Document What she doesn t like about factory work Harriet Robinson says Harriet Robinson says Harriet Robinson says Sarah Rice says Sarah Rice says Sarah Rice says
Part 2: Citing Evidence There are two ways to cite evidence. One is to put it in your own words, known as paraphrasing. The other is to quote directly from the document. Here are examples of both: PARAPHRASE Harriet Robinson described a song the girls sang that compared their working conditions to slavery. DIRECT QUOTE According to Harriet Robinson, the girls sang a song that said, I will not be a slave because they were being asked to do the same work for less pay. Choose from the evidence in the chart above and write one sentence that paraphrases that evidence: Choose from the evidence in the chart above and write one sentence that directly quotes from the document:
Part 3: Writing a paragraph Write a paragraph about why some young women who worked in textile factories were critical of living and working conditions in the mills. Your paragraph must begin with a claim about the negative aspects of factory work. Your paragraph must use at least three examples, citing evidence from the documents. Your paragraph must end with a sentence summarizing your argument. [CLAIM/COUNTERCLAIM] [CONCLUSION/SUMMARY]