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| Methods of Reform: The Lowell Mill Girls |
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Author: Wendy Schanberger, Hereford Middle School, Baltimore County Public Schools
Grade Level: Middle
Duration: 2 periods |
Overview:
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The Lowell Mills in Lowell, Massachusetts was often held up as a model industrial workplace in early nineteenth-century America. The textile factory was staffed by young, female carders, spinners, and weavers, who earned a reputation for "Christian modesty" and diligence. Their wages helped to send their brothers to college and pay off family debts.
No workplace is without conflict, however, and in this lesson students will learn about the Mill girls' complaints, and their methods of combating poor working conditions. By exploring the girls' own journal of the period, the Lowell Offering, and other documents, students will see how group organization and advocacy would eventually lead to important social change. Unable to vote or even own property, the Lowell girls nevertheless helped to set the country on a path toward protecting child labor and improving working conditions for industrial workers. The Lowell girls' activities also provide an example of the importance of women in American History.
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