Station 1 Lowell System The Lowell system or Waltham-Lowell system, named after Francis Cabot Lowell, was a paternalistic textile factory system of the early 19th century that relied almost exclusively on young, unmarried women laborers. Because many in New England considered the employment of women to be somewhat immoral, factory owners emphasized the maintenance of a proper environment: they enforced strict curfews, mandated church attendance, provided their workers with a healthy diet, and maintained a high degree of cleanliness. Unlike many of the factories of the day, Lowell factories were clean, and the workers lived in well-kept dormitories and boardinghouses. Wages were good compared to the standards of the day. The innovative system and the enthusiasm it incited in its employees drew international acclaim. The women wrote a newsletter, the Lowell Offering, that was widely read. Charles Dickens, who visited Lowell during part of his four-month tour of the United States, said of the place, "I cannot recall or separate one young face that gave me a painful impression; not one young girl whom, assuming it to be matter of necessity that she should gain her daily bread by the labour of her hands, I would have removed from those works if I had had the power." [1] (http://www.learner.org/channel/workshops/primarysources/lowell/docs/dickens.html) The system's success was one of the factors that propelled Lowell and his fellow entrepreneurs (later the Boston Associates) to great success. The Lowell system almost immediately ran into trouble, however. The women, most of whom were recruited from the surrounding countryside, found transition to factory life and the tediousness of repetitive tasks difficult. And the competitiveness of the textile industry made the high standards of living and working conditions difficult to maintain. An economic downturn in 1834 led to a 25% wage cut, and the mill workers responded by organizing a union (the Factory Girls Association) and immediately going on strike. The strike failed, but the depression of 1837 three years later virtually destroyed the system entirely. Despite the agitation of the militant Sarah Bagley and her Female Labor Reform Association, conditions continued to worsen throughout the 1840s, and the mill owners began to seek cheaper labor in Irish immigrants. By the 1850s, the Lowell system had been abandoned. Station 2 Lowell System Francis Cabot Lowell revolutionized the early stages of industrialization in the United States, with his vision of an entire community involved in textile production. Upon returning from a trip to England to observe the Lancashire cotton mills, Lowell was inspired to create a system of textile mills and develop a "paternalistic" working environment of caring for the workers. This setting would attempt to care for the workers while governing their moral reputations. Lowell passed away in 1817 before he was able to see his vision become a reality. The Boston Associates carried on the ideas of Francis Cabot Lowell and opened the first mills in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1823. The system used domestic labor, often referred to as mill girls, who came to the new textile centers from rural towns to earn more money than was possible at home, and to live a cultured life in "the city". They lived a very regimented life - they lived in company boardinghouses and were held to strict hours and a rigid moral code. Women between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five were recruited to work at the mills. The protective setting, promised by the mill agents, alleviated the parents' fears of letting their daughters leave the farms. The Lowell Mills management offered cash wages, company run boardinghouses and cultural events for the women. The women agreed to a strict set of rules including church attendance and curfews. In the 1800s, job options were limited for women and the Lowell Mills offered them the opportunity to become money earning rather than a money-saving part of the family. A further benefit to the mill owners was that the young mill girls were willing to work for two or three years at one-half to one-third the wages paid to men for similar work before returning home to marry and start a family. At $2.40 to $3.20 a week, the pay was still more than domestic servants and seamstresses, the two most common occupations for working women. Moreover, the work was not much more difficult than farm labor or home spinning, and most of the female workers enjoyed having more financial and personal independence that they had ever experienced in their paternalistic, male-centered farm households or in the claustrophobic confines of rural villages. The keepers of the Lowell boardinghouses where the women lived did impose strict discipline, with curfews, mandatory church attendance or Sunday self-improvement, and chaperones for male visitors, but the women were more than willing to trade these limits on their freedom for the money in their pockets and the camaraderie of their fellow workers, at least for a few years. Work routines were strict at Lowell, with a twelve-hour day starting at seven in the morning, and only a half- hour lunch break at midday. Factory bells announced times for leaving and entering the plant, and the employees were fined for lateness as well as other breaches of the rules, including insubordination, profanity, or improper conduct. The work did not demand great physical strength, but it did require constant attention as the women generally tended carding, spinning, and weaving machines, checking for and then correcting broken threads and patters. In winter, work began before sunup and lasted into the darkness, when smoky whale-oil lamps illuminated the interior of the factories. Because cotton thread breaks more readily in dry air, overseers sealed windows shut and sprayed water in the air to keep the humidity high in the six-story factories. As a result, not only were light and ventilation blocked, but the "buzzing and hissing and whizzing of pulleys and rollers and spindles and flyers" became an unnerving cacophony in the enclosed machinery rooms. It has long been debated by scholars if the intentions of Francis Cabot Lowells' "paternalistic" expectation of the Lowell mills were realized after his death. Through the documentation left by many of the female workers in the mill system, we can see that the hope for a clean, safe and nurturing environment was not always possible. Station 3 Immigration to the US Wars in Europe and American slowed immigration during the late 1700's and early 1800s. Newcomers included Irish fleeing English rule and French escaping revolution. Congress made it illegal to bring in slaves of 1808. By that time, about 375,000 black Africans had been imported as slaves. During the early 1800's, New York City began to replace Philadelphia as the nation's chief port of entry for immigrants. The country's first immigration station, Castle Garden, opened in New York City in 1855. Ellis Island, the world's most famous station, operated in New York Harbor from 1892 to 1954. The second wave lasted from 1820 to 1870. Almost 7 � million newcomers entered the United States. Nearly all of them came from northern and western Europe. About a third were Irish, many of them seeking escape from a potato famine that struck Ireland in the mid-1840's. Almost a third were German. Most of the Irish had little money, and so they stayed where they arrived, on the East Coast. Many Germans had enough money to journey to the Midwest in search of farmland. (Source: The World Book Encyclopedia, Volume 10, Page 82). In the mid-1880's, some states sent agents to Europe to attract settlers. Railroad companies did the same thing. Better conditions on ships and steep declines in travel time and fares made the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean easier and more affordable. In the mid-1800's news of the discovery of gold in California reached China. Chinese immigrants and sojourners streamed across the Pacific to strike it rich. Sojourners were temporary immigrants who intended to make money and return home. French-Canadian immigrants and sojourners opened still another path to the United States. They moved across the Canadian-U.S. border into the New England states and Michigan. The flood of immigrants began to alarm many native born Americans. Some feared job competition from foreigners. Others disliked the religion or politics of the newcomers. During the 1850's, the America Party, also called the Know-Nothing Party, demanded laws to reduce immigration and to make it harder for foreigners to become citizens. Although the part soon died out, it reflected the serious concerns of some Americans. During the 1870's, the U. S. economy suffered a depression while that of Germany and Britain improved. German and British immigration to the United States then decreased. But arrivals increased from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, China, Canada, and southern and eastern Europe. In 1875, the United States passed its first restrictive immigration law. It prevented convicts and prostitutes from entering the country. During the late 1870's, Californians demanded laws to keep out Chinese immigrants. In some instances, mobs attacked Chinese immigrants, who were accused of lowering wages and unfair business competition. They were also denounced as inassimilable and as racially inferior. Station 4 Immigration to US A. B. Station 5 Transportation Trains In 1852, the first railroad tracks were laid in Hilliard, Ohio. These railroad tracks were completed in 1853 and the railroad opened in Hilliard. The railroad station was made up of three boxcars put together to form a building, and it was called Hilliard’s Station.