Women at the Looms: an Analysis of Gender, Capital, and Textiles in 19Th Century New England
Women at the Looms: An Analysis of Gender, Capital, and Textiles in 19th Century New England William Amara May 1, 2017 A senior thesis, submitted to the History Department of Brandeis University, in partial fulfillment of the Bachelor of Arts degree. Introduction: Gender, Capital, and Textiles “I can see myself now” wrote Harriet Hanson Robinson in 1898, “racing down the alley, between the spinning-frames, carrying in front of me a bobbin-box bigger than I was”.1 Harriet Robinson was a woman who worked in the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, beginning at age 10. Many years later, she wrote a detailed memoir chronicling how the world in which she lived had changed since her employment in the mills. According to Robinson, before the mills opened in Lowell, the people of New England led lives not much different from their ancestors: they travelled only as fast as a canal boat, often bartered instead of using money, and wore clothes made at home.2 Only a child, Harriet began working in the Tremont Corporation as a “doffer,” or someone who carried bobbins, the cylinders which held yarn, between the looms in 1831 after her father died. Although she worked from 5am to 7pm every day except Sunday, she moved the bobbins for 15 minutes and spent 45 minutes of each hour not working.3 While Harriet Robinson’s experience in a Lowell mill was exceptional because she recorded the details of it so vividly in her memoir Loom and Spindle, the conditions she encountered were shared by many other “mill girls.” Lucy Larcom was another young woman who worked in the textile mills of Lowell.
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