Mary Paul Letters From 1845 To 1860

When examining the status of lower class women, those that had to take the role of workers and producers, there is an interesting primary source one might encounter. That is the ‘Mary Paul Letters’. Those consist of a series of letters, written from 1845 to 1862, by a woman named Mary Paul to her father. Mary Paul was the third of four children, who left her home in Vermont in order to work. In 1845, she writes a letter to her father, asking for his consent for her to go to Lowell, and look for work. Mary Paul’s attitude towards going to Lowell, in 1845, appears enthusiastic. She writes, “I could earn much more to begin with than I can anywhere about here. I am in need of clothes which I cannot get it I stay about here and for that reason I

However, when examining the letters written by Mary Paul in 1853, the limitations she suffered specifically because of her gender are exposed. In 1853, Mary Paul writes to her father asking his permission for her to join an association called “North American Phalanx”. In her letter, she lists the advantages of joining such association, which include, a better pay, less work, and the privilege to do whatever she sees as fit. Working conditions outside the association were dire, but according to Mary Paul, “at the ‘Phalanx’, it is different, all work there, and all are paid alike both men and women have the same pay and the same work [...] There is more equality in such things according to the work not the sex, you know that men often get more than double the pay for doing the same work that woman do -” In her letter, she went on to describe several other benefits of joining the ‘Phalanx’, such as the access they provided to free education, for

A working woman’s social status was still lower than a man’s. As Mary Paul described in her letter, women were often paid less, despite performing the same amount of work. Men would even receive double a woman’s salary, just due to their gender. That is unfortunately an economic issue that permeates today’s market as well. The letters expose the cultural hardships working women had to live through because of their positions in society. After studying her letters, one can estimate that despite being a worker, Mary Paul might have not been of such a low social class herself. She often asks for or addresses delivery of money with her father. Nevertheless, the gender pay gap affected all women. Furthermore, it was remarkably harmful for poor women, who unlike Mary Paul, were completely dependent on their labour in order to survive. So the letters delineate finally how society was stratified: working women had a lower status than working men, and lower class working women had an even lower status than middle class working