The Oppression Of Lowell Mill Women

On the other hand, some claim that the mills oppressed these women workers by cutting their wages and increasing their work. Reporters of the newspaper The Harbringer visited the Lowell mills in 1836 to observe the practices there (Voices 136). They commented on the cumbersome work load of the operatives: “The girls attended upon an average three looms; many attended four, but this requires a very active person, and the most unremitting care….Attention to two is as much as should be demanded of an operative” (Voices 136). The mill owners reduced the girls’ wages and increased their loom and speed quota to maintain profits during a decrease in cloth prices (“Bagley” 94). This did oppress the Lowell Mill Girls, but it led to ideas of liberation through fighting back.

The mill girls “…did not accept uncritically all that went on in the mills” and formed strikes to combat the wage reduction (Dublin 565). As outlined above, these strikes actually helped liberate women as it made them view themselves as important and free, helped them speak up for themselves, and proved their importance in the workforce, which they most likely would not have done by another means. Thus, even though women experienced oppression through wage cuts and more labor, they were ultimately liberated by the new ideas conducive of the strikes that this oppression