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Women In The Mills Of Lowell Essay

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Women in the Mills of Lowell, Massachusetts
In 1810, Francis Cabot Lowell returned from England. He brought with him plans for the first power loom textile factory in the U.S. He built the factory beside a waterfall on the Merrimack River. He did this so he could use waterpower to operate large looms to weave cloth. After a while, the factory turned a small farming village into a successful industrial town. When Lowell died, the factory was renamed in his honor. 90 percent of the workers were women. Women were only payed around 2 to 3 dollars an hour. This is around half the wages men would make. I believe this was unfair treatment. Men and women should be payed the same if they are completing the same tasks. I found this article to be both interesting and informative.

The Basics: Economy and Work
There are three sectors of the economy, which are primary, secondary, and tertiary. The primary sector draws raw materials from the natural environment. The primary sector is largest in low income nations. The secondary sector transforms raw materials into manufactured goods. The tertiary deals with services rather than goods. This sector dominates both high and low income …show more content…

The two main economic systems are capitalism and socialism. Capitalism is an economic system in which natural resources and the means of producing goods and services are privately owned. In capitalism, there is an emphasis put on personal profit and a stress on competition. The U.S. is not completely capitalized. The government plays a large role in our economy. The government owns and operates places such as schools, roads, and parks. Socialism is an economic system in which natural resources and the means of producing goods and services are collectively owned. In socialism, there is little to no commercial advertising. I found this video to be extremely

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Lowell Mills Girls According to the article “Power Looms. One Girl Works Four.” , women held nearly two-thirds of all textile jobs in Lowell, Massachusetts. Francis Cabot Lowell hired women, mostly from farm families, to work in the city for his textile factories.

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• Economic System – A nation’s system for allocating its resources among its citizens, both individuals and organizations – Factors of Production – Land – Labour – Capital – Entrepreneurs – Physical resources – Information resources There are basically four types of economic systems: 1) Market economy- An economic system in which individuals own and operate different factions of production. Examples: Free Enterprise & Capitalism Individual producers must figure out how to plan, organise and coordinate the production of products and services.

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While men made 27 yen for their work, women were being paid with only 13 yen. This wasn’t even enough to buy what they needed such as food or other necessities. “For a female worker to buy a pound of sugar, she had to work 15 hours

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Mary has no claims that she had been evaluated unfairly because she was a woman and her pay had never been an issue until she found out that the men were getting more money than she was receiving. She has not stated any reason as to why the men are getting paid more than her. If they are all working in the same types of position then they should be receiving equal pay unless there organization is actually working off of the merit pay system. If they are working off of another pay system such as the seniority pay system then Mary should be making more than the males because she has been there five or more years longer than they have. These pay systems were not mentioned in the scenario so there is no way to actually prove that the men are getting paid more for these reasons.

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The Lowell Mills started out in Lowell Massachusetts, The Lowell Mills was founded in the early 1820’s. they were founded by Francis Cabot Lowell. The women that worked there were between the ages of 15 to 35. the women worked for around 13 hours each day. The girls would work about 20 hours a week with very little pay and poor service.

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To describe the Lowell Textile mills it requires hours and days of research, to get an insight of the industrial labor and factory systems. The mills were viewed as a promising opportunity in the early years but after years of service, flaws started to surface. Many of the problems were between the workers and the company. The mills working conditions were tremendously severe.

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I found that the Towns of Biddeford and Saco were an interesting example of this historical dilemma. Saco, Maine was one of the first towns in the region to develop as an industrial town as its first factory was built in 1811. In 1826 the largest cotton mill in the United States was built with seven floors.

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Although the Lowell Mill girls were able to gain some independence and wages, many believed that the wage-labor factory system as a form of slavery with the harsh working conditions and long hours. The Harbinger mentions, “The atmosphere of such a room cannot of course be

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Because of education the amount of jobs for citizens has increased, people get to choose their own path. Some may say that the paying system for males to females was unfair then and still unfair now. But truth be told the reason the men got paid more during the Industrial Revolution was because their work involved a ton of manual labor. Document eleven (pg 12) shows the men’s work compared to the women’s. Men: mill manager, mechanics and engine driver, carpenters and blacksmiths, winders, spindle cleaners/sweepers, machinery attendants, etc.

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“Wages dropped and working conditions worsened” (“Harriet Hanson Robinson”). This is why many of the valued mill girls started to fight back. Lowell, a man who ran his own mill, gave young women a safe place to live and work in ,because they were all very valuable and important to his work. He provided a safe work environment and a secure place to sleep in at night. As a mill girl, having a safe place to live in was important, but textile mills began to drop the safe and respectable ways they ran things.

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The Merriam-Webster definition of socialism is “any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.” In simple terms socialism is the collective ownership of goods and the means by which they are distributed. Although many socialists today would be quick to distinguish communism and socialism as two different things, they do indeed work together. Communism being defined by Merriam-Webster as “a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed.” Communism is just the outpouring of the philosophical idea of socialism.

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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).

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Economic systems are the means by which a country and the government distribute resources and trade goods and services. It is a system of organizing a country's economy. There are different ways of organizing a country's economy with certain ones working better for one region but destroying another. The basic ones are mixed, market, traditional, and command economies. The United States uses a mixed economy while Soviet Russia uses command economy.

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The men during this time were paid significantly higher than women were. While men were paid higher than women, factory owners thought it was beneficial to hire women because they were unaware of what “good pay” was. Even if some women were strong enough for the job, all women were often excluded from it. Men were the dominant figure which meant they could all of the jobs

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Capitalism is an economic system that is based on competence. Competence is having required skills, qualification, or knowledge to do something. Capitalism recognizes individuals rights and enforces private property rights. With capitalism, the country's industry and trade is controlled by individual owners for profit, not by the state. The United States is an example of a capitalistic government and it plays a very important part in our lives.

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