Dear Mama Letters From A Mill Girl

Lowell, Massachusetts, on the Merrimack River, was founded in the 1820s as a textile manufacturing center.

- Cynthia Overbeck Bix

Powered by the river’s 30-foot waterfall, the great mills housed thousands of machines that processed raw cotton into thread and then wove the thread into cloth.

Mill owners needed many workers to operate those machines, but they didn’t want to pay too much for labor. They found the perfect labor force—mostly teenage girls and young women from the farms of New England. Life on farms had given girls and women experience in cloth production. They saw mill work as a way to help their families by sending money home as well as an opportunity to earn a little money of their own.

To help attract female workers, mill owners built boardinghouses near the mills. A respectable older woman called the boardinghouse keeper ran the house. She monitored the girls’ activities and was required to report any bad behavior to mill management.

Work at the mills was tightly managed and monotonous. The girls signed a contract that bound them to follow the company’s rules and to work six days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day, for at least one year. They were on their feet all day.

Grace, the 14-year-old girl in the following story, comes from a farm. She is a fictional character, but her story is based on the actual experience of mill girls.

Lowell, Massachusetts - September 21, 1835

Dear Mama,

I am arrived in Lowell at last. My, what a lot I h ave to tell you!

The journey here seemed mighty long. Bumping along in the wagon and then the train, I couldn’t help but think how every mile w as carrying me farther away from home.