Loom and Spindle, or Life Among the Early Mill Girls

by Harriet Jane Hanson Robinson

Author Harriet Hanson Robinson (1825-1911), born Harriet Jane Hanson in Boston, offers a first person account of her life as a factory girl in Lowell, Massachusetts in this 1898 work. Robinson moved with her widowed mother and three siblings to Lowell as the cotton industry was booming, and began working as a bobbin duffer at the age of ten for $2 a week. Her reflections of the life, some 60 years later, are unfailingly upbeat. She was educated, in public school, by private lesson, and in church. The community was tightly knit. She also had the opportunity to write poetry and prose for the factory girls' literary magazine The Lowell Offering. When mill girls returned to their rural family homes, she says, " instead of being looked down upon as 'factory girls,' they were more often welcomed as coming from the metropolis, bringing new fashions, new books, and new ideas with them."

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Memoir, Feminism

128 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1898

About the author

From Wikipedia: Harriet Jane Hanson Robinson (February 8, 1825 – December 22, 1911) worked as a bobbin doffer in a Massachusetts cotton mill and was involved in a turnout, became a poet and author, and played an important role in the women's suffrage movement in the United States.[3]

Spouse of https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Mother of https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

sister of https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Reviews

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book from my own bookshelf. Again, I don't remember where or when I got it. How do these books get into the house? This book, written when the author was about 70 years old, tells about her very positive experiences as an employee in the Lowell, MA cotton mill industry 60 years earlier. She started in the mills alongside her mother at age 10. Her attitude is surprising as we tend to think of 19th century factory experiences as being horrible. Apparently the textile industry of the post revolution era needed workers so badly that they made it worth it. The powers that be decided to recruit New England farm girls, and widows and single women who would normally be considered burdens to their families, and some boys as well, and they came to Lowell in droves. According to Ms. Robinson, they were given very decent and pleasant housing, good wages, light and airy working conditions, jobs appropriate to the age of the "operative", and many opportunities for self improvement in the form of libraries, numerous lectures, and self improvement clubs. She remembers one young lady who came down from Maine, not because she needed money, but because she had heard that Lowell had many, many more books than could be had in her small and rural town! These workers put family members through school, paid off farm mortgages, and otherwise made their families at home more comfortable and profitable. Some contributed to the well known "Lowell Offering", their own literary magazine. Some of these women went on to have careers as writers, artists, an inventor, and one even served time as a U.S. Secretary of the Treasury! One Lowell employee wrote a scathing letter to a U.S. Senator whose views on the treatment of slaves was way out of sync with the reality of their living conditions. Much of that letter could have been written right now, this year. Future abolitionists and suffragettes were among these Lowell mill girls. Ms. Robinson went on to marry a local reporter and raise her children. Later she published her own books and articles, was active in both movements just mentioned, and continued her pursuit of learning by almost daily travelling into Boston for lectures, meetings, and social opportunities. In her book Loom and Spindle, she contrasts her own excellent experience in the Lowell mills with the reality of the late nineteenth century when factory conditions had badly deterioted. Young women of the later era whom she interviewed were tired and dispirited with little time to care about books and learning as her crowd had been. It is a fascinating and infuriating contrast. I am quite familiar with the city of Lowell and its textile mill history, but I had never really informed myself of the changing conditions within the industry, and really throughout the nighteteenth century in America. Loom and Spindle is an engaging memoir which offers incite into how positive a work environment can be when owners, employers, and operatives consider themselves partners of sorts, with a common goal, beneficial to all. I am proud to say that, in a different century and a different town, but in the very same county as Lowell MA, my own grandmother, a Polish immigrant, was a "mill girl" for the Pequot cotton sheeting company.

[Kim Dennis · Rating 5 out of 5]

From a history teacher's perspective, I found this book fascinating. It doesn't portray the image I have always had of factory life. Maybe it's the difference between the Lowell system and the Rhode Island system? I think also, some of it was because of Harriet Robinson's personality. In the book, she says, "Undoubtedly there might have been another side to this picture, but I give the side I knew best,–the bright side!" She seems to be a naturally optimistic person.

I have recently done some research into factory life for an assignment I gave my students and came across a letter written by Sarah Bagley who was at the Lowell Mills at the same time, where she compares factory life to slavery. I noticed that Sarah wasn't given a biographical sketch when Harriet was outlining the women who had contributed to the Lowell Offering magazine, even though she had mentioned earlier that Sarah did contribute. I also noticed that she included a letter from another "mill-girl" who adamantly refuted a comment from a southern senator comparing the life of factory workers to those of enslaved people.

It makes me want to find a really good book that analyzes both sides of the issue. It is also a great lesson on perspective.

[Leslie Reiber · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting bit of Americana ... I enjoyed this 1898 book a lot, and learned a lot I hadn't known. It describes the factory system and female workers in Lowell, Massachusetts during the early 19th century period of American industrialization. I'm not sure if the early system in Lowell was a deliberately enlightened one, though it seems that the factory owners were certainly attempting to differentiate themselves from the onerous Brittish factories of the time.
In any case, the author reflects on her own childhood and young womenhood in the factories in a largely positive manner, and argues - very effectively - that the new opportunity for young women from isolated towns throughout New England to recieve wages for their work, in a collective urban setting, led to major advances in womens' educational, social and economic position by the end of the century.

[Daniel Ronan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm just going to read this little ol' book by this little ol' lady describing her life as a young woman working as a factory-girl in Lowell Ma, making pretty little cloth and fabrics with her spindles and looms.

Meanwhile, "They will carry on the warfare in their own way; and if employees are wise they will try to do something practical to prevent strikes, riots, and labor unions, which are the working man's weapon of defense."

Fuck yeah Mrs. Robinson. Time for the working people to rise up and be ready to burn this fucker down if the billionaires don't know to get out of the way.

[Drew K · Rating 5 out of 5]

A friend (and fellow fiber enthusiast) gave me this book and I really enjoyed reading it! This book is really a slice of life in a factory town, and it's clear the author has deep respect for the work she did, the women she worked with, and the lives they all went on to lead. I truly had no idea about so many of the experiences covered in this book!

[A'Llyn Ettien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating personal account of work in an early industrial 'corporation.' Her discussion of the contrast between the early days and the then-current (1898) work environment is very interesting.

[Vig Sivaganesh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Offered insight into the life of the Lowell Mill girls and the benefits that they had working there around the 1840s time period. Through working in the Mills, women were able to establish themselves in various aspects of life in a society that was mainly male driven. This earlier time period was contrasted to the living conditions of the later factory setting that Robinson was able to experience, which was closer to the time that she wrote the book (1890s).

[Peg Willis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Both entertaining and informative

I was amazed to learn of the rich life of the early "mill girls" in Lowell Massachusetts. In later years the mills changed and owners took advantage of the laborers in many ways. But at the beginning, the factory owners not only provided good housing and paid fair wages, they also encouraged learning in their employees. As a weaver, I found this book enlightening!

[Caeser Pink · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is a fun read. The book doesn't really focus on life inside the mill, the life of the Mill Girls in Lowell, MA. Of lot of attention is paid to the production of the Lowell Offering, a magazine written and published by the mill girls. It was interesting to hear a firsthand account of life in a different time and place.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was interesting to read about the earliest history of mills in America. I had heard of Lowell MA as a mill town, but only that. First hand account written 50 years later has a certain glow of nostalgia as the author acknowledges, but the facts remain.