The Strings of a Revolution

The snow whipped up under my skirt as I made a quick dash from the dining hall to the dorm building where twenty six women and I lived. Six of us lived in one room which was small and comfortless, but I had heard of worse conditions. As I hung my coat on a nail stuck into the thin walls of the building, strings and small pieces of cloth fell to the floor. They looked sad and lonely. As a girl of 17, I had a lot to say, but nobody here, except Mary, really cared to listen. I didn’t stop talking though, mostly because I dreaded the ringing in my ears from the looms when it was quiet. I talked, but not in the annoying useless way. All the women, except Mary, with her knotted light brown hair, were reading their tattered versions of the “offering”. The “offering” was just a magazine written by “factory operatives”, which I think just means people who work at the mill. I think it’s kind of boring with all the poems and short stories, but the “women” think it makes them look educated.

“Hey Clara,” Mary sang in her braggy sing-song voice, “your legs tired?”

“Well yes, but it’s okay. I’m making my own money Mary, my own!”

“Your dad’s probably just going to take it from you when you get home,” she responded, her head sticking over the top bunk. I pulled my boots off and tried to ignore the thought of all the splinters that were going to be stuck in my feet as I climbed up the wooden ladder of the bunk. Mary was always talking about going on a “strike” with some Factory Girls Association, which I think she just made up, which is so like her to do. I just don’t really see anything wrong with the textile mills here in Lowell, Massachusetts.

“This is a respectable job, Mary, working at the looms, turning raw cotton into fabric.”

“Well, the work isn’t that bad, but I don’t know, I just think something’s off.”

“They gives us lodging, feed us, we have good wages they even teach us some and most of all we don’t have to work on a farm and...”

“We make our own money,” her head plopping down on the pillow, signaling that the conversation was over. We both knew each other’s arguments way to well.

The sun was still sleeping under the Charles River when we were called to breakfast and then to the mills to set up our looms. That was the worst part of this job, the hours. We worked from five in the morning to seven at night, five or so days a week. It was the day that new doffers would start. Doffers were the ones who removed the bobbins from the looms. There was a little bit of chaos there, organizing them all, but I just stayed in my bubble. Thunk, swoosh, thunk, swoosh. The constant monotony of the eighty looms in the long, cold, building.

“Hi, I don’t mean to bother you, but they said to go here and help you. I’m the new doffer for you, well not only you but a couple of people like that lady over there who looks like my cousin who had pah nea mouin ea,” the girl, just a little younger than I, stumbled over the word pneumonia. Even though I talk a lot, there is nothing that annoys me more that people who talk a lot. I didn’t even glance at her.

“Well, she died, but anyways, oh my, I didn’t even introduce myself. That’s so rude of me, my ma would kill me right now if she was here, but of course she isn’t. She’s back in Philadelphia, well not actually in the city, but outside of it. Bertha,” and then she just stopped talking and stared into the distance, I finally looked up at her.

“Oh good, I noticed you weren’t looking at me so I made you look at me, because I hate it when people ignore me. But I’m Bertha,” she stated proudly as she stuck her hand out towards me. I left one hand on the loom and the other was, in a fast moment, holding onto her skinny pale hand. You can tell a lot from just looking at peoples hands. Her’s was covered in freckles and you could feel some of the bones. Her fingernails were jammed with dirt, the ones that weren’t black or absent from where they should have been. I drew my hand back, my lips trying to curl around to say Clara, but they never made it before one of the two attendants rang a loud bell to get our attention. In each mill building were eighty women and two men who keep an eye on us, and when I say eye, I mean ten eyes. They can see every move you make, so you’d better be careful.

“I’m sure you are all quite aware of the quite high costs of life these days,” there was a long pause before he continued, “so we have been requested by the board of directors to impose a 15% reduction of wages to go in effect on March 1st,” but by this point, you couldn’t hear him over the shouts and yells of the women. I didn’t know what to say, but I still talked. I talked about the unfairness and I talked about Bertha, I talked about the fact that this was less than a month away, and I talked about the weather in France. I talked about my sister and I talked about my Pa. Everybody talked, but nobody had anything to say.

The dorm room was silent that night, not women reading the “offering” silent, but scared silent. None of us knew what to think. It wasn’t the fact that we were getting a reduction to our wages, but that they didn’t care what we thought about it.

“Will you go to the meetings now Clara?” Mary being the only brave one to break the silence, but I don’t think she was really asking me, but herself.

It was February 28th and it wasn’t a leap year. Tomorrow was the day that our wages would be cut. I had gone to some of Mary’s meetings with her and the Factory Girls Association which was a real thing now. They had had long panel like meetings where they all agreed with each other, but still argued. I tossed and turned in my bed tonight. I could wake up tomorrow and carry on like nothing had changed or I could walk out of work. Hold up signs, patronizing the factories ways. One way, I would only lose 15% of my wage, the other I could lose none or my whole job. It was scary. I knew where Mary would be and I was pretty sure I knew where Bertha would be. Still loading up the bobbins. Still talking like her life depended on it, but maybe a little bit slower. But I didn’t know where I would be. Would I listen to the monotony of the looms or of the chanting of women. Was there a possibility that I could go to jail if I striked this institution, or would I put myself in my own personal jail if I didn’t walk out. I had no idea what to do. Our whole dorm room was split also. Sheets had been pushed to the foots of beds even though the February chills still seeped through the walls. Nobody could sleep, except for our fate, which would wake bright and early tomorrow.

Will Clara go on the strike or will she stay low and keep working at the textile mill in Lowell, Massachusetts. You can finish the story!

If you want to know what happens to the strike that Clara is theoretically thinking about participating in go here:

• http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5714/
• http://www.massaflcio.org/1834-lowell-mill-girls-%2526quot%3Bturnout%2526quot%3B-protest-wage-cuts

Image Credit:

Lowell Offering

https://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/11/11.001j/f01/lectureimages/4/image25.html

Mill Girls

https://yesteryearsnews.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/the-mill-girls-going-going-gone/
Illustration of Mills
https://www.britannica.com/place/Lowell-Massachusetts
Girls on Strike
http://cceindustrialrevolution1.weebly.com/lowell-mill-girls

Sources

• http://www.lowell.com/lowell-mill-girls/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_Mill_Girls
• http://history1800s.about.com/od/1800sglossary/g/Lowell-Mill-Girls.htm