The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1889-01-26
EIGHTY YEARS AGO.
The Social Position of the OidTlmo Ne,
England Mill Girl.

The Social Position of the O1d-Timo New
England Mill Girl.
When, at the beginning of the CEN
tury, tho cotton business arose, 1t af-
forded the girls OF New England the
first opportunity to find occupation out
side their homes sufficiently important
to affect the destiny OF any large num-
ber of them. They rushed into the new
opening, not dreaming that they were
precipitating their sex into the mael-
strom of modern industry, or that they
were merely the advance guard OF q
great army of female workers, whose
disadvantageous attitude towards eco
nomic forces is one Of the most fruitful
sources of suffering in our social body.
1t was not the stupid girls who, in that
early day, broke away from the monot-
ony of farm life, or the still worse help
lessness of existence with parents too
poor to be farmers. 1t was the bright,
eager young women, who went to the
mills to earn money, and free them
selves from the semi-servitude engen-
dered by dependence on relatives.
The story has often been told of
the Lowell factory girls who pub
lished a paper, and in time set
tied to no meaner avocation than that
of author or social rcformer. There
are legions also of generation of
Yankee mill girls who sent to Preston
S. Brooks the suggestive tribute of
thirty pieces of silver, after his assault
upon Charles Sumner. But the ca
reers concerning which these stories
are related belong to late period in
the history of the Americans connec-
tion with the manual part of cotton
manufacture, and some of them were
exceptionally striking. Still, such in
cidents indicate something which it
is important to understand, and
that is that the nice girls of New
England for many years became mill
operatives. OF course do not mean
that such labor was ever aristocratic,
but that it possessed certain social
sanction which it does not now COM
mand. A consideration OF the average
fortunes of the native help leads to the
same conclusion. The mill girl had
worldly superiors then as the dress
maker, the typewriter, the telegraph
operator, the common school teacher,
has now, but she was from exactly the
same stock, and was herself just the
same sort of girl, as are the ones who
now follow these different vocations.
She maintained her dignity while in
the mill, and if she left it before she
grew old it was because she wanted to
leave it-usually because some man
wisely wanted to marry her. Her
marriage was generally sensible, and
sometimes brilliant. In studying
the traditions of the whole period,
one finds occasional hints of that
romance which attaches to all history,
rs amid the homely details one catches
now and then n glimpse of ideal beauty.
and comes upon the trace of some girl
whose loveliness attracted fate quite
different from that of her village COM
rades. 1t is happily due to the purity
of New England ethics that this fate is
more often found to be joyful than sad.
i suppose it would be impossible to
obtain statistics which would tell us
much either of the life of the Ameri-
cans who were operatives, or of tho
after fate of their descendants. But
every person who has been long
familiar with the native residents in
the older manufacturing towns is
necessarily acquainted with many
family histories, which reveal the es-
sential features of that former time,
when factories were small, and owners
and workers were often not only
but friends. They were all
subjected to the ancient New England
village tradition of substantial equality.
They were of one blood. they held to
one religion, and called each other
very generally by their Christian
names. "Of that early time, p" writes a
lady now more than eighty years old,
'I have many recollections, when the
wife of Mr.. S. met the wives OF
overseers not only in her church work
or at prayer meetings, but in social
equality."-Lillie B. Chase Wyman,
in Atlantic.