Evening journal. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1888-1932, 1889-01-30
YANKEE MILL GIRLS.



the Looms Forty Years Ago.
When. at the beginning of the century, the
cotton business arose il afforded the girls OF
New England the first opportunity TO find
occupation outside their homes sufficiently
important to Lfect the destiny Of any large
number Of them. They rushed into the new
opening not dreaming that they were pre-
cipitating their sex into the maelssrom of
modern industry, or that they were merely
the advance guard Of great army Of female
workers, whose disadvantageous attitude
towards economic fo--ss il one of the most
fruitful sources Of sSz-s-sag in our social
body.
II was not the stupid g-ri who in that early
day broke away from TIE monotony Of farm
life, or the still worse helplessness Of exist
ence with parents too poor to be farmers. 1t
was the bright, eager young women who
went to the mills TO earn money and free
themselves from the semi-servitude engen-
dered by dependence on relatives. The story
has often been told Of the Lowell factory girls
who published paper, and in time settled to
no meaner avocation than that Of author or
social reformer
There are legends also of a generation Of
Yankee mill girls who sent to Preston S.
Brooks the suggestive tribute of thirty pieces
Of silver, after his assault upon Charles Sum
ner But the careers concerning which these
stories are related belong to q late period 10
the history Of the Americans connection with
the manual part Of cotton manufacture, md
some Of them were exceptionally striking.
Still, such incidents 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 1t passed certain
social sanction which it does not now COM
pland. A consideration Of the average for
tunes Of the native help leads to the same
conclusion.
The mill girl had worldly super.ssyrs then
az the dressmaker, the typewriter, the tee
graph operPeor, the common school teacher,
iAs po'.., but she was from exactly the same
lock and was herself just the same sort Of
girl as are the ones who now follow these diff
ferent vacations. She maintained her dig
nifty 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, as amid the
homely details one catches now and then a
glimpse Of ideal beauty, and comes upon the
trace of some girl whose loneliness attracted
a fate quite different from that Of her village
comrades. 1t is happily due to the purity of
New England ethics that this fate is more
often found to be joyful than sad
Isnppose it would be impossible to obtain
statistics which would tell Us much either Of
the life of the Americans who were opera.
tives or Of the after fate of their descendants
But every person who has been long familiar
with the native residents in the older manu-
featuring towns is necessarily acquainted
with many family histories. which reveal the
essential features of that former time, wher
factories were small and owners and workers
were often not only neighbors but friends
They were all subjected to the ancient New
England village tradition Of substantial
equality. They were of one blood, they hello
to one religion, and called each other very
generally by their Christian names "Oi
that early timen writes q lady now more
than 50 years old, "Ihave many recolections
when the wife Of Mr.. s. met the wives o.
'overseers, not only in her church work on a
prayer meetings, but in social equality. ~
/ Atlantic Monthly.