Chapter 10 Part 4

Lowell's Offering

The Lowell Offering, 1840-1845, was written and published by working women. This monthly magazine was organized by the Reverend Abel Charles Thomas (1807-1880), pastor of the First Universalist Church. From October 1840 to March 1841, it consisted of articles that emerged from many of the improvement circles or literary societies. Later, it then became broader in its scope and received more spontaneous contributions. From October 1842 until December 1845, it was edited by Harriot F. Curtis (1813-1889), and Harriet Farley (1817-1907). Farley, manager and proprietor, published selections from the Offering under the title Shells from the Strand of the Sea of Genius (1847).

"Commonwealth v Hunt"

(1842) was a landmark legal decision issued by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on the subject of labor unions. Before this decision, based on Commonwealth v. Pullis, labor unions which attempted to 'close' or create a unionized workplace could be charged with conspiracy. However, in March 1842, Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw ruled that unions were legal organizations and had the right to organize a strike. legalized the existence of trade organizations, though trade unions would continue to be harassed legally through anti-trust suits and injunctions. The Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932 and the Wagner Act of 1935 recognized labor's right to organize unions, but unions were not fully recognized as legal until later on. Though judges throughout the decade would become more anti-union, Commonwealth v. Hunt served as a legitimizer for trade unions

Changing Workforce

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National Trade's Union

In the mid-1830s, hard times and frustration with the inutility of their expanded voting rights drove tens of thousands of urban wage earners toward unionism. By 1836 as many as fifty local unions had formed in Philadelphia and New York, with more in Baltimore; Boston; Albany, Schenectady, and Troy, New York; Washington, D.C.; Newark and New Brunswick, New Jersey; Cincinnati, Ohio; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Louisville, Kentucky; and elsewhere. While some organized national unions within their crafts, most participated in citywide "trades' unions," which established the short-lived National Trades' Union in 1834 under the presidencies of first Ely Moore then John Commerford. The NTU collapsed with most of its constituent bodies during the panic of 1837.

Lowell System

The Lowell system was a method of factory management that evolved in the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, owned by the Boston Manufacturing Company. In 1814, the Boston Company built America's first fully mechanized mill in Waltham, Massachusetts. Nine years later, the company built a complex of new mills at East Chelmsford, soon renamed Lowell in honor of the company's founder, Francis Lowell. With the production process fully mechanized, the principal limitation on the firm's output was the availability of labor, and here the company made its second innovation: it began to recruit young farm girls from the surrounding countryside. In order to attract these women and to reassure their families, the owners developed a paternalistic approach to management that became known as the Lowell system.The mill workers were housed in clean, well-run boardinghouses, were strictly supervised both at work and at home, and were paid unusually good wages. The farm girls responded with enthusiasm. They soon became renowned as excellent employees, and their lively self-improvement program (including a literary magazine) drew international attention. Few of the Lowell women worked more than a few years, but for every one who returned home to marry, two new ones appeared. By the 1830s, the Lowell system had become a national symbol of the fact that in America, humanity could go hand in hand with industrial success.Even at the pinnacle of its renown, however, conditions in Lowell had begun to deteriorate. In 1834, an economic downturn led to the mills' first wage cuts. In the 1840s, managers instituted a speedup, requiring higher and higher output for the same hourly wage. The women formed the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association and tried to appeal to their employers and then to the state legislature through petitions. These led to state investigations in 1845 and 1846, but little changed. After 1848, conditions deteriorated further, as New England's textile industry began to suffer from overexpansion. Seeking cheaper labor, the mill owners turned increasingly to Irish immigrants and in the process discontinued the management policies they had devised to attract workers from the farms. By the 1850s, the Lowell system had been abandoned.