Lowell girls

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lowell Girls were the women that worked at factories in New England in the early and mid-1800's. The girls employed at the factories were all single, young, and worked for cheap wages. At the time, this was the cheapest form of labor that did not require the use of males for strength. The girls were put into apartments paid for by the factories, and were fed by the factories. The girls were normally watched over by a "nanny"-like older woman who made sure that they stuck to their schedule. The Lowell girls were mainly empoyed at textile factories. They got their name from the first city to create the system of employing women - Lowell, Massachusetts. The Lowell Girls system died out in the mid-1800's when immigrant labor became cheaper than using Americans.