Lowell Offering

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Cover of the Lowell Offering illustrating the paternalistic atmosphere.

Cover of the Lowell Offering, Series 1, No. 1

The Lowell Offering was a monthly periodical collected contributed works of poetry and fiction by the female textile workers (young women [age 15-35] known as the Lowell Mill Girls) of the Lowell, Massachusetts textile mills of the early American industrial revolution. It began in 1840 and lasted until 1845. It was first organized and edited by the minister of the First Universalist Church, Reverend Abel Charles Thomas.

Thomas first organized the publication in October 1840. As its popularity grew, workers contributed poems, ballads, essays and fiction – often using their characters to report on conditions and situations in their lives.^[1] The contents of the magazine alternated between serious and farcical. In the first issue, "A Letter about Old Maids" suggested that "sisters, spinsters, lay-nuns, &c" were an essential component of God's "wise design".^[2] Later issues – particularly in the wake of labor unrest in the factories – included an article about the value of organizing and an essay about suicide among the Lowell girls.^[3]

The University of Massachusetts Lowell currently uses the title for its student literary magazine as an homage.