The Lowell Experiment

During the mid eighteenth and nineteenth century many girls who lived in the country went to the north, to the mills. Many of them participated in a social experiment called the Lowell Experiment, which tried to dispel the idea that the factory life had horrendous working conditions. The Lowell Experiment also tried to recruit workers for the factory. Unlike England the factories didn't have a pool of workers to fall back on because the families in America were more oriented toward working on small family owned farms instead of the mandatory factory work in England.

Girls who worked at the mills would often work for nearly 13 hours every day. The average pay for a weeks worth of work was as low as 2.5 dollars

The mill owners tried to make the mills seem as pleasurable as it could, so they could convince the families and the the girls to work there. The mills guaranteed that the mills would only be a temporary job for the girls. Once they came of age to marry they were let go, and were expected to find a suitable husband and settle down. The mills created boarding houses for the workers, with each one of them attended by a older woman who would serve them meals and  teach them lessons. The mill gave many of the mill girls the sense of freedom and independence.

Throughout the Revolution the Mill owners wanted to attract as many girls who weren't married as possible to their mills. During the Revolution, girls were preferred as the standard mill worker because the male population were need maintain the countries grain supply. During that time period, girls expected to be obedient and they were expected to become housewives and take care of the house while the husband was out farming, but during the revolution this role drastically changed from the increase in numbers of women working in the mills.

When the Civil War broke out, the Lowell experiment was finally put into halt by the rapidly changing economy. Even though many of the mill girls were fired from their jobs, they all would create an impact to the society. The mills also gave the girls an education, they could never have experienced if they stayed on the farm. Many of the former mill girls became activists and supported such movements like the Abolition movement, the Women's Right movement, and the civil rights movement. The Lowell Experiment not only changed how the people thought about the factory life, it also changed the course of the century.

Video depicting the working condition of workers in England