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402 ' LOWELL AND ITS OPEKATIYJES.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
? Boaeding Houses.
their _tidjv comfortable , and often luxurious homes , all over the East and West . Their husbands , although labourers , are in very many
cases the owners of their pretty homes , and surrounding gardens or farms . They are considered really poor who do not have their
houses furnished with carpets , sofas , and numerous elegancies of life . Parents and children are clad in neat , and even fashionable
. attire . The children have ample opportunities for extensive education ,, and if they have brains in proportion , leave their
" Foot-prints on the sands of time . " Intemperanceand idleness of husbands , cause almost the only
ex-, _ceptions to this general condition of the factory-girl "wives . That some factory girls go down to moral death is doubtless too
true ; but the writer believes cases of this kind are of less frequent occurrence with factory operatives than with poor seamstresses
and shop-girls , whose small remuneration , false ideas of labour , and love of dress , drive , and draw them into sin . To the friend of
humanity , the mill-girl , in her plain attire , is a far more refreshing sight than is she who makes shirts for Jive cents apieceand flaunts
, in finery purchased at a terrible price . There is no department of labour , not excepting teaching , where
the difference in the compensation of males and females is not . greater than with factory operatives ; and this is still more equalized
in large manufacturing places , by a reduction in the prices of many _things in favour of female operatives .
The writer , does not contend that they are sufficiently paid , or that their hours of labour are not too many . She has attempted
in this article but to show what is their actual condition , and has based her opinions upon reliable statistics , * the opinions of those
long and intimately familiar with the subject , the testimony of the operatives themselves ; and her observations while a resident
for six years in the city of Lowell , in which time she became personally acquainted with many in various departments connected
with the factories . As a class she found the operatives intelligent and well informed uj _> on general subjects , * many of them possessed
_education fitting them for other employment than tending machines ; soine with talents and accomplishments that would have
graced any position . She could not find , even from the testimony > of those who have tried different kinds of labour , that factory life
has hardships or disagreeables surpassing those in other employmentswhile it has advantages not found in every occupation . A
, mill girl "writes : — " There is little difference between an operative ' s life and any other life of labour . It lies— *
' Half in sunshine—half in shade . ' Few " could "wish to spend a whole life in a factory , and few are
discontented who do thus seek a subsistence for a term of months or
years . " It is surely not the worst of the few occupations open to
402 ' Lowell And Its Opekatiyjes.
402 ' LOWELL AND ITS _OPEKATIYJES .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Aug. 1, 1863, page 402, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01081863/page/42/
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