Document 4
representatives of the harbinger visited factories in lowell, massachusetts, and manchester, new hampshire.
this is an excerpt from the magazine’s report of its findings.
… the girls [in the lowell mills] attended upon an average three looms; many attended four,
but this requires a very active person, and the most unremitting [constant] care. however, a
great many do it. attention to two is as much as should be demanded of an operative. this gives
us some idea of the application required during the thirteen hours of daily labor. the
atmosphere of such a room cannot of course be pure; on the contrary, it is charged with cotton
filaments and dust, which, we are told, are very injurious to the lungs.
on entering the room, although the day was warm, we remarked that the windows were down.
we asked the reason, and a young woman answered very naively, and without seeming to be in
the least aware that this privation of fresh air was anything else than perfectly natural, that “when
the wind blew, the threads did not work well.” after we had been in the room for fifteen or
twenty minutes, we found ourselves, as did the persons who accompanied us, in quite a
perspiration, produced by a certain moisture which we observed in the air, as well as by the
heat.…
source: “the female workers of lowell,” the harbinger, november 14, 1836
4 according to this document, what was one condition faced by factory workers in the lowell mills in the
183os?