So they attempted to make special contracts with each
employee. The workmen objected to this and struck. Finally they
compromised on a ten-hour day and a sixteen per cent reduction in
wages. Such an arrangement became a common occurrence in the
industrial world of the middle of the century.
In the meantime the factory system was rapidly recruiting women
workers, especially in the New England textile mills. Indeed, as
early as 1825 "tailoresses" of New York and other cities had
formed protective societies. In 1829 the mill girls of Dover, New
Hampshire, caused a sensation by striking. Several hundred of
them paraded the streets and, according to accounts, "fired off a
lot of gunpowder." In 1836 the women workers in the Lowell
factories struck for higher wages and later organized a Factory
Girls' Association which included more than 2,500 members. It was
aimed against the strict regimen of the boarding houses, which
were owned and managed by the mills. "As our fathers resisted
unto blood the lordly avarice of the British Ministry," cried the
strikers, "so we, their daughters, never will wear the yoke which
has been prepared for us."
In this vibrant atmosphere was born the powerful woman's labor
union, the Female Labor Reform Association, later called the
Lowell Female Industrial Reform and Mutual Aid Society. Lowell
became the center of a far-reaching propaganda characterized by
energy and a definite conception of what was wanted. The women
joined in strikes, carried banners, sent delegates to the labor
conventions, and were zealous in propaganda.
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