18231823–1850 · Lowell, Massachusetts

Lowell's textile mills and the mill girls

The brick Boott Cotton Mills in Lowell, Massachusetts, with their clock tower and canal railings — Photo: Carol M. Highsmith. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Boston investors built Lowell from 1823 as a planned mill city on the Merrimack, driven by canals and staffed largely by young New England women living in company boarding houses. The mill girls published their own magazine, walked out against wage cuts in 1834 and 1836, and under Sarah Bagley petitioned for a ten-hour day. Lowell became the template for American industrialisation.

Sites

Site 1: Boott Cotton Mills Museum, Lowell National Historical ParkA weave room of running power looms, deafening as the mill girls knew it.Map ↗
Site 2: Mill Girls and Immigrants exhibit, Boott boarding houseRestored company boarding house showing how the workers lived.Map ↗
Site 3: Pawtucket Canal and Guard LocksGatehouse and locks of the canal system that powered the mills.Map ↗

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