Where Should a Mill Girl Work?

Working conditions in British and American mills were unhealthy and dangerous for workers. Mill owners wanted to make more and more money. The only way to make more profit was to work the mill girls for longer, more intense days. Both the mill girls in Britain and in America were overworked and were put into unhealthy situations.

Working conditions in the American mills were very poor. The average working day was 13 hours, and the girls only got paid $3.50 for 6 days of work. If the girls were ever late to work part of their pay was taken away as a punishment. One of the Lowell mill girls named Lucie Hall said that there were 4-6 girls per bedroom. Lucie also told about how readily the girls would gossip about each other. Rumors that spread caused some of the mill girls to be fired. The rooms of the mill were noisy and dusty. Working conditions were so poor that the mill girls compared themselves to the slaves who picked the cotton.

In the European mills conditions were also unacceptable. No time was given for the girls to rest and eat breakfast or dinner. These two essential meals were eaten while working the machines. Charles Dickens described the mills in England as “great haunts of desperate misery.” The mill rooms were dark and unclean. The men who served as overseers were abusive. One of the overseers in England was named Thomas Birks, but the mill girls referred to him as “Tom the Devil” because of how mean he was. Tom was known for treating all the girls poorly. The overseers were encouraged to be brutal, and sometimes they beat the girls so hard that they thought they might have killed them. The mill was unclean, and when visitors came to tour the mills the girls were forced to hide the horrible conditions and lie about how they were treated.

Charles Dickens http://an.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens#mediaviewer/File:Charles_Dickens_1858.jpg

The conditions in both the English and the American mills were frightening, but the mills in England were much worse than their American counterparts. Families in America didn’t usually have to send their daughters to go work in the mills because they had large farms with plenty of opportunities for work. Families in England usually didn’t have as much land to farm on as the Americans did so they sent their daughters to work in the mills in order to have another source of income. This desperation for money in England led mill towns to be dirty and unpleasant with many homeless people. Both the English and the American mill girls received similar amounts of food, but in England the girls had to work while eating while the Americans did not. American mill girls also worked shorter days than the English mill girls, which made life marginally more tolerable. Working conditions were poor in American and English mills and many girls got very sick and died because of the working environment.
Sources:
http://www.edline.net/files/_4PG3O_/bcd1077eba091d1d3745a49013852ec4/History10IndustrialRevolutionDBQ.pdf
http://ashp.cuny.edu/ashp-documentaries/daughters-of-free-men/
http://www.edline.net/files/_4VHjG_/08acc167877a2f4a3745a49013852ec4/Unit_1_Activity_5_-_Readings_on_Factory_Conditions.pdf