One thing we will discover over the next two weeks will be the question of what the proper role for women should be, regarding the world of work. This was a question many years before the issue was whether or not a woman could be a pilot or do other kinds of "man's work". Come the industrial revolution at the end of the 18th century, mills began hiring women (and little children as well) to work among the thread-spinning machines and the looms. The actions of the mill owners were economic--smaller people meant that more machines would fit in a smaller and less expensive building. But what did "working outside of the home" do to a woman's reputation? As you could imagine, this was something quite controversial. For a number of years, there were a group of women working in the mills in Lowell, MA, who lived together in a dormitory (to protect them from unwanted male advances) and, discovering that they had a common interest in literature, put out a literary magazine called The Lowell Offering. Some of the volumes are available on the Internet Archive. You'll find them on my bookmark list.
The two short stories here represent what concerned families and friends of the "factory girls". As you mark them up, note what their primary concerns are. We'll discuss those and see if some of those concerns persist today.
The nick-name of Lowell once was Mill Town. Many of the industrial buildings you see near the downtowns of Providence, Fall River, or New Bedford were once mills. Most have left New England, first heading south for cheaper, non-unionized labor, and later, purchasing products in "third-world" countries, where labor costs are rock bottom, and selling them here. Ironically, the mills above have been converted in to luxury apartments.
The Grimke Sisters, Angelina (Left) and Sarah (Right) were powerful and important leaders of both the movement for the rights of women and abolition of slavery. As you'll notice from the dates of the letters I'm asking you to read, they were contemporaries of the women working in the Lowell Mills. Their own backgrounds make them even more remarkable. As noted at the website for the Women's Rights National Park, " Sarah Grimke (1792-1873) and Angelina Grimke Weld (1805-1879) were raised in the cradle of slavery on a plantation in South Carolina. The Grimke sisters, as they were known, grew to despise slavery after witnessing its cruel effects at a young age". Click on the image for more information about them.
No doubt life as an abolitionist became more and more difficult as the country neared civil war, and before Sarah wrote the letters I'm asking you to read, both sisters had moved north.
As you read and mark these up, what I want you to notice if there are remarks similar to early or contemporary documents (for example, the chapter of Wollstonecraft's work I asked you to read for Thursday the 17th--are some of the Grimkes' observations on social intercourse of the sexes echoed in them? Also consider the various legal disabilities. Do you see any of them as fair? If not, are some of them more disturbing to you than others are? You might make sticky notes on with your thoughts and comments about them.
History and the Modern World
