LOOM AND SPINDLE OR Life Among the Early Mill Girls WITH A ...

Their lives had kept pace for so many years with the stage-coach and the canal that they
thought, no doubt, if they thought about it at all, that they should crawl along in this way
forever. But into this life there came an element that was to open a new era in the
activities of the country.
This was the genius of mechanical industry, which would build the cotton-factory, set in
motion the loom and the spinning-frame, call together an army of useful people, open
wider fields of industry for men and (which was quite as important at that time) for
women also. For hitherto woman had always been a money-saving, rather than a moneyearning,
member of the community, and her labor could command but small return. If she
worked out as servant, or "help," her wages were from fifty cents to one dollar a week; if
she went from house to house by the day to spin and weave, or as tailoress, she could get
but seventy-five cents a week and her meals. As teacher her services were not in demand,
and nearly all the arts, the professions, and even the trades and industries, were closed to
her, there being, as late as 1840, only seven vocations, outside the home, into which the
women of New England had entered. (Author's note: These were teaching, needlework,
keeping boarders, factory labor, type-setting, folding and stitching in book binderies….)
The Middlesex Canal was one of the earliest factors in New England enterprise. It began
its course at Charlestown Mill-pond, and ended it at Lowell. It was completed in 1804, at
the cost of $700,000, and was the first canal in the United States to transport both
passengers and merchandise. Its charter was extinguished in 1859, in spite of all
opposition, by a decision of the Supreme Court. And thus, in less than sixty years, this
marvel of engineering skill, as it was then considered, which was projected to last for all
time, was ''switched off the track " by its successful rival, the Boston and Lowell
Railroad, and, with the stage-coach and the turnpike road became a thing of the past.
The course of the old Middlesex Canal can still be traced, as a cow-path or a woodland
lane, and in one place, which I have always kept in remembrance, very near the
Somerville Station on the Western Division of the Boston and Maine Railroad, can still
be seen a few decayed willows, nodding sleepily over its grass-grown channel and ridgy
paths,–a reminder of those slow times when it took a long summer's clay to travel the
twenty-eight miles from Boston to Lowell.
The Boston and Lowell Railroad, probably the first in the United States, went into
operation in 1835. I saw the first train that went out of Lowell, and there was great
excitement over the event. People were gathered along the street near the " deepot,"
discussing the great wonder; and we children stayed at home from school, or ran
barefooted from our play, at the first "toot " of the whistle. As I stood on the sidewalk, I
remember hearing those who stood near me disputing as to the probable result of this new
attempt at locomotion. " The ingine never can start all them cars!" "She can, too." "She
can't." "I don't believe a word of it." "She'll break down and kill everybody," was the cry.
But the engine did start, and the train came back, and the Boston and Lowell Railroad
continued an independent line of travel for about the same number of years as its early