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

other that, whenever I wore it, he accused me of being more "holy than righteous."
Dyers and calico printers were soon sent for from England, and a long low block on the
Merrimack Corporation was built for their accommodation and called the "English Row."
When they arrived from the old country they were not satisfied with the wages, which
were not according to the agreement, and they would not go to work, but left the town
with their families in a large wagon with a band of music. Terms were made with them,
however, and they returned, and established in Lowell the art of calico printing.
The "Print Works" was a great mystery in its early days. It had its secrets, and it was said
that no stranger was allowed to enter certain rooms, for fear that the art would be stolen.
The first enduring color in print was an indigo blue. This was the groundwork, and a
minute white spot sprinkled over it made the goods lively and pretty. It wore like "iron,"
and its success was the first step toward the high standard in the market once held by the
"Merrimack Print."
Before 1840, the foreign element in the factory population was almost an unknown
quantity. The first immigrants to come to Lowell were from England. The Irishman soon
followed; but not for many years did the Frenchman, Italian, and German come to take
possession of the cotton-mills. The English were of the artisan class, but the Irish came as
``hewers of wood and drawers of water." The first Irishwomen to work in the Lowell
mills were usually scrubbers and waste-pickers. They were always good-natured, and
when excited used their own language; the little mill-children learned many of the words
(which all seemed to be joined together like compound words), and these mites would
often answer back, in true Hibernian fashion. These women, as a rule, wore peasant
cloaks, red or blue, made with hoods and several capes, in summer (as they told the
children), to "kape cool," and in winter to "kape warrum." They were not intemperate,
nor "bitterly poor." They earned good wages, and they and their children, especially their
children, very soon adapted themselves to their changed conditions of life, and became as
"good as anybody."
To show the close connection in family descent of the artisan and the artist, at least in the
line of color, it may be said here that a grandson of one of the first blue-dyers in this
country is one of the finest American marine painters, and exhibited pictures at the
World's Columbian Exposition of 1893.
In 1832 the factory population of Lowell was divided into four classes. The agents of the
corporations were the aristocrats, not because of their wealth, but on account of the office
they held, which was one of great responsibility, requiring, as it did, not only some
knowledge of business, but also a certain tact in managing, or utilizing the great number
of operatives so as to secure the best return for their labor. The agent was also something
of an autocrat, and there was no appeal from his decision in matters affecting the
industrial interests of those who were employed on his corporation.
The agents usually lived in large houses, not too near the boarding-houses, surrounded by
beautiful gardens which seemed like Paradise to some of the home-sick girls, who, as
they came from their work in the noisy mill, could look with longing eyes into the