Tag: Industrial America

Made in New York: 25 Innovators Who Shaped Our World

Made in New York: 25 Innovators Who Shaped Our World

By Frank Vizard

When singer Frank Sinatra famously crooned about New York, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere,” he could have been talking about New York’s great inventors whose works have travelled across the globe. New York has been a hotbed of innovation since its founding. Made in New York tells the stories behind the innovators and their inventions. Like many New Yorkers, some came from elsewhere to find success in their new home. Some became famous; others struggled for recognition. All were visionaries and risk-takers who were willing to put their lives on the line if necessary. From the first brassiere to the life-saving pacemaker, and from a solar lantern to the first mass-produced cameras, New York has been the seedbed of life-changing technologies that have altered how we live. Made in New York celebrates these compelling stories.

The Social Cost of Deindustrialization: Postwar Trenton, New Jersey

The Social Cost of Deindustrialization: Postwar Trenton, New Jersey

Patrick Luckie

Studying local history is something that is often overlooked and underestimated in social studies classrooms around the country. Think about it—do you have any memory of learning about your own local community in a coordinated school or social studies effort? Big ideas like imperialism, global culture, and other themes of the past and present usually take precedence over learning about one’s own local history in the high school. As part of my undergraduate senior research project at Rider University, I grappled with this fact and produced a short study of my own local history which I used to inform my instruction in the classroom. This article will present the research I have done and will end with a short analysis of how my research project on local history has affected my instruction in Ewing High School and how it can change the way we think about teaching local history in all American high school social studies classrooms.

 “Trenton’s uniqueness cannot be found anywhere in the world, for the lessons learned cannot be duplicated at any price”[1]

These powerful words were written by Dr. Jack Washington, a teacher of Social Studies in Trenton public schools for over 40 years and author of, The Quest for Equality: Trenton’s Black Community 1890-1965 which traces racial struggle and movements for equality over the city’s history. Trenton’s uniqueness as Washington describes, is a product of its deep history, rooted in the American Revolution, World War II, and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Trenton was once a manufacturing powerhouse, home to multiple industries which forged the urban landscape of the state’s capital and produced thousands of union jobs for its inhabitants. These included the mighty John A. Roebling’s Sons Company, which aided in the creation of the Brooklyn Bridge and whose factory in West Chambersburg served as a symbol of innovation and opportunity for decades. Trenton’s pottery industry was also one of the largest and most successful in the whole nation alongside its iron, steel, rubber, and textile companies. Together, these industries provided enough stable employment and pay to support a rapidly growing population of mostly first and second generation European immigrants from Italy, Ireland, Germany, Poland, and Hungary, to name a few. Trenton’s manufacturing prowess was best showcased in 1917 with the first lighting of the famous “Trenton Makes, The World Takes” sign on the Lower Trenton Bridge, a symbol which still stands today in 2023.

 The “golden age” of the city, as historian John T. Cumbler describes it, lasted from around 1850 to 1920 when Trenton established itself as one of the manufacturing capitals of the nation.[2] Almost perfectly situated between two of America’s largest cities in New York and Philadelphia, Trenton industrialists used its strategic geographic location along the Delaware River to tap into large markets and supply the massive manufacturing needs of the east coast. Trenton at this time was truly a symbol of the American dream, and people flocked to the city in search of opportunities. By 1920, the population of the city surpassed 119,000 people and it was amongst the most densely populated places in the state of New Jersey.[3]

The first signs of the city’s decline came with the weakening of its labor movement. By the 1920s, the age of mechanization had begun and the economic shift from factory work to mechanized manufacturing began weakening labor unions overtime. Worker’s unions and cooperation between owners and workers alike had been central to the functioning of the local economy and the glue by which the city binded itself together. Overtime, businesses could no longer maintain the standards of work they had previously upheld and conditions within the city started to slowly deteriorate. From 1910-1920 Trenton underwent its largest leap in population within a decade and shortly thereafter it began experiencing some of its greatest economic struggles. Plants began relocating outside of the city and unionized jobs were becoming more and more difficult to attain. Economic historians have grappled with this shift in the post-war era, claiming “US corporations aggressively sought to break free of expensive union contracts and to seek out ways to pay lower wages and allied social costs in order to increase profits.”[4] This is a persistent trend in this study. With great increases in population and the changing state of the local and national economy, Trenton suffered meaningful losses in employment and manufacturing output.

With the Great Depression beginning in 1929 and the waging of the Second World War in 1939, Trenton retreated back to manufacturing and away from addressing the issues surrounding labor which had marked its initial decline. The waging of the war meant a massive nation-wide mobilization of industry towards fueling the war effort. The war-time economy of Trenton temporarily revitalized the city. Roebling’s Sons employed droves of new workers, opportunities for overtime became more available, unions strengthened, worker’s pay went up, and the largest wave of black migrants in the city’s history began making their way to Trenton beginning in the 1940s.[5] These migrants came to Trenton and other cities in what is known as The Great Migration. That is the movement of millions of African Americans predominantly from the rural southern states to the urban north and midwest between 1910-1970.

This temporary boom did not yield long-term progress for Trenton in the post-war period. During the 1950s, many of the city’s largest industries began relocating outside the city limits and the economy did not adequately support its largest ever population of over 129,000 people.[6] In 1952, Trenton’s most popular employer Roebling’s Sons was sold to Colorado Fuel and Iron Company which over the next decade cut its employment numbers in Trenton and relocated its major manufacturing and business centers outside the city limits. This was the fate for many of the most popular industries within the city which sold their shares to larger corporations after WWII, leaving the fate of the city’s economy in the hands of interests which had little to no connection to it. The rubber, steel, iron, and pottery industries which had defined the city of Trenton and produced its “golden age” became shadows of their former selves and the physical conditions of the city reflected this change. Overtime, thousands of industrial jobs were lost and the population of Trenton dropped 13,382 people from 1950 to 1960 and an additional 9,381 people the following decade.[7] Population decline continued to the year 2000 and stabilized between 80,000 to 90,000 in the 21st century. 

This study seeks to answer two fundamental questions: 1) What were the major effects of deindustrialization on Trenton, NJ in the decades immediately following WWIII? 2) How were these effects felt by the people living within the city at this time? In answering these questions, this study will provide a lens through which race and class come to the forefront of the discussion. Trenton’s decline overlaps with the migration of thousands of African Americans to the city in search of economic opportunities. This demographic shift was the largest in the city’s history and was not met with opportunity but rather inequality and increased racial tension. The major effects of deindustrialization on Trenton, NJ in the post-war period were economic destabilization, movement to the suburbs, and increased racial tensions between white and black Trentonians. Each subsection of this work will dive into these effects individually as well as their overall impact on life in Trenton. It is important to recognize that this movement away from manufacturing and its effects were not phenomena restricted to certain areas or regions. Rather it was a national trend which all rust belt cities like Trenton grappled with in the 21st century. In addition to deindustrialization broadly,  the age of mechanized labor, the shifting of the U.S. economy towards greater support for large corporations, and the social movements of the 1960s all played extremely important roles in shaping American cities in the post-war era.

Historiography

Secondary source literature on the decline of U.S. cities in the post-WWII period falls into the fields of American urban, economic, and social history. One of the most popular works on these subjects is historian Thomas J. Sugrue’s The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit, which examines the many ways in which American cities began to decline following WWII with specific focus on racial inequality and division. In his work, Sugrue states that Trenton, like Detroit and other rust belt cities of the time, experienced hundreds of thousands of layoffs in manufacturing jobs nationwide due to the changing state of the U.S. economy and the lack of government spending allocated towards Northern cities.[8] These conditions radically transformed urban environments into almost unrecognizable versions of their industrial heights. Sugrue explores the connections between suburbanization, demographic change, and the racial attitudes of northern whites to produce an all-encompassing case study of the decline of Detroit. At the heart of his argument is that racial segregation and inadequate political responses to signs of crisis determined the fate of the city. The importance of this historical research cannot be overstated. Before this book was originally published in 1996, the stories of Detroit and other American cities who suffered from the consequences of deindustrialization and racial division in the post-war period were largely untold. The Origins of Urban Crisis continues to be one of the most influential modern studies of American urban history and is without doubt one of the most cited pieces of literature in the field.

Jefferson Cowie and Joseph Heathcott, who together produced Beyond the Ruins: The Meanings of Deindustrialization,built on the historical research of Sugrue by studying the impact of post-war deindustrialization across the nation. This book seeks to progress the conversation of historic decline to modern solutions for urban decay and economic instability. In doing so, it compiles a collection of essays from historians and other professionals to further explore deindustrialization and its impact on American cities.[9] From this perspective, the authors identify a complexity of causes and effects of urban decline which vary from city to city but share many similarities nationally. The value of this work is in its wide-scope. By compiling essays from multiple professionals in a variety of related disciplines, the image of declining cities in the U.S. following WWII becomes more clear than ever.

The most recognized work on post-war deindustrialization in specifically Trenton, New Jersey lies within historian John T. Cumbler’s A Social History of Economic Decline: Business, Politics, and Work in Trenton. This book outlines a long trajectory of economic conditions in Trenton beginning in the 1920s with focus on the Great Depression and researches the changing nature of the city up until the book’s publishing in 1989. One of Cumbler’s main arguments includes the notion that America experienced a gradual economic shift from civic to national capitalism following the Great Depression which empowered large corporations while simultaneously destroying the small businesses which held many industrial cities together.[10] He also explores the rich history of the city’s most impactful industries, politicians, union leaders, and manufacturing workers to provide a comprehensive view of Trenton’s economic and social decline. This work provides the foundation of historical knowledge on Trenton required to produce further research on this topic. However, Cumbler’s history of Trenton does not extend as far into the social consequences and effects of deindustrialization as one might expect. Nevertheless, virtually any modern historical literature on the city of Trenton cites this work. This points to the undying credibility of Cumbler as a historian and shows the importance and relevance of his arguments to the continued study of the city’s history.

More recent historical literature on related topics has largely focused on national trends of suburbanization and racial conflict. One such journal article titled “The Rural Past-in-Present and Postwar Suburban Progress” by University of Waterloo professor Stacy Denton studies the shift towards suburbanization following WWII. The author highlights the transformation of previously rural spaces to suburban landscapes and the implications of such transformations on national attitudes and beliefs towards race, culture, and class.[11] In a similar light, economic historian Leah Platt Bouston’s 2007 work “Black Migration, White Flight: The Effect of Black Migration on Northern Cities and Labor Markets” studies the effects of The Great Migration on northern cities and their economies. She also dives into the racist attitudes of northern whites which manifested themselves in movements out of increasingly diversifying cities and into the surrounding suburbs as part of a process termed “white flight.”[12] Both these works of history are incredibly valuable to this study of post-war Trenton for the topics and findings of their research are amongst the greatest effects of deindustrialization on the city.

The research done in this paper will synthesize the secondary source material on the decline of U.S. cities and apply their findings to a specific case study of Trenton, New Jersey. In doing so, it will paint a clearer picture of the more immediate social and economic effects of deindustrialization on the city in the decades following WWII. This will add to the historiography of urban history and Trenton historical study by compiling primary and secondary source documents to more deeply understand the major effects of deindustrialization and economic transformation on the city.  These major effects include economic destabilization, massive suburbanization, and increased racial tension. These symptoms of deindustrialization were felt most harshly by the city’s poor ethnic-white and growing black population. More specifically, economic decline in Trenton coincided with the arrival of black migrants which compounded racist attitudes and practices within the city. This is most clear in workplace and housing segregation which new migrants had to face upon their arrival.

Economic instability

Industry leaving Trenton following WWII radically changed the city’s local economy. Unionized factory jobs became harder to attain, poor residents were left with fewer options, and Trenton’s growing black community was segregated in their employment. Long-time union workers like those who worked in the pottery and steel plants found themselves in an unfamiliar situation. As Cumbler explained, “Those workers thrown out of work by plant closings had the hardest time finding work and represented the largest number of Trenton’s unemployed.”[13]

The selling of corporations like Roebling’s Sons produced a much weaker focus on the city’s manufacturing growth and output and instead, large corporations sought for the relocation of facilities and workers to outside the city. This left the existing workforce in the city out to dry and decreased options for employment, especially among the lower-income white and minority black populations.

 One action taken by the state and local government to fill this gap created by fleeing industry was growth in the employment of state workers and other public jobs. New Jersey state workers were in the 1950s and 60s, as they still are in the present day, centralized in the capital city of Trenton. Cumbler described this shift from manufacturing to public work as, “Blue Collar to White Collar and White Smock.”[14] This provided some relief to the city’s unemployment problem which exceeded the national average through the 1950s and 60s but it did not come close to meeting the pay and benefit standards that manufacturing jobs had produced just a decade prior. Additionally, the large majority of state workers employed at this time were disproportionately white men. Despite these changes, public and state employment was not enough to lift the city out of its economic slump nor its inherent issues with workplace discrimination.

A large part of the story of economic destabilization in Trenton as a product of deindustrialization was the negative consequences on its black community. Former Trentonian and author Helen Lee Jackson published her autobiography in 1978 charting her experience with racial discrimination as a black woman seeking meaningful employment in the city. Her description of Trenton reads as follows:

In 1940, Trenton was an industrial city with many potteries. Steel mills, factories, and a large auto plant, but the production lines were almost solidly white. Black men swept the floors, moved heavy equipment and shipping crates, and performed other burdensome tasks. In the business sections, they were almost invisible except as window cleaners, janitors, or elevator operators. There were no black salespeople in the stores, banks, or business offices. They were hired as maids, package wrappers, or seamstress. Even the five-and-ten-cent stores refused to hire blacks, except to sweep, dust, or move stock.[15]

Jackson’s firsthand experience with racial segregation and inequality in the city in the 1940s is a reflection of the racial attitudes and prejudices in Trenton and other northern cities earlier in the 20th century. Racist attitudes towards black migrants who largely came from the south was a characteristic of many industrial cities in the U.S. at this time as is highlighted in Sugrue’s work on Detroit and other rust belt cities. With greater numbers of black migrants entering northern cities, the problem of racial discrimination and inequality intensified and the competition for jobs in short supply fuel racist attitudes. According to Sugrue, a combination of factors including employer bias, the structure of the industrial work place, and the overarching ideologies and beliefs of racism and black inferiority contributed to this workplace segregation.[16] For Trenton, these differences in employment were visible to the observer and significantly impacted the lives of those seeking stable income. With the collapse of industry happening simultaneously with a dramatic increase in the city’s black population, this problem compounded. Black residents were not only excluded from whatever factory jobs were left on the basis of their race but they were also labeled as the source of the city’s problems altogether.

In a 1953 study of community services in Trenton, researchers found that the average black resident experienced twice as much unemployment and earned on average 30% less total income than the average white person at this time despite only a one year difference in their average acquired education.[17] These statistics are proof of income inequality and workplace discrimination and provide insight into the lived experiences of black people in Trenton at this time. Furthermore, research from The Journal of Economic History, suggests “black workers were channeled into negro jobs and faced limited opportunities for promotion.”[18] Access to financial resources and meaningful employment were among the largest reasons for black migration to Trenton and other northern cities. Upon their arrival however, they were met with egregious workplace discrimination and were given very little opportunities to climb the economic ladder. Black women specifically made up, “The least utilized pool of potential industrial labor power having much less than proportionate representation with her white counterpart” according to a 1950s study titled, The Negro in the Trenton Labor Market.[19] Many black women, including Helen Lee Jackson, struggled even more so than black men to find employment within the city. These conditions forced economically disadvantaged men and women alike to scramble for jobs and income in order to support themselves and their families.

Changes to the manufacturing economy and workplace discrimination created great instability in Trenton during the 1950s and 60s. Old union workers were suddenly left jobless and the fruits of their loyal labor to the city’s largest industries were now gone. Attempts to revitalize the economy largely failed and economic decline impacted the poor and minority black population of the city more harshly than anyone else in the form of unequal pay and limited job opportunities. With this knowledge, it becomes clear that deindustrialization and the exodus of industry destroyed the economy of Trenton that was historically forged by large-scale manufacturing and robust labor unions and disproportionately affected the new and growing black community.

Suburbanization

Another major consequence of postwar deindustrialization on America’s rustbelt cities was the creation of and migration to the suburbs. Suburbs are the areas where urban centers like Trenton, NJ extend into previously rural environments where new housing developments, industries, and townships began to populate with greater and greater numbers of prior city-dwelling individuals. Historian Kenneth T. Jackson’s work on suburbanization titled,

Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States,  provides the best historical analysis of this phenomenon which swept the nation in the 20th century. Among many important factors, he claims that the roots of suburbanization can be traced to the boom of the automobile industry in the 1920s which enabled those who could afford it to move further and further away from the cities in which they worked. Jackson states, “Indeed the automobile had a greater spatial and social impact on cities than any technological innovation since the development of the wheel” He goes further to explain, “After 1920 suburbanization began to acquire a new character as residential developments multiplied, as cities expanded far beyond their old boundaries, and as the old distinctions between city and country began to erode.”[20]

For Trenton NJ, this shift towards the suburbs was gradual beginning in the 1920s and peaking during the 1950s. It is important to note that suburbanization in Trenton and in cities across the nation happened gradually into the late 20th century. This coincided with a decline in major industries and jobs. Historical research on suburbanization has also revealed that many of these white suburbanites moved to the suburbs to create a physical barrier between them and their racial counterparts.[21] As a result of these factors, thousands of residents with the financial freedom to do so began expanding into the towns on the periphery like Hamilton, Ewing, and Lawrence. Many of whom continued to work as state workers or in other capacities inside Trenton while living outside the city. These towns saw unprecedented growth in the post-WWII years in housing developments thanks to VA and FHA loans which were granted to veterans of the war as part of president Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal Reforms.[22] It is important to note that these New Deal programs were especially beneficial to white service members and much historical literature has been written about the exclusionary practices associated with housing loans in relation to African Americans. This is relevant because during and shortly after WWII, the largest wave of black migrants traveled from predominantly southern states to Trenton and other northern cities in search of employment opportunities associated with the mobilization of industry towards the war effort. This search for opportunity overlapped with the decay of Trenton’s largest industries, leaving many black migrants below the poverty line, working menial jobs as opposed to fruitful unionized jobs, and in some cases, out of work completely. Compounding these issues was the inaccessibility of reasonable home loans for members of the black community.

The effects of suburbanization on the local economy of Trenton and its inhabitants can be seen through analysis of the popular media. Pride Magazine was a Trenton-based publication which centered its content around black businesses and black business owners. This specific magazine concerned itself with the failure of local politicians to enact positive change in the form of urban renewal plans which were targeted at improving the infrastructure, housing, and employment opportunities within the city. In March of 1972, Pride Magazine issued a publication titled, “Black Businesses Need Your Help!” which featured a section written by the magazine’s publisher Vance Phillips, who received his college education in Trenton. He wrote, “What are we doing to fill the vacuum of the cities which was created by relocation of the established business” He then goes on to say, “After spending 5 years of planning and developing new programs for structural and economic changes, Trenton Model Cities program has failed to meet the potential growth of new and old businesses in our community.”[23] Phillips like many black Americans living in Trenton during the 1970s saw visible signs of the city’s decline through the failure of local businesses. He believed what was needed to fix this problem was a stronger government response along with increased civic action from specifically the black community.[24]

 In this same publication, Phillips expressed his belief that, “a person who lives within the city should have preference over persons living outside of the cities in terms of employment.”[25] Here the author is addressing those who live in the surrounding suburbs but continue to fill job positions within the city limits. This would have been a popular message to Trenton’s black business owning population due to the negative effects that rapid suburbanization had on small businesses within the city.  In this magazine article, Phillips touches on an number of topics which are extremely relevant to this study. For one, the instability of small businesses in the wake of mass-suburbanization which he observed was largely due to the relocation of both industry and people to outside the city. Mostly ethnically-white Trentonians were leaving the city for the suburbs and taking with them their spending power. With population decline being spearheaded by movements to the suburbs, there simply was not enough money being circulated throughout the city to adequately support the small businesses which propped up its local economy.

Another popular message within this passage highlights that with most of Trenton’s workforce shifting into the surrounding suburbs, so too did its voting power.[26] This left black communities who resided within the urban centers even more powerless as a minority to change their own political environment. Suburbanization brought with it a massive decrease to the city’s population and tax-base. The previously 100,000+ populated city now had just around 80,000 inhabitants by 1970.[27] This rapid population decrease meant that the tax revenue generated was not enough to effectively grapple with the issues facing the economy and the evolving workforce.

Furthermore, local culture within the city which had been forged by America’s largest waves of European immigration in the 19th and early 20th century suffered as a result of deindustrialization and suburbanization. Many of the small businesses and social institutions which had historically characterized the city of Trenton were established by first and second generation Italian, Irish, Polish, and Hungarian immigrants. Many of whom traveled from the larger cities of New York and Philadelphia to find industrial jobs in Trenton. Dennis J. Starr’s book, The Italians of New Jersey, outlines the effects of suburbanization on the “old immigrants” of New Jersey, stating:

The movement to the suburbs and smaller urban places paralleled a major transformation of the state’s urban political economy. Following the war, the state’s largest cities did not participate in the postwar prosperity and economic development. Instead, their industrial bases eroded, their mercantile bases moved to suburban shopping malls and their overall, especially affluent white, populations shrank.[28]

The effect of suburbanization on the local culture of Trenton’s longest serving residents is a source of some historical debate. Cumbler notes that, “Despite suburbanization of the more successful Italians and Slavs, many of Trenton’s ethnic neighborhoods seemed as entrenched as ever in the 1950s.”[29] However, the following decades of the 1950s would see even more of Trenton’s staple “old immigrant” communities relocating to the suburbs and with them their cultural values and traditions. That being said, the cultural diversity of Trenton, New Jersey created by its ethnic melting pot of a history can still be felt today in 2023. Walking the streets of some of its most popular neighborhoods like Chambersburg, one can still see and feel the Italian influence of churches, social clubs, and bar-restaurants in the area. The main point here is that culture did suffer as a result of suburbanization and population decline, but it did not die, it rather faded into a less obvious and less present version of its former self.

            Looking at suburbanization as a major effect of postwar de-industrialization on the city of Trenton provides valuable insight into the cities rise and decline as a manufacturing powerhouse. Like many other rust belt cities of this time period, the trend of suburbanization caused unprecedented changes to the city’s local economy and demographics. The loss of unionized industry jobs encouraged many Trentonians to relocate to the surrounding towns which had recently seen great increases in housing development. In the process, those who left the city unintendedly left Trenton out to dry. Money from the pockets of those who moved to the suburbs was desperately needed to support small businesses in the city and their tax dollars could have been used to make meaningful change to the city’s failing infrastructure. As previously discussed, the local culture of the city also suffered as a result of these consequences which only compounded with each decade of further suburbanization and relocation away from the city. With a decreasing population, aging workforce, and a new wave of migrants without sufficient employment opportunities, the city began to decline into an unrecognizable version of its “Golden Age” of the 1920s.

Racial tension

Trenton’s deindustrialization and its history of racism and inequality are inextricably linked. In 1986, Historian Dennis J. Starr published, History of Ethnic and Racial Groups in Trenton, New Jersey: 1900 – 1960, which acts as one of the foremost important pieces of historical literature on Trenton race-relations. This research clearly establishes a link between deindustrialization and increased racial tensions by claiming:

As industries closed down or reduced their work force it became harder for Afro-American migrants to get a toe hold on the traditional ladder of social mobility–a factory job. Meanwhile the city’s sizable Italian, Polish and Hungarian communities became fearful lest their jobs be eliminated, their neighborhoods integrated. A siege mentality developed in light of the population shifts and exodus of industries, commercial businesses, colleges and government offices.[30]

This “siege mentality” was amplified overtime with the overcrowding of black communities in Trenton and the extension of black-owned or rented residences into shrinking ethnically white neighborhoods.

Between 1950 and 1960, Trenton’s black population rose to 22.8 percent of the total population. As discussed earlier, Trenton was a historically segregated city but in the 1950s and 60s this racial division took on a whole new light given the increases in population and decreases in economic opportunities and industry.[31] Trenton historian Jack Washington described Trenton following WWII stating, “That the 1950s was a period of benign neglect for the Black community is an understatement, for Black people were forgotten while their economic and political troubles continued to mount.”[32] These economic troubles can be seen most clearly through examination of housing segregation in the city and its continued influence on the lives of Trentonians. Along with housing and workplace discrimination, ethnically white residents used black migrants as scapegoats for their city’s economic misfortunes and decline.

            Housing in Trenton, NJ after the postwar years can be characterized as both segregated and worse for wear. Following the largest influx of black immigrants to the city in the late 1940s and early 50s, this new population was largely forced to live in the Coalport and Five Points areas of the city on its interior.[33] Housing opportunities for black residents were few and far between and were in most cases aged and deteriorated. Starr shed light on this inequality revealing, “By 1957 over 80 per cent of the city’s housing was over 50 years old and 20 percent of all housing units were dilapidated or had deficient plumbing.”[34] This was a problem for all city-dwellers and stood as a marker of the city’s decline following deindustrialization. For the black community, this problem was especially real given that the neighborhoods with the worst physical damage and infrastructure were those areas in which they settled. A 1950s survey of the city titled, Negro Housing in Trenton found, “the percentage of substandard housing among the Negro population is four times higher than that for the general population.”[35] Not only were black Trentonians limited in their occupation but also in the location and quality of their housing. This same study of housing in Trenton concluded that 1,200 new residential spaces would have to be erected in order to meet the needs and standards of the city. These spaces were not created and public housing efforts did not meet the requirements of the new growing population.[36]

With little options for housing, a lack of policy action to create new housing, and increases to the population, black migrants had no choice but to expand into Trenton’s old ethnically-white neighborhoods. In the eyes of many in the white majority, black migrants were the corrupting force which acted to take down their beloved city. Declining social and economic conditions in the city paired with old racist tendencies to produce conflict between ethnic groups. Cumbler eloquently explains this clash stating:

The decline of their industrial base narrowed the boundaries of choice for both white and black Trentonians, and in doing so it intensified conflict between them. Increasingly, Trenton’s problems became defined by the city’s white residents in terms of growth of its black population. Actually, its problems had other sources: the loss of its tax base with the closing down of factories, dilapidation of the existing housing stock, and the declining income of its citizens of whatever color.[37]

This excerpt captures the situation in Trenton during the 1950s and 60s in terms of race relations and the overall decline of the city. Racist attitudes were not a new trend in Trenton but were compounded with the arrival of large populations of black migrants. From the white perspective, black migrants were aiding in the destruction of the city. From the black perspective, Trenton did not provide the necessary resources for which they traveled north in search of in the first place.

The 1960s and the Civil Rights era was the historical boiling point for racial tensions and division in Trenton. The influence of the NAACP and other organizations for the advancement of racial equality along with intense riots brought race and class to the forefront of Trenton’s post-industrial issues. Most impactful, Trenton race riots following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. exploded in early April of 1968. These riots lasted for multiple days and resulted in fires erupting around the city as well as over 7 million dollars in damage to over 200 different businesses in Trenton at the time. During the chaos, around 300 mostly young black men were arrested by Trenton Police. The devastating damage to the downtown section of the city caused many to flee and abandon it altogether in the years that followed.[38] It would be unfair to say that these riots were a direct result of deindustrialization in postwar Trenton. However, the city’s history of racial inequality and the compounding forces of racial tension as a result of deindustrialization point to the creation of fertile ground for public outrage. Of course, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. served as the catalyst for race riots in the city but the broader history of discrimination and inequality in Trenton suggests an intense decades-long build up to the events that unfolded in April of 1968.

Conclusion

Trenton’s rise and fall as an American industrial city is truly a fascinating case study of the post-war era in U.S. history. What was once a manufacturing powerhouse along the Delaware River strategically placed between the two large cities of New York and Philadelphia was reduced to a shadow of its former glory by the 1950s and 60s. The causes of this decline can be found in the removal of industry away from the city following the war effort and signs of economic decline can be traced as far back as the 1920s. The effects of this shift however, remain the most significant in the broader history of the city. Rapid deindustrialization meant that wages and opportunities were significantly limited for all Trentonians but especially for its segregated black community. Many of those who could afford it elected to move to the surrounding suburbs, bringing with them their tax dollars, their votes, and their culture. Lastly, deindustrialization and the consequences of a radically transformed Trenton increased racial tensions in the form of housing and workplace discrimination.

These effects offer new insights into the Trenton of today. Trenton now has a black majority and interestingly, those same areas which housed black migrants in the 1950s on the city’s interior are still today in 2023 the site of high unemployment and low opportunities. Walking the streets of Trenton, one is quickly reminded of its rich history with many of its houses and abandoned factories still standing today as a reminder of the city’s complicated history. A hopeful message could be that a greater understanding of Trenton’s post-war history could provide the necessary insight to create better living conditions and opportunities for all its residents. However, today Trenton remains a city in an intense state of recovery from its industrial past. Historical research has been done to show that urban renewal plans have largely failed to revitalize the city’s economy in the 20th and 21st centuries and issues such as crime, poverty, drug abuse, poor infrastructure, among others continue to loom over the once prosperous city.

            Today, the “Trenton Makes, The World Takes” sign on the Lower Trenton Bridge still stands bright but its meaning has drastically changed since the last century. What was once a beacon of promise and stability is now a constant reminder of how far the city has fallen from its industrial and manufacturing heights.

Findings and value to teaching

Upon completing this research paper on Trenton, I gave a lesson to high school world history students at Ewing High school as part of my undergraduate co-teaching field work. Ewing is one of the border towns to the city of Trenton and was one of the most popular destinations for suburbanites who left the city in the 20th century at least in part because of deindustrialization and the city’s overall decline. The proximity of the topic and the familiarity students  had with popular street names, businesses, and buildings in the city created a feeling of relevance that sparked engagement. Students were surprised to be learning about a topic so close to home and they responded with passionate discussion and the creation of meaningful connections which were sparked through a mix of group and whole class discussions.

For social studies teachers, this successful shift from world history topics to a more grass roots approach to teaching local history can be used as a template for future lessons. Topics frequently come up during different units throughout the school year which deeply relate to the local history of wherever kids go to school. For Ewing students, Trenton’s decline as an industrial city directly related to their lived experiences. Many of my students had lived in or around Trenton for most of their lives. This practice of teaching local history to students is not overwhelming nor is it undoable. The same amount of effort it takes to create a lesson in a world history or AP class can be channeled into research dealing with one’s own local environment and history.

This template for teaching local history can be used to generate engagement in the classroom which is unique to any other topic. Once students are given the opportunity to learn and ask questions about their own town, city, home, etc. they begin to view the world through a more historical lens which is the goal of many if not all high school social studies teachers. Overall, my experience with this approach was overwhelmingly positive and I encourage any and all educators to shift their focus for at least one day of the year towards exploring their own local history and connecting it to larger themes within our discipline.

References

Primary Sources

Black Businesses Need Your Help!. Pride Magazine. Trenton Public Library. March 1972. https://www.trentonlib.org/trentoniana/microfilm-newspapers/

Dwyer, William. This Is The Task. Findings of the Trenton, New Jersey Human Relations Self-Survey (Nashville: Fisk University, 1955).

Lee, Helen J. Nigger in the Window. Library of Congress, Internet Archive 1978.

Negro Housing in Trenton: The Housing Committee of the Self Survey. Trenton Public Library. Trentoniana Collection. Ca 1950.

“Negro in the Trenton Labor Market,” Folder: Community Services in Trenton, Box: Trenton Council on Human Relations, Trentoniana Collection, Trenton Public Library.

“Study of Community Services in Trenton,” Folder: Community Services in Trenton, Box: Trenton Council on Human Relations, Trentoniana Collection, Trenton Public Library.

Trenton Council of Social Agencies, Study of Northeast Trenton: Population, Housing, Economic, Social and Physical Aspects of the Area. Folder: Study of Northeast Trenton. Box 1: African American Experience. Trentoniana Collection. Trenton Public Library. 1958.

Secondary Sources

Boustan, Leah Platt. “Black Migration, White Flight: The Effect of Black Migration on Northern Cities and Labor Markets.” The Journal of Economic History 67, no. 2 (2007): 484–88. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4501161.

Cowie, J. & Heathcott, J. Beyond the Ruins: The Meaning of Deindustrialization. Cornell University Press, 2003.

Cumbler, John T. A Social History of Economic Decline: Business, Politics, and Work in Trenton (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1989).

Denton, Stacy. “The Rural Past-in-Present and Postwar Sub/Urban Progress.” American Studies 53, no. 2 (2014): 119–40. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24589591.

Division of Labor Market and Demographic Research. New Jersey Population Trends 1790 to 2000 (Trenton, NJ: New Jersey State Data Center, August 2001).

Gibson, Campbell. U.S. Bureau of the Census: Population of the 100 Largest Cities and Other Urban Places in the United States: 1790 – 1990, (Washington D.C.: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1998).

Jackson, Kenneth T. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. Oxford University Press, 1985.

Leynes, Jennifer B. “Three Centuries of African-American History in Trenton.” Trentoniana Collection. Trenton Historical Society. 2011.

Starr, Dennis J. “History of Ethnic and Racial Groups in Trenton, New Jersey, 1900-1960,” Trentoniana Collection. 1986.

Starr, Dennis J. The Italians of New Jersey: A Historical Introduction and Bibliography. New Jersey Historical Society. Newark, NJ. 1985.

Strangleman, Tim, James Rhodes, and Sherry Linkon. “Introduction to Crumbling Cultures: Deindustrialization, Class, and Memory.” International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 84 (2013): 7–22. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43302724.

Sugrue, Thomas J. The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. (Revised Ed.). Princeton University Press, 2005. Originally published 1996.

Washington, Jack. The Quest for Equality: Trenton’s Black Community 1890-1965. Africa World Press. 1993.

[1] Jack Washington, The Quest for Equality: Trenton’s Black Community 1890-1965, Africa World Press, 1993, 56.

[2] John T. Cumbler, A Social History of Economic Decline: Business, Politics, and Work in Trenton, (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1989), 9.

[3] Division of Labor Market and Demographic Research, New Jersey Population Trends 1790 to 2000 (Trenton, NJ: New Jersey State Data Center, August 2001), 23.

[4] Tim Strangleman, James Rhodes, and Sherry Linkon, “Introduction to Crumbling Cultures: Deindustrialization, Class, and Memory.” International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 84 (2013), 19.

[5] Cumbler, A Social History, 132-133.

[6] Campbell Gibson, U.S. Bureau of the Census: Population of the 100 Largest Cities and Other Urban Places in the United States: 1790 – 1990, (Washington D.C.: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1998)

[7] Division of Labor, New Jersey Population Trends, 26.

[8] Thomas J. Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit, (Revised Ed.), Princeton University Press, 2005, Originally published 1996, 128.

[9] Jefferson, Cowie & Joseph Heathcott, Beyond the Ruins: The Meaning of Deindustrialization, Cornell University Press, 2003. 1-3.

[10] Cumbler, A Social History, 93-95.

[11]Stacy Denton, “The Rural Past-in-Present and Postwar Sub/Urban Progress,” American Studies 53, no. 2 (2014): 119.

[12]Leah P. Boustan, “Black Migration, White Flight: The Effect of Black Migration on Northern Cities and Labor Markets.” The Journal of Economic History 67, no. 2 (2007): 484-485.

[13] Cumbler, A Social History, 147-148.

[14] Cumbler, A Social History, 145.

[15] Helen J. Lee, N—-r in the Window, Library of Congress, Internet Archive 1978, 131.

[16] Sugrue, Urban Crisis, 93-94.

[17] “Study of Community Services in Trenton,” Folder: Community Services in Trenton, Box: Trenton Council on Human Relations, Trentoniana Collection, Trenton Public Library, 8.

[18] Leah P. Boustan, “Black Migration, White Flight” 485-486.

[19] “Negro in the Trenton Labor Market,” Folder: Community Services in Trenton, Box: Trenton Council on Human Relations, Trentoniana Collection, Trenton Public Library, 33-34.

[20] Kenneth T. Jackson. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States, Oxford University Press, 1985, 188.

[21] Stacy Denton, “The Rural Past-in-Present,” 119.

[22] Cumbler, A Social History, 139.

[23] Black Businesses Need Your Help!. Pride Magazine. Trenton Public Library. March 1972, 5

[24] Black Businesses, Pride Magazine, 6

[25] Black Businesses, Pride Magazine, 6-7

[26] Black Businesses, Pride Magazine, 6-7.

[27] Gibson, U.S. Bureau of the Census, 43.

[28] Dennis J. Starr, The Italians of New Jersey: A Historical Introduction and Bibliography, New Jersey Historical Society, Newark, NJ 1985, 54.

[29] Cumbler, A Social History, 148-150.

[30] Dennis J. Starr, “History of Ethnic and Racial Groups in Trenton, New Jersey, 1900-1960,” Trentoniana Collection, 1986, 16-17.

[31] Cumbler, A Social History, 153.

[32] Washington, The Quest for Equality, 136.

[33] Trenton Council of Social Agencies, Study of Northeast Trenton: Population, Housing, Economic, Social and Physical Aspects of the Area, Folder: Study of Northeast Trenton, Box 1: African American Experience, Trentoniana Collection, Trenton Public Library, 1958, 53-54.

[34] Starr, Ethnic and Racial Groups in Trenton, 15.

[35] Negro Housing in Trenton: The Housing Committee of the Self Survey, Trenton Public Library, Trentoniana Collection, ca 1950s , 63.

[36] Negro Housing, Housing Committee, 67.

[37] Cumbler, A Social History, 156.

[38] Jennifer B. Leynes, “Three Centuries of African-American History in Trenton,” Trentoniana Collection, Trenton Historical Society. 2011, 3-4.

Lyddie the Mill Girl – An Interdisciplinary 7th Grade Unit

Lyddie the Mill Girl – An Interdisciplinary 7th Grade Unit

Natalie Casale, Dena Giacobbe, Amanda Nardo, and Jamie Thomas

In these lessons, we will look back to the 19th century where workers were not protected and oftentimes had to work in awful conditions, like the young women who worked in the mills in Lowell, Massachusetts. These young women, known as mill girls, worked long hours and were often hurt by the machinery. If they were lucky enough to escape getting hurt by the machines, after working in the mills for a couple of years, the girls started to have respiratory health problems. The novel Lyddie is about a young girl who worked in the Lowell mills. By reading the book, the students have learned about what a typical day is like working at the mills and have read about Lyddie and her friends enduring horrible working conditions and getting hurt as a result. This lesson will explore what the conditions were like working in the mills in the 19th century. Students will examine a picture of a mill girl working the machinery and recall the effects the mills had on Lyddie and her friends. The students will then read about the Lowell mills and about one mill girl’s life, Sarah Bagley. Students will compare and contrast Lyddie and Bagley’s experiences in the mills. By the end of the lesson, the students will be able to describe what it is like to work in the mills and recommend what future mill girls should keep in mind when working in the mills. The students will be grouped homogeneously, working with partners throughout the lesson.

 (A) Sarah George Bagley

Source: https://www.nps.gov/lowe/learn/historyculture/sarah-bagley.htm

The Mill Girls of Lowell
https://www.nps.gov/lowe/learn/historyculture/the-mill-girls-of-lowell.htm

(A) Sarah George Bagley
Source: https://www.nps.gov/lowe/learn/historyculture/sarah-bagley.htm

Sarah George Bagley was born April 19, 1806 to Nathan and Rhoda Witham Bagley. Raised in rural Candia, New Hampshire, she came to the booming industrial city of Lowell in 1837 at the age of 31, where she began work as a weaver at the Hamilton Manufacturing Company. Though older than many of the Yankee women who flocked to Lowell’s mills, Bagley shared with them the shift from rural family life to the urban industrial sphere. While working in the Lowell mills, Sarah Bagley’s view of the world around her changed radically. While much of her life remains surrounded by questions, the record of Bagley’s experiences as a worker and activist in Lowell, Massachusetts, reveals a remarkable spirit. Condemned by some as a rabble rouser and enemy of social order, many have celebrated her as a woman who fought against the confines of patriarchal industrial society on behalf of all her sisters in work and struggle.

“Let no one suppose the ‘factory girls’ are without guardian. We are placed in the care of overseers who feel under moral obligation to look after our interests.” – Sarah Bagley, 1840

 “I am sick at heart when I look into the social world and see woman so willingly made a dupe to the beastly selfishness of man.” – Sarah Bagley, 1847

While many found a sense of independence in coming to the city and earning a wage for the first time, the presence of paternalistic capitalism ensured that working women would never be “without guardian;” or as Bagley would later assert, that factory women would never experience true freedom. Bagley was initially inclined to accept the prescribed order in the Spindle City—she became an excellent weaver and began to write for the Lowell Offering, a literary magazine written by mill workers but overseen and partly funded by the mill corporations. Bagley’s 1840 essay entitled “The Pleasures of Factory Work,” which argued that cotton mill labor was congenial to “pleasurable contemplation” and other noble pursuits, was representative of the positive, proper image of the mills presented in the pages of the Offering.

An 1850 illustration of the Middlesex Manufacturing Company in Lowell Stirrings of Conflict

Was it deteriorating conditions in the cotton factories or some internal shift in Sarah Bagley’s worldview that precipitated her transformation from “mill girl” to ground-breaking labor activist in the span of only a few short years? By 1840 the exploitation of Lowell mill workers was becoming increasingly apparent: the frequent speedups and constant pressure to produce more cloth drove Bagley from the weave room into the cleaner, more relenting dressing room. Here she oversaw the starching (or “dressing”) of the warp threads that constitute the framework for woven cloth.

By 1842 the pressures that Bagley had experienced as a weaver began to erupt in the form of labor conflict. In that year the Middlesex Manufacturing Company, one of Lowell’s textile giants, announced a speedup and subsequent 20% pay cut. In protest, seventy female workers walked out. All were fired and blacklisted. Lowell’s industrial capitalists made it very clear that they would not tolerate challenges to their authority, especially not by young female workers.

The walkout of 1842 did not instantly convert Sarah Bagley into a labor activist; several months after the unsuccessful strike by the Middlesex weavers, Bagley returned to weaving, this time as an employee of the Middlesex mills.

A radical change in Sarah’s own views of the world around her, however, was not far off. How exactly she became involved with the labor movement is uncertain. In 1844, the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association (LFLRA) was founded, becoming one of the earliest successful organizations of working women in the United States, with Sarah Bagley as its president. Working in cooperation with the New England Workingmen’s Association (NEWA) and spurred by a recent extension of work hours, the organizations submitted petitions totaling 2,139 names to the Massachusetts state legislature in 1845. These petitions demanded the reduction of the workday to ten hours on behalf workers’ health as well as their “intellectual, moral and religious habits.” In response, the legislature called a hearing and asked Bagley, among eight others, to testify. Despite the efforts of Bagley and her colleagues, the legislators ultimately refused to act against the powerful mills.

While advocating for the ten-hour workday and against corporate abuses remained the cornerstones of the LFLRA’s activism under Bagley’s presidency, women’s rights issues quickly assumed a prominent role as well. Speaking at the first New England Workingmen’s Association convention at a time when public speaking represented a radical departure from acceptable feminine behavior, Bagley called on male workers to exercise their right to vote on behalf of female workers who lacked political representation.

The year 1845 also saw Sarah taking on new responsibilities as a writer and editor for the Voice of Industry, founded in 1844 by the New England Workingmen’s Association. In a July Fourth speech, Bagley—just named one of the NEWA’s five new vice presidents—condemned the Lowell Offering and its editor Harriet Farley as “a mouthpiece of the corporations,” voicing a deep transformation of her own views. The ensuing public feud belied Bagley’s own praise of the mill companies published in the Offering only five years prior.

1846 was a busy year for Bagley and the Female Labor Reform Association, as she and several associates traveled throughout New England recruiting workers and organizing chapters of the FLRA and the NEWA. She also served as a delegate to numerous labor conventions and associated with a wide variety of progressives beyond the immediate labor movement, from abolitionists to prison reformers. Having left mill work in early 1846, Bagley now considered labor reform her primary calling. 1846 also saw an increase in the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association’s activities, mounting a campaign against yet another speedup and piece rate reduction, establishing a lecture series for workers, and penning pamphlets exposing the contradictions of mill owner paternalism and decrying the “ignorance, misery, and premature decay of both body and intellect” caused by mill work.

These achievements, however, were tempered by continued frustration on the ten-hour front. A second petition, this time numbering 4,500 signatures, was submitted to the legislature and rejected. Perhaps in part owing to the lack of success in attaining this goal, the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association began to shift its focus away from the militant labor activism espoused by Sarah Bagley. Around this time Bagley also came into conflict with the Voice of Industry’s new editor, John Allen, over the role of women in the newspaper’s production. In October of 1846 Bagley published her last piece in the Voice of Industry; in early 1847 she left the Female Labor Reform and Mutual Aid Society (formerly LFLRA) after three brief but influential years of radical activism.

Sarah Bagley once again defied expectations and gendered boundaries in the latter half of 1846 when she took a job as the nation’s first female telegraph operator, first in Lowell and then in Springfield, Massachusetts. Local newspapers were skeptical of both this new technology and of the ability of a woman to fill the position of telegraph depot superintendent—one paper mused, “Can a woman keep a secret?” However, Bagley proved well-suited to this work and through her example opened the new occupational field of telegraphy to women around the country.

Bagley remained employed at the telegraph depot until 1848, when Hamilton mill records show her mysteriously returning to work in the weave room for five months. Bagley had been out of the mills for two years; it must have been a melancholy return for the woman who had risen to fame as an activist against the corporations that she now for whatever reason had to rely upon once again. In September of 1848 she left Lowell to care for her sick father and never returned. At this point Bagley’s life lapses again into partial obscurity—some report that she moved to Philadelphia and worked as a social reformer before marrying and moving to upstate New York to practice homeopathic medicine. While there is some evidence to support this story, others have asserted that she in fact dropped completely from the historical record after 1848. Her date of death is unknown.

(B) The Lowell Mill Girls Go on Strike (1836)

by Harriet Hanson Robinson

Source: Harriet Hanson Robinson, Loom and Spindle or Life Among the Early Mill Girls (New York, T. Y. Crowell, 1898), 83–86. http://hti.osu.edu/sites/hti.osu.edu/files/Harriet-Robinson-account.pdf

A group of Boston capitalists built a major textile manufacturing center in Lowell, Massachusetts, in the second quarter of the 19th century. The first factories recruited women from rural New England as their labor force. These young women, far from home, lived in rows of boardinghouses adjacent to the growing number of mills. The industrial production of textiles was highly profitable, and the number of factories in Lowell and other mill towns increased. More mills led to overproduction, which led to a drop in prices and profits. Mill owners reduced wages and speeded up the pace of work. The young female operatives organized to protest these wage cuts in 1834 and 1836. Harriet Hanson Robinson was one of those factory operatives; she began work in Lowell at the age of ten, later becoming an author and advocate of women’s suffrage. In 1898 she published Loom and Spindle, a memoir of her Lowell experiences, where she recounted the strike of 1836.

One of the first strikes of cotton-factory operatives that ever took place in this country was that in Lowell, in October, 1836. When it was announced that the wages were to be cut down, great indignation was felt, and it was decided to strike, en masse. This was done. The mills were shut down, and the girls went in procession from their several corporations to the “grove” on Chapel Hill, and listened to “incendiary” speeches from early labor reformers.

One of the girls stood on a pump, and gave vent to the feelings of her companions in a neat speech, declaring that it was their duty to resist all attempts at cutting down the wages. This was the first time a woman had spoken in public in Lowell, and the event caused surprise and consternation among her audience.

Cutting down the wages was not their only grievance, nor the only cause of this strike. Hitherto the corporations had paid twenty—five cents a week towards the board of each operative, and now it was their purpose to have the girls pay the sum; and this, in addition to the cut in the wages, would make a difference of at least one dollar a week. It was estimated that as many as twelve or fifteen hundred girls turned out, and walked in procession through the streets. They had neither flags nor music, but sang songs, a favorite (but rather inappropriate) one being a parody on “I won’t be a nun.”

“Oh! isn’t it a pity, such a pretty girl as I-

Should be sent to the factory to pine away and die?

Oh ! I cannot be a slave,

I will not be a slave,

For I’m so fond of liberty

That I cannot be a slave.”

My own recollection of this first strike (or “turn out” as it was called) is very vivid. I worked in a lower room, where I had heard the proposed strike fully, if not vehemently, discussed; I had been an ardent listener to what was said against this attempt at “oppression” on the part of the corporation, and naturally I took sides with the strikers. When the day came on which the girls were to turn out, those in the upper rooms started first, and so many of them left that our mill was at once shut down. Then, when the girls in my room stood irresolute, uncertain what to do, asking each other, “Would you?” or “Shall we turn out?” and not one of them 1laving the courage to lead off, I, who began to think they would not go out, after all their talk, became impatient, and started on ahead, saying, with childish bravado, “I don’t care what you do, I am going to turn out, whether any one else does or not;‘’ and I marched out, and was followed by the others.

As I looked back at the long line that followed me, I was more proud than I have ever been since at any success I may have achieved, and more proud than I shall ever be again until my own beloved State gives to its women citizens the right of suffrage.

The agent of the corporation where I then worked took some small revenges on the supposed ringleaders; on the principle of sending the weaker to the wall, my mother was turned away from her boarding-house, that functionary saying,” Mrs. Hanson, you could not prevent the older girls from turning out, but your daughter is a child, and her you could control.”

It is hardly necessary to say that so far as results were concerned this strike did no good. The dissatisfaction of the operatives subsided, or burned itself out, and though the authorities did not accede to their demands, the majority returned to their work, and the corporation went on cutting down the wages.

And after a time, as the wages became more and more reduced, the best portion of the girls left and went to their homes, or to the other employments that were fast opening to women, until there were very few of the old guard left; and thus the status of the factory population of New England gradually became what we know it to be to-day.

Note: Harriet Robinson worked in the Lowell Mills intermittently from 1835 to 1848. She was 10 when she started at the mills and 23 when she left them to marry. Presumably, she wrote this account in the 1890s, for it was published in her Loom and Spindle; or, Life among the Early Mill Girls in 1898.

 (C) Factory Girls Described by Harriet Hanson Robinson

Source: https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/robinsonfactgirls.html

“When I look back into the factory life of fifty or sixty years ago, I do not see what is called “a class” of young men and women going to and from their daily work, like so many ants that cannot be distinguished one from another; I see them as individuals, with personalities of their own. This one has about her the atmosphere of her early home. That one is impelled by a strong and noble purpose. The other,—what she is, has been an influence for good to me and to all womankind. 

Yet they were a class of factory operatives, and were spoken of (as the same class is spoken of now) as a set of persons who earned their daily bread, whose condition was fixed, and who must continue to spin and to weave to the end of their natural existence. Nothing but this was expected of them, and they were not supposed to be capable of social or mental improvement. That they could be educated and developed into something more than work-people, was an idea that had not yet entered the public mind. So little does one class of persons really know about the thoughts and aspirations of another! It was the good fortune of these early mill-girls to teach the people of that time that this sort of labor is not degrading; that the operative is not only “capable of virtue,” but also capable of self-cultivation. 

At the time the Lowell cotton-mills were started, the factory girl was the lowest among women. In England, and in France particularly, great injustice had been done to her real character; she was represented as subjected to influences that could not fail to destroy her purity and self-respect. In the eyes of her overseer she was but a brute, slave, to be beaten, pinched, and pushed about. 

It was to overcome this prejudice that such high wages had been offered to women that they might be induced to become mill-girls, in spice of the opprobrium that still clung to this “degrading occupation.” At first only a few came; for, though tempted by the high wages to be regularly paid in “cash,” there were many who still preferred to go on working at some more genteel employment at seventy-five cents a week and their board. 

But in a short time the prejudice against the factory labor wore away, and the Lowell mills became filled with blooming and energetic New England women. They were naturally intelligent, had mother-wit, and fell easily into the ways of their new life. They soon began to associate with those who formed the community in which they had come to live, and were invited to their houses. They went to the same church, and sometimes married into some of the best families. Or if they returned to their secluded homes again, instead of being looked down upon as “factory girls” by the squire’s or lawyer’s family, they were more often welcomed as coming from the metropolis, bringing new fashions, new books, and new ideas with them. 

In 1831 Lowell was little more than a factory village. Several corporations were started, and the cotton-mills belonging to them were building. Help was in great demand; and the stories were told all over the country of the new factory town, and the high wages that were offered to all classes of work-people,—stories that reached the ears of mechanics’ and farmers’ sons, and gave new life to lonely and dependent women in distant towns and farmhouses. Into this Yankee El Dorado, these needy people began to pour by the various modes of travel known to those slow old days. The stage-coach and the canal-boat came every day, always filled with the new recruits for this army of useful people. The mechanic and machinist came, each with his home-made chest of tools, and oftentimes his wife and little ones. The widow came with her little flock of scanty housekeeping goods to open a boarding-house or variety store, and so provided a home for her fatherless children. Many farmers’ daughters came to earn money to complete their wedding outfit, or buy the bride’s share of housekeeping articles. 

Women with past histories came, to hide their griefs and their identity, and to earn an honest living in the “sweat of their brow.” Single young men came, full of hope and life, to get money for an education, or to lift the mortgage from the home-farm. Troops of young girls came by stages and baggage-wagons, men often being employed to go to other States and to Canada, to collect them at so much a head, and deliver them to the factories…. 

These country girls had queer names, which added to the singularity of their appearance. Samantha, Triphena, Plumy, Kezia, Aseneth, Elgardy, Leafy, Ruhamah, Lovey, Almaretta, Sarepta, and Flotilla were among them. 

Their dialect was also very peculiar. On the broken English and Scotch of their ancestors was ingrafted the nasal Yankee twang; so that many of them, when they had just come down, spoke a language almost unintelligible. But the severe discipline and ridicule which met them was as good as a school education, and they were soon taught the “city way of speaking”…

(D) Letter from Mary Paul to her Family (1845)

https://www.albany.edu/history/history316/MaryPaulLetters.html

“I received your letter on Thursday the 14th with much pleasure. I am well which is one comfort. My life and health are spared while others are cut off. Last Thursday one girl fell down and broke her neck which caused instant death. She was going in or coming out of the mill and slipped down it being very icy. The same day a man was killed by the [railroad] cars. Another had nearly all of his ribs broken. Another was nearly killed by falling down and having a bale of cotton fall on him. Last Tuesday we were paid. In all I had six dollars and sixty cents paid $4.68 for board. With the rest I got me a pair of rubbers and a pair of 50.cts shoes. Next payment I am to have a dollar a week beside my board. We have not had much snow the deepest being not more than 4 inches. It has been very warm for winter. Perhaps you would like something about our regulations about going in and coming out of the mill. At 5 o’clock in the morning the bell rings for the folks to get up and get breakfast. At half past six it rings for the girls to get up and at seven they are called into the mill. At half past 12 we have dinner are called back again at one and stay till half past seven. I get along very well with my work. I can doff as fast as any girl in our room. I think I shall have frames before long. The usual time allowed for learning is six months but I think I shall have frames before I have been in three as I get along so fast. I think that the factory is the best place for me and if any girl wants employment I advise them to come to Lowell. Tell Harriet that though she does not hear from me she is not forgotten. I have little time to devote to writing that I cannot write all I want to. There are half a dozen letters which I ought to write to day but I have not time. Tell Harriet I send my love to her and all of the girls. Give my love to Mrs. Clement. Tell Henry this will answer for him and you too for this time.”