Trace the contribution of Lowell women workers

For most of its history, western political theory has ignored women. From the late colonial period through the
American Revolution,women's work usually centered on the home, but romanticizing this role in the
Domestic Sphere and the concept of True Womanhood came only in the early 19th century, that is also the
time when industrial revolution started taking place in the United States. However, forces were at work in the
19th century which impelled women to change and play a more creative role in society. Among the various
movements that were at play, industrialism had a significant impact on women’s consciousness. The role of
Yankee women employed in Lowell Textile Mills had a significant role to play in the development of this
consciousness.
When the first factories were built in America in the1820s and 1830s, in places like Lowell, Massachusetts,
many of the workers were young women. In the 1830s and 40s almost half a century before the better-known
mass movements for workers' rights in the United States began, the Lowell mill women organized
themselves, went on strike and mobilized in politics when women couldn't even vote—and created the first
union of working women in American history. In 1834 and 1836 they went on strike to protest wage cuts, and
between 1843 and 1848 they mounted petition campaigns' aimed at reducing the hours of labor in the
mills,which came to be known as the “Ten hour movement”.
According to Thomas Dublin, Lowell Textile Mills developed in two phases. In the first phase (1800-1820),
textile mills began to appear and labour came to work in these mills from agricultural families. The work
structure as well as culture was based on family labor where the father worked on company farm while mother
and children worked as labourers in the mill. In the second phase according to Dublin(1820 onwards) there
was rapid movement of people into westward territory which saw many people wanting economic
independence.Due to the invention of new machines, it led to more investment of capital profit. In order to
maintain their profit margins, the mill owners began to employ women laborers who could be paid less salaries
and also could be easily controlled. At the same time men in the families began to move away from their
families, which force women to become the bread winners of the family. A mix of personal and familial
motivations led women to leave their farming homes and take up mill employment which permitted young
women to earn their own support without depending on their families; second, the wages permitted young
women to save something for their future. While working in textile mills, women workers gained economic
independence which gave them sense of freedom to loosen the patriarchal control by losing parental
supervision and ability to establish their own identity. These women began to use the money they earned to
become more educated, visit public places, to express their opinions as well as enjoy the freedom of spatial
movement.