Lowell System

The Waltham-Lowell system was a labor and production model employed in the United States, particularly in New England, during the early years of the American textile industry in the early 19th century.

Made possible by inventions such as the spinning jenny, spinning mule, and water frame around the time of the American Revolution, the textile industry was among the earliest mechanized industries, and models of production and labor sources were first explored here.

The system used domestic labor, often referred to as mill girls, who came to the new textile centers from rural towns to earn more money than they could at home, and to live a cultured life in "the city". Their life was very regimented - they lived in company boardinghouses and were held to strict hours and a moral code.

As competition grew in the domestic textile industry and wages fell, strikes began to occur, and with the introduction of cheaper imported foreign workers by mid-century, the system proved unprofitable and collapsed.

The precursor to the Waltham-Lowell system was seen in Rhode Island, where British immigrant Samuel Slater set up his first spinning mills in the 1790s.

Slater drew on his British village experience to create a factory system called the "Rhode Island System," based on the customary patterns of family life in New England villages. Children aged 7 to 12 were the first employees of the mill; Slater personally supervised them closely. The first child workers were hired in 1790. It is highly unlikely that Slater resorted to physical punishment, relying on a system of fines. Slater first tried to staff his mill with women and children from afar, but that fell through due to the close-knit framework of the New England family. He then brought in whole families, creating entire towns. He provided company-owned housing nearby, along with company stores; he sponsored a Sunday School where college students taught the children reading and writing.

The Waltham-Lowell system pioneered the use of a vertically integrated system. Here there was complete control over all aspects of production. Spinning, weaving, dying, and cutting were now completed in a single plant. This large amount of control made it so that no other company could interfere with production. The Waltham mill also pioneered the process of mass production. This greatly increased the scale of manufacturing. Water powered line shafts and belts now connected hundreds of power lines. The increase in manufacturing occurred so rapidly that there was no localized labor supply in the early 19th century that could have sufficed. Lowell solved this problem by hiring young women.

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