Motivation for Mill Life

In the 1800's the Lowell mills created "The Lowell Experiment," which was an industrialization project that tried to avoid the negative aspects of the manufacturing industry. The Lowell Experiment was created to get families to send their daughters to work in the mills. The mill owners needed the mills to seem appealing so that young women would want to come work in them. 

The young girls in Massachusetts and surrounding areas were recruited to come work in the mills. Men would come to family farms and tell the girls' fathers all about how wonderful the mills were. The girls were motivated to go because they believed that the mills would be a great opportunity for them to "see the world," even though it was only an extremely small part of the world. They wanted independence from their families and a way to make their own money. Families were assured that the girls would be taken care of by the boardinghouse keeper and the mill overseer. The boardinghouse keeper would make sure they didn't get into any trouble, and were clean and safe. The owners said it was temporary, and once the girls were old enough to get married they were allowed to leave.

Although there were many benefits, the mills were all they seemed to be. The girls had to pay more than half their wages for boarding and food, but they still made a little bit of money to spend on themselves or to send back home. The girls had to work long hard hours, with dangerous machines that put them at risk for serious injury. But, the experience was temporary and they could leave if they needed or wanted to. 

Working in the mills seemed like a good way for the girls to make enough money to send home, but that wasn't always possible. In the movie "Daughters of Free Men," mill girls experienced wage cuts that would only give them enough money to stay in the boardinghouses. The girls would have no money to spend on themselves or any to send back home, and would have no chance of saving up enough money to leave the mill. Sometimes the girls would boycott and walk out of work until their wages were brought back. But one of the reasons the mill owners chose girls to work is because they didn't think that they had the determination or the power to rebel and stand up for what they wanted, so more often then not the girls didn't get their way. The girls were told that the mills would be a great place for them to earn money and have new experiences away from their home, but they weren't always what they thought they would be. 

Picture: "An Early Rhode Island Mill" from the Lowell Experiment Readings

Hanging Out with MOSI

Today in class we participated in a Google Hangout with Jamie from MOSI in Manchester England. We learned about the process of spinning and making cloth, the machines used, and the dangers of working in a mill. We also got to ask our own question during the live chat.

As we watched on the screen, Jamie led us around the museum and showed us real machines that were used in mills in the 1800s. He showed us the machines that families use in their homes before spinning was industrialized. We learned that the whole family contributed to making cloth. The children carded the wool, the mother spun the cleaned wool to make thread, and the father did the spinning on their loom. This was a risky job to have because it took weeks to make just one piece of cloth, and then the family had to live off that money for the next couple of weeks. If anything happened to the cloth while it was in transport to be sold or in the house, the family would have no income.

Once these machines were mechanized, the process became much faster and a piece of cloth could be made in under an hour. The machines that were used in the mills were much larger and quicker than the ones used in homes. For example, a carding machine would be used to clean large amounts of wool, while back in the homes children would have to do individual pieces by hand. Another example is the industrialized spinning wheel that twists and winds thread onto hundreds of bobbins at once, instead of just one at a time on a home spinning wheel. 

Another thing we learned about was the dangers of working in a mill. It was extremely often that workers would be injured, crippled, and even killed from working on these machines. One example of when machines needed to be cleaned or fixed, children we have to go into the machine while it was still running. Sometime they would repair parts with metal studs, and they would get stuck on the studs and pulled up into the machine. They would be mangled and their bones would be crushed. Another example is the spinning machine. When the threads snapped, children would climb under the machine as the carriage rolled out and crashed back in. They had just over 10 seconds to get in and out or they would be crushed to death. 

This live chat with MOSI taught me a lot about the history of spinning, and the mills. We learned about all of the machines and the dangers of working with them. I realized that working in the mills was a lot more dangerous than I once believed. 

From Spinning Wheels to Power Looms

Today we were given six documents that connected to a major idea of the Industrial Revolution. We analyzed these documents and created a museum exhibit about them. The first thing we did was go through all of the documents and read them over. Then we completed sourcing question to find the author, the date, and the title of each document. After that we inferred the reason the author had for creating the source, and what a visitor to the museum would learn from it. This analysis process was very important to curating the exhibit because without doing it we wouldn't be able to understand the sources for ourselves, and then we would never have been able to create an clear and informational exhibit.

 My group was working on exhibit A, which was all about the industrialization of looms, and moving spinning to mills. Before the industrialization people worked and spun in their homes on their own spinning wheels, but the industrial revolution moved spinning wheels into mills. This meant that only one person from the family could go to the mills and work to support the family, rather than the whole family pitching in to help at the house. Our sources were two pictures of older spinning machines, such as the Spinning Wheel and the Almond Looms, and two pictures of industrialized spinning machines such as the Spinning Jenny and Mechanized Looms. Also, we had a chart that showed to population growth in London after the industrial revolution, and an excerpt from a piece about the effect the mills had on spinning families. 

The title we created for our exhibit was "From Spinning Wheels to Power Looms." We chose this title because it showcased our overall theme, which was the industrialization of spinning and the affect it had on families that worked in that trade. I hope that visitors to the exhibit learn that the industrial revolution wasn't all good. While it increased production of clothes and textiles, it had a bad effect on families that were used to income from everyone in the family. 

As we toured the other exhibits in our "museum," I learned a lot more about the ways the industrial revolution affected people. From Group B I learned that the innovation of the steam engine on railroads made it easier to transport goods from one place to another. It made transportation of goods faster and more efficient, and allowed people to receive goods from other areas rather than just locally. From Group C I learned that due to the industrial revolution, the cities were filthy. People were living and working in terrible conditions, houses were dirty and overpopulated, and smoke from factories was polluting the air. From Group D I learned that children worked in mines and mills from extremely young ages. They did more laborous work than any adults, and were working all day long. And finally from Group E I learned that there was a huge increase in cotton manufacturing, but slaves were used to do all the hard labor. And after the industrial revolution the slave population grew from less than 500,000 to more than 3,500,000.

The Revolutionary Revolution

Today in class we answered the question "What was revolutionary about industrialization?" We read a handout about the four ingredients of industrialization and came up with their negative and positive impacts on the world. The four ingredients of industrialization are people, resources, technology, and transportation.

During the industrial revolution people found and used new resources to improve their lives. These resources included coal, iron, and cotton. People began mining coal to create iron. Then iron was used to build steam engines and other new machines. This caused problems because the mines were dangerous to the miners, and often times these miners were children. Also, cotton became a much used item in England. British people loved cotton from Africa, and then they began to grow their own. They created new machines to make clothes and textiles out of cotton. But slaves were mostly used to do the heavy work. If they didn't have their own slaves to make cotton, they would be buying it cheap from others who used slave labor, which encouraged the slave trade.

Revolutionary technology was created during the industrial revolution. The steam engine was created to power boats and locomotives by steam power (heat and water). People also improved iron by "smelting" it, or removing the impurities and overall producing a better quality and less expensive iron. But coal was needed to smelt iron, and it was dangerous for people to be working in the mines, and burning coal polluted the air. These inventions were groundbreaking, but didn't come at hour negative impacts. 

Picture:

Peacock. "Old Town Railway Station." 1890. Manchester. Photograph. 5 Sep 2014.

Does a Tree Octopus Really Exist?

Today in class we learned how to correctly search for and use online resources responsibly. We learned how to Google the correct way, and the importance of accuracy, authenticity, and reliability in a source. 

The first activity we did was on a website called "a Google a Day" (agoogleaday.com). This website has three new trivia questions every day, and allows you to use the website’s specialized search to find the answers. To be able to find the correct answers in the allotted amount of time you need to search efficiently. A Google a Day gives you tips on how to do this. For example,  by putting words in quotations you are searching for that exact set of words together, and by typing "define:" before a word you'll get the dictionary definition of that word. 

This activity was fun to do, but it could also be frustrating a times. You don't have time to read through all of the websites that come up when you search, so you have to make sure that you are searching for exactly what you need to find. A Google a Day is helpful for not only learning new facts that you otherwise wouldn't have known but it also teaches you the correct way to search for resources.

The second activity we did included defining the words accuracy, authenticity, and reliability as they pertain to online sources. Accuracy is how well the information coincides with other sources and how correct the information is. Authenticity is if the website is what it says it is, and reliability is how credible the authors or creators of the source are. 

After that we went on a website about the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus (zap atopi.net/treeoctopus/). We had to decide whether this website was accurate, authentic, and reliable. First, we found that it is not accurate because there is no such thing as a Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. Also, it is not reliable because we don't know much about the creators of the website. But, it is authentic because it is exactly what is says it is; a website about a tree octopus (even though it doesn't actually exist).

These activities helped me learn a lot. They helped me learn how to correctly find and use credible online sources by searching google and evaluating the sites we find, something I didn't know how to do until now. 

Picture: 

"Tree Octopus." 2013. Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. Photograph. 9 Sept. 2014.