The Lowell System

Manufacturing in the United States got off to a slower start than that of other world powers, but it developed in an indigenous and effective way that has been imitated around the world. The so called Lowell system of the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts of the 19th century is one such manufacturing paradigm. In countries like China, this all encompassing employment ethic is still in operation. Some of the issues involved in it helped to reform how Americans work as well.

The Lowell factories primarily employed young women aged 15-35 - putting the lie to the idea that women have only just recently entered the work force in considerable numbers. These women worked full time in the textile mills performing a variety of jobs. The employers ran the factories and the surrounding environs in the same way that a women's college of the same period might have been - with enforced curfews, prescriptions for behavior and high standards of cleanliness. This was to make it more attractive to young women who might have otherwise been put off by the dirty and disordered environs of conventional factory towns.

The mills used standardized parts and proscriptions for behavior to make labor more efficient and predictable, and it was a successful system that lasted for most of the 19th century even from its beginnings in the 1830s. It was also the site of some early stirrings of the labor movement, with many women protesting for lower hours and higher wages intermittently throughout the century.