Mr. Dana Is Also A
Cambridge Man - He Who Was "Two Years Before The Mast," And Who
Since That Has Written To Us Of Cuba.
But Mr. Dana, though
residing at Cambridge, is not of Cambridge; and, though a literary
man, he does not belong to literature.
He is - could he help it? - a
"special attorney." I must not, however, degrade him; for in the
States barristers and attorneys are all one. I cannot but think
that he could help it, and that he should not give up to law what
was meant for mankind. I fear, however, that successful Law has
caught him in her intolerant clutches, and that Literature, who
surely would be the nobler mistress, must wear the willow. Last
and greatest is the poet-laureate of the West, for Mr. Longfellow
also lives at Cambridge.
* Since these words were written President Felton has died - I, as I
returned on my way homeward, had the melancholy privilege of being
present at his funeral. I feel bound to record here the great
kindness with which Mr. Felton assisted me in obtaining such
information as I needed respecting the institution over which he
presided.
I am not at all aware whether the nature of the manufacturing
corporation of Lowell is generally understood by Englishmen. I
confess that until I made personal acquaintance with the plan, I
was absolutely ignorant on the subject. I knew that Lowell was a
manufacturing town at which cotton is made into calico, and at
which calico is printed - as is the case at Manchester; but I
conceived this was done at Lowell, as it is done at Manchester, by
individual enterprise - that I or any one else could open a mill at
Lowell, and that the manufacturers there were ordinary traders, as
they are at other manufacturing towns. But this is by no means the
case.
That which most surprises an English visitor on going through the
mills at Lowell is the personal appearance of the men and women who
work at them. As there are twice as many women as there are men,
it is to them that the attention is chiefly called. They are not
only better dressed, cleaner, and better mounted in every respect
than the girls employed at manufactories in England, but they are
so infinitely superior as to make a stranger immediately perceive
that some very strong cause must have created the difference. We
all know the class of young women whom we generally see serving
behind counters in the shops of our larger cities. They are neat,
well dressed, careful, especially about their hair, composed in
their manner, and sometimes a little supercilious in the propriety
of their demeanor. It is exactly the same class of young women
that one sees in the factories at Lowell. They are not sallow, nor
dirty, nor ragged, nor rough. They have about them no signs of
want, or of low culture. Many of us also know the appearance of
those girls who work in the factories in England; and I think it
will be allowed that a second glance at them is not wanting to show
that they are in every respect inferior to the young women who
attend our shops. The matter, indeed, requires no argument. Any
young woman at a shop would be insulted by being asked whether she
had worked at a factory. The difference with regard to the men at
Lowell is quite as strong, though not so striking. Working men do
not show their status in the world by their outward appearance as
readily as women; and, as I have said before, the number of the
women greatly exceeded that of the men.
One would of course be disposed to say that the superior condition
of the workers must have been occasioned by superior wages; and
this, to a certain extent, has been the cause. But the higher
payment is not the chief cause. Women's wages, including all that
they receive at the Lowell factories, average about 14s. a week,
which is, I take it, fully a third more than women can earn in
Manchester, or did earn before the loss of the American cotton
began to tell upon them. But if wages at Manchester were raised to
the Lowell standard, the Manchester women would not be clothed,
fed, cared for, and educated like the Lowell women. The fact is,
that the workmen and the workwomen at Lowell are not exposed to the
chances of an open labor market. They are taken in, as it were, to
a philanthropical manufacturing college, and then looked after and
regulated more as girls and lads at a great seminary, than as hands
by whose industry profit is to be made out of capital. This is all
very nice and pretty at Lowell, but I am afraid it could not be
done at Manchester.
There are at present twelve different manufactories at Lowell, each
of which has what is called a separate corporation. The Merrimack
Manufacturing Company was incorporated in 1822, and thus Lowell was
commenced. The Lowell Machine-shop was incorporated in 1845, and
since that no new establishment has been added. In 1821, a certain
Boston manufacturing company, which had mills at Waltham, near
Boston, was attracted by the water-power of the River Merrimack, on
which the present town of Lowell is situated. A canal called the
Pawtucket Canal had been made for purposes of navigation from one
reach of the river to another, with the object of avoiding the
Pawtucket Falls; and this canal, with the adjacent water-power of
the river, was purchased for the Boston company. The place was
then called Lowell, after one of the partners in that company.
It must be understood that water-power alone is used for preparing
the cotton and working the spindles and looms of the cotton mills.
Steam is applied in the two establishments in which the cottons are
printed, for the purposes of printing, but I think nowhere else.
When the mills are at full work, about two and a half million yards
of cotton goods are made every week, and nearly a million pounds of
cotton are consumed per week, (i e. 842,000 lbs.,) but the
consumption of coal is only 30,000 tons in the year.
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