American Notes for General Circulation

by Dickens, Chales

  immediately vacates it with great politeness. Politics are much

  discussed, so are banks, so is cotton. Quiet people avoid the

  question of the Presidency, for there will be a new election in

  three years and a half, and party feeling runs very high: the

  great constitutional feature of this institution being, that

  directly the acrimony of the last election is over, the acrimony of

  the next one begins; which is an unspeakable comfort to all strong

  politicians and true lovers of their country: that is to say, to

  ninety-nine men and boys out of every ninety-nine and a quarter.

  Except when a branch road joins the main one, there is seldom more

  than one track of rails; so that the road is very narrow, and the

  view, where there is a deep cutting, by no means extensive. When

  there is not, the character of the scenery is always the same.

  Mile after mile of stunted trees: some hewn down by the axe, some

  blown down by the wind, some half fallen and resting on their

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  neighbours, many mere logs half hidden in the swamp, others

  mouldered away to spongy chips. The very soil of the earth is made

  up of minute fragments such as these; each pool of stagnant water

  has its crust of vegetable rottenness; on every side there are the

  boughs, and trunks, and stumps of trees, in every possible stage of

  decay, decomposition, and neglect. Now you emerge for a few brief

  minutes on an open country, glittering with some bright lake or

  pool, broad as many an English river, but so small here that it

  scarcely has a name; now catch hasty glimpses of a distant town,

  with its clean white houses and their cool piazzas, its prim New

  England church and school-house; when whir-r-r-r! almost before you

  have seen them, comes the same dark screen: the stunted trees, the

  stumps, the logs, the stagnant water - all so like the last that

  you seem to have been transported back again by magic.

  The train calls at stations in the woods, where the wild

  impossibility of anybody having the smallest reason to get out, is

  only to be equalled by the apparently desperate hopelessness of

  there being anybody to get in. It rushes across the turnpike road,

  where there is no gate, no policeman, no signal: nothing but a

  rough wooden arch, on which is painted 'WHEN THE BELL RINGS, LOOK

  OUT FOR THE LOCOMOTIVE.' On it whirls headlong, dives through the

  woods again, emerges in the light, clatters over frail arches,

  rumbles upon the heavy ground, shoots beneath a wooden bridge which

  intercepts the light for a second like a wink, suddenly awakens all

  the slumbering echoes in the main street of a large town, and

  dashes on haphazard, pell-mell, neck-or-nothing, down the middle of

  the road. There - with mechanics working at their trades, and

  people leaning from their doors and windows, and boys flying kites

  and playing marbles, and men smoking, and women talking, and

  children crawling, and pigs burrowing, and unaccustomed horses

  plunging and rearing, close to the very rails - there - on, on, on

  - tears the mad dragon of an engine with its train of cars;

  scattering in all directions a shower of burning sparks from its

  wood fire; screeching, hissing, yelling, panting; until at last the

  thirsty monster stops beneath a covered way to drink, the people

  cluster round, and you have time to breathe again.

  I was met at the station at Lowell by a gentleman intimately

  connected with the management of the factories there; and gladly

  putting myself under his guidance, drove off at once to that

  quarter of the town in which the works, the object of my visit,

  were situated. Although only just of age - for if my recollection

  serve me, it has been a manufacturing town barely one-and-twenty

  years - Lowell is a large, populous, thriving place. Those

  indications of its youth which first attract the eye, give it a

  quaintness and oddity of character which, to a visitor from the old

  country, is amusing enough. It was a very dirty winter's day, and

  nothing in the whole town looked old to me, except the mud, which

  in some parts was almost knee-deep, and might have been deposited

  there, on the subsiding of the waters after the Deluge. In one

  place, there was a new wooden church, which, having no steeple, and

  being yet unpainted, looked like an enormous packing-case without

  any direction upon it. In another there was a large hotel, whose

  walls and colonnades were so crisp, and thin, and slight, that it

  had exactly the appearance of being built with cards. I was

  careful not to draw my breath as we passed, and trembled when I saw

  a workman come out upon the roof, lest with one thoughtless stamp

  of his foot he should crush the structure beneath him, and bring it

  rattling down. The very river that moves the machinery in the

  mills (for they are all worked by water power), seems to acquire a

  new character from the fresh buildings of bright red brick and

  painted wood among which it takes its course; and to be as lightheaded,

  thoughtless, and brisk a young river, in its murmurings and

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  tumblings, as one would desire to see. One would swear that every

  'Bakery,' 'Grocery,' and 'Bookbindery,' and other kind of store,

  took its shutters down for the first time, and started in business

  yesterday. The golden pestles and mortars fixed as signs upon the

  sun-blind frames outside the Druggists', appear to have been just

  turned out of the United States' Mint; and when I saw a baby of

  some week or ten days old in a woman's arms at a street corner, I

  found myself unconsciously wondering where it came from: never

  supposing for an instant that it could have been born in such a

  young town as that.

  There are several factories in Lowell, each of which belongs to

  what we should term a Company of Proprietors, but what they call in

  America a Corporation. I went over several of these; such as a

  woollen factory, a carpet factory, and a cotton factory: examined

  them in every part; and saw them in their ordinary working aspect,

  with no preparation of any kind, or departure from their ordinary

  everyday proceedings. I may add that I am well acquainted with our

  manufacturing towns in England, and have visited many mills in

  Manchester and elsewhere in the same manner.

  I happened to arrive at the first factory just as the dinner hour

  was over, and the girls were returning to their work; indeed the

  stairs of the mill were thronged with them as I ascended. They

  were all well dressed, but not to my thinking above their

  condition; for I like to see the humbler classes of society careful

  of their dress and appearance, and even, if they please, decorated

  with such little trinkets as come within the compass of their

  means. Supposing it confined within reasonable limits, I would

  always encourage this kind of pride, as a worthy element of selfrespect,

  in any person I employed; and should no more be d
eterred

  from doing so, because some wretched female referred her fall to a

  love of dress, than I would allow my construction of the real

  intent and meaning of the Sabbath to be influenced by any warning

  to the well-disposed, founded on his backslidings on that

  particular day, which might emanate from the rather doubtful

  authority of a murderer in Newgate.

  These girls, as I have said, were all well dressed: and that

  phrase necessarily includes extreme cleanliness. They had

  serviceable bonnets, good warm cloaks, and shawls; and were not

  above clogs and pattens. Moreover, there were places in the mill

  in which they could deposit these things without injury; and there

  were conveniences for washing. They were healthy in appearance,

  many of them remarkably so, and had the manners and deportment of

  young women: not of degraded brutes of burden. If I had seen in

  one of those mills (but I did not, though I looked for something of

  this kind with a sharp eye), the most lisping, mincing, affected,

  and ridiculous young creature that my imagination could suggest, I

  should have thought of the careless, moping, slatternly, degraded,

  dull reverse (I HAVE seen that), and should have been still well

  pleased to look upon her.

  The rooms in which they worked, were as well ordered as themselves.

  In the windows of some, there were green plants, which were trained

  to shade the glass; in all, there was as much fresh air,

  cleanliness, and comfort, as the nature of the occupation would

  possibly admit of. Out of so large a number of females, many of

  whom were only then just verging upon womanhood, it may be

  reasonably supposed that some were delicate and fragile in

  appearance: no doubt there were. But I solemnly declare, that

  from all the crowd I saw in the different factories that day, I

  cannot recall or separate one young face that gave me a painful

  impression; not one young girl whom, assuming it to be a matter of

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  necessity that she should gain her daily bread by the labour of her

  hands, I would have removed from those works if I had had the

  power.

  They reside in various boarding-houses near at hand. The owners of

  the mills are particularly careful to allow no persons to enter

  upon the possession of these houses, whose characters have not

  undergone the most searching and thorough inquiry. Any complaint

  that is made against them, by the boarders, or by any one else, is

  fully investigated; and if good ground of complaint be shown to

  exist against them, they are removed, and their occupation is

  handed over to some more deserving person. There are a few

  children employed in these factories, but not many. The laws of

  the State forbid their working more than nine months in the year,

  and require that they be educated during the other three. For this

  purpose there are schools in Lowell; and there are churches and

  chapels of various persuasions, in which the young women may

  observe that form of worship in which they have been educated.

  At some distance from the factories, and on the highest and

  pleasantest ground in the neighbourhood, stands their hospital, or

  boarding-house for the sick: it is the best house in those parts,

  and was built by an eminent merchant for his own residence. Like

  that institution at Boston, which I have before described, it is

  not parcelled out into wards, but is divided into convenient

  chambers, each of which has all the comforts of a very comfortable

  home. The principal medical attendant resides under the same roof;

  and were the patients members of his own family, they could not be

  better cared for, or attended with greater gentleness and

  consideration. The weekly charge in this establishment for each

  female patient is three dollars, or twelve shillings English; but

  no girl employed by any of the corporations is ever excluded for

  want of the means of payment. That they do not very often want the

  means, may be gathered from the fact, that in July, 1841, no fewer

  than nine hundred and seventy-eight of these girls were depositors

  in the Lowell Savings Bank: the amount of whose joint savings was

  estimated at one hundred thousand dollars, or twenty thousand

  English pounds.

  I am now going to state three facts, which will startle a large

  class of readers on this side of the Atlantic, very much.

  Firstly, there is a joint-stock piano in a great many of the

  boarding-houses. Secondly, nearly all these young ladies subscribe

  to circulating libraries. Thirdly, they have got up among

  themselves a periodical called THE LOWELL OFFERING, 'A repository

  of original articles, written exclusively by females actively

  employed in the mills,' - which is duly printed, published, and

  sold; and whereof I brought away from Lowell four hundred good

  solid pages, which I have read from beginning to end.

  The large class of readers, startled by these facts, will exclaim,

  with one voice, 'How very preposterous!' On my deferentially

  inquiring why, they will answer, 'These things are above their

  station.' In reply to that objection, I would beg to ask what

  their station is.

  It is their station to work. And they DO work. They labour in

  these mills, upon an average, twelve hours a day, which is

  unquestionably work, and pretty tight work too. Perhaps it is

  above their station to indulge in such amusements, on any terms.

  Are we quite sure that we in England have not formed our ideas of

  the 'station' of working people, from accustoming ourselves to the

  contemplation of that class as they are, and not as they might be?

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  I think that if we examine our own feelings, we shall find that the

  pianos, and the circulating libraries, and even the Lowell

  Offering, startle us by their novelty, and not by their bearing

  upon any abstract question of right or wrong.

  For myself, I know no station in which, the occupation of to-day

  cheerfully done and the occupation of to-morrow cheerfully looked

  to, any one of these pursuits is not most humanising and laudable.

  I know no station which is rendered more endurable to the person in

  it, or more safe to the person out of it, by having ignorance for

  its associate. I know no station which has a right to monopolise

  the means of mutual instruction, improvement, and rational

  entertainment; or which has ever continued to be a station very

  long, after seeking to do so.

  Of the merits of the Lowell Offering as a literary production, I

  will only observe, putting entirely out of sight the fact of the

  articles having been written by these girls after the arduous

  labours of the day, that it will compare advantageously with a

  great many English Annuals. It is pleasant to find that many of

  its Tales are of the Mills and of those who work in them; that they

  inculcate habits of self-denial and contentment, and teach good

/>   doctrines of enlarged benevolence. A strong feeling for the

  beauties of nature, as displayed in the solitudes the writers have

  left at home, breathes through its pages like wholesome village

  air; and though a circulating library is a favourable school for

  the study of such topics, it has very scant allusion to fine

  clothes, fine marriages, fine houses, or fine life. Some persons

  might object to the papers being signed occasionally with rather

  fine names, but this is an American fashion. One of the provinces

  of the state legislature of Massachusetts is to alter ugly names

  into pretty ones, as the children improve upon the tastes of their

  parents. These changes costing little or nothing, scores of Mary

  Annes are solemnly converted into Bevelinas every session.

  It is said that on the occasion of a visit from General Jackson or

  General Harrison to this town (I forget which, but it is not to the

  purpose), he walked through three miles and a half of these young

  ladies all dressed out with parasols and silk stockings. But as I

  am not aware that any worse consequence ensued, than a sudden

  looking-up of all the parasols and silk stockings in the market;

  and perhaps the bankruptcy of some speculative New Englander who

  bought them all up at any price, in expectation of a demand that

  never came; I set no great store by the circumstance.

  In this brief account of Lowell, and inadequate expression of the

  gratification it yielded me, and cannot fail to afford to any

  foreigner to whom the condition of such people at home is a subject

  of interest and anxious speculation, I have carefully abstained

  from drawing a comparison between these factories and those of our

  own land. Many of the circumstances whose strong influence has

  been at work for years in our manufacturing towns have not arisen

  here; and there is no manufacturing population in Lowell, so to

  speak: for these girls (often the daughters of small farmers) come

  from other States, remain a few years in the mills, and then go

  home for good.

  The contrast would be a strong one, for it would be between the

  Good and Evil, the living light and deepest shadow. I abstain from

  it, because I deem it just to do so. But I only the more earnestly

  adjure all those whose eyes may rest on these pages, to pause and

  reflect upon the difference between this town and those great