Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2024 i Cobblestone American History and Current Events for Kids and Children

When you hear the words “industrial revolution,” you might think they have to do with a war. But the Industrial Revolution in America was an economic revolution. It started in the 1800s and lasted into the 1900s. During that time, the United States went from a nation of small towns and farmers to one of big cities, big factories, and big changes in how things were made. The production of cloth was one of those things that saw significant changes. Before 1800, most of the cloth in the United States was made by farmwomen and girls in their homes. They used only foot-powered spinning wheels and hand looms. By 1850, however, cloth was manufactured almost entirely by machines in large factories. And those factories needed lots of workers. Thousands of…

An experienced mill girl living in Lowell in the mid-1800s might earn $4 each week. Today, the average weekly wage of a person working in a factory is about $630 per week. That modern wage is about 150 times more than a mill girl’s wage. To see how much something that cost a nickel in the mid-1800s would cost today, we can multiple $0.05 by 150 to get $7.50. In addition to wages changing, prices have changed, too. Listed on page 11 is a sampling of common items a mill girl might have purchased and an estimated 1850 price. Another column indicates an estimated cost in today’s prices of a similar item. Keep in mind that we have many more choices today, from types of milk and cheese to all…

IN OTHER NEWS In the mid-1800s, in the same decades that mill girls were keeping New England’s factories humming, these events made history in the United States. A MIRACULOUS MESSAGE The 19th century was an age before computers, cell phones, and the internet. People communicated by sending handwritten letters through the mail. It took anywhere from days to months for letters to reach people, depending on how far away they lived from one another. But on May 24, 1844, Samuel F.B. Morse demonstrated his new telegraph machine. He sent a message—“What hath God wrought?”—from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland. Using a coded system, the telegraph machine changed how people communicated. It allowed messages to be sent and received instantly. America’s Pastime Versions of baseball—also referred to as “town ball”—were played…

The Industrial Revolution often brings to mind tall smokestacks and huge factories filled with machines churning out mass-produced goods in the 19th century. But the ancient craft of weaving underwent the most dramatic transformation earlier—in the second half of the 18th century. A ‘Thirst’ for Cotton For centuries, England was the world’s leading producer of woolen fabric. But by the mid-1700s, more and more of Europe’s rapidly growing population wanted cotton. At the time, most of the world’s cotton fabric was made in India. English cotton cloth was poorer in quality and more expensive than the Indian version. As demand for cotton in the world market soared, British merchants, industrialists, and craftsmen searched for ways to make their cotton cloth production more efficient. A problem in the production of cotton…

Weavers in Lowell’s first mills tended an average of two power looms each. By 1876, inventions enabled weavers to watch up to eight looms each. By the mid-1800s, the Lowell mills employed more than 10,000 people and were turning out almost 50,000 miles of cotton cloth each year. Lowell mill girls earned between $2.00 and $3.50 per week. They were paid in cash once a month. The cost to live in a boarding house was $1.25 per week. That money paid for room and board—a place to sleep and meals to eat. Factory bells dominated daily life in the mills. Bells woke workers at 4:30 a.m. and called them into the mills at 4:40 a.m. Then bells rang workers out for breakfast and back in, out for dinner (lunch) and…

Lowell National Historical Park was more than a decade in the making. It began with a citizens’ grassroots effort in the mid-1960s. The people of Lowell wanted to see the historic elements of their city preserved and revitalized. A few years later, the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees the National Park Service (NPS), announced a decision to create more than a dozen new sites in or near urban areas. But it wasn’t until June 5, 1978, that President Jimmy Carter signed a law passed by Congress designating Lowell as the site of one of those historic urban parks. A number of the original 1800s mill buildings remained standing, but they were in need of restoration. A preservation commission helped determine how to proceed. Today, Lowell National Historical Park…

In the fall of 1845, 16-year-old Mary Paul wrote to her father. She was performing housework duties in a village near her hometown of Barnard, Vermont. She wanted his permission to live and work in Lowell, Massachusetts. With her father’s consent, Mary became a mill girl in one of Lowell’s large cotton factories. Lowell’s mills attracted thousands of young farmwomen such as Mary. By 1846, nearly 7,000 New England women were working in Lowell’s 10 largest factories. Ranging in age from 15 to 30 years old, many of the unmarried young women already knew how to make cloth by hand. The promise of good wages and a decent living encouraged them to leave home to work in the mills. It meant one fewer mouth to feed on the family farm.…

September 21, 1835 Dear Mama, I am arrived in Lowell at last. My, what a lot I have to tell you! The journey seemed mighty long. Bumping along in the wagon and then the train, I couldn’t help but think how every mile was carrying me farther away from home. Cousin Abigail met me at the depot. I knew her by her red hair—just like Papa’s. She took me straight to her boarding house, so I only got a quick peek at the town. How I longed to stop and just stare at it all! The streets are lined with building after building, all crowded and close together. And so many people and horses and carriages hurrying here, there, and everywhere. It’s so noisy and busy and bright. Our boarding…

This strong defense (left) of the virtue of female factory workers appeared in the first issue of the Lowell Offering in 1840. The literary magazine was written and edited by mill girls. Its stories, articles, and poems described the lives and hopes of the young women who worked in the textile city of Lowell, Massachusetts. The Offering claimed that “our magazine is the only one which America has produced, of which no other country has produced the like. [It] is . . . evidence, not only of the American ‘factory-girls,’ but of the intelligence of the mass of our country.” The 32-page magazine was published monthly. It grew out of church-sponsored groups of mill girls, who met in the evenings to read aloud their writing. The girls produced so much…

Can you solve this crossword puzzle about life as a mill girl in the 1800s? All the answers can be found in this issue. The solution is on page 49. ACROSS 3. Most of the girls who traveled to work in Lowell’s mills came from small New England _____.5. This Massachusetts city was one of the first industrial cities in the United States.7. The Lowell _____ was a literary magazine written and edited by mill girls.10. Many mill girls lived in _____ _____, which provided them with a place to live and meals to eat.11. Sarah _____ was a famous mill girl who protested the unfair working conditions in the factories.13. Mill employees worked _____ days a week.14. Protesting mill girls organized a large _____ after owners threatened to cut…

A mill is a “building or group of buildings equipped with machinery for processing raw materials into finished products.” Initially, the word was used to refer to a single, small building often built near a water source that ground grain for an early settlement. The word derives from the Old English word mylen, which means “water mill for grinding grain.” The mill towns of the 1800s were built along rivers, which provided the power to run them. The Merrimack River powered the Lowell mills. Merrimack is believed to be an Anglicized version of a Native American word for the river. It means “the place of a strong current.” First used in the 1620s, textiletraces its origin to the Latin textilis, meaning “woven cloth,” and textere, “to weave.” With a growing…