The invention of the Factory Town

This portion of Chelmsford was renamed Low- ell after Francis Cabot Lowell (1775–1817), an American businessman who improved American spinning and weaving machines and founded the first mill in America where raw cotton was processed and converted into cloth in the same building. Lowell, Massachusetts, is significant to the history of American industrialization because the town was entirely based around mill life. The mills employed primarily female workers, who lived in local boarding houses, shopped at company stores, and engaged in company-approved leisure-time activities, making Lowell the first company town.
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By 1836, Lowell was the home to over 17,000 people, most of whom were female mill workers. Work began at 5:00 a.m. and ended at 7:00 p.m., with two breaks lasting a half hour each. In 1834, the company announced it would cut wages. Women workers took to the streets in protest. Though the strike did not raise wages, it did provide female workers with strike experience. In 1836, owners once again announced that wages would be cut. Also, workers would pay housing and meals, which had previously been par- tially paid for by the factory, in full.


--- Welch R & Lamphier P.A., Technical Innovation in America. 2019.