There was no thought among them that there was
anything degrading in factory work. Most of the girls came from
the surrounding farms, to earn money for a trousseau, to send a
brother through college, to raise a mortgage, or to enjoy the
society of their fellow workers, and have a good time in a quiet,
serious way, discussing the sermons and lectures they heard and
the books they read in their leisure hours. They had numerous
"improvement circles" at which contributions of the members in
both prose and verse were read and discussed. And for several
years they printed a magazine, "The Lowell Offering", which was
entirely written and edited by girls in the mills.
Charles Dickens visited Lowell in the winter of 1842 and recorded
his impressions of what he saw there in the fourth chapter of his
"American Notes". He says that he went over several of the
factories, "examined them in every part; and saw them in their
ordinary working aspect, with no preparation of any kind, or
departure from their ordinary every-day proceedings"; that the
girls "were all well dressed: and that phrase necessarily
includes extreme cleanliness. They had serviceable bonnets, good
warm cloaks, and shawls. . . . Moreover, there were places in the
mill in which they could deposit these things without injury; and
there were conveniences for washing.
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