Lewiston Factory Girl

[Generic Other]

In the mid to late 1800s, child labor in the mills was common. Many children who worked in the mills were immigrants whose families needed the extra money.
No stopping the machine. The Bates Mill of Lewiston employed 1,000 mostly Irish immigrants with the male employees earning $7.62 a week and female workers earning $4.39 a week. 4500 women were employed in the factories. The workers who built the mill made their own bricks!

Sadly, these are the conditions the 1% wishes to impose on all workers again.

[Scuba]

1. Very interesting. The harnessing of the falls created energy to drive the mills....

... but without the labor it would have been useless.

The old Lowell Mill at 29 Lowell Street in Lewiston is now office space and a data center for Central Maine Medical Center.

[Generic Other]

3. It sounds like the New England factory jobs were outsourced to the South

I suppose the mill workers in Maine and Massachusetts felt the same sense of anger when their jobs went to Southern workers willing to labor for less money.

[1monster]

2. K & R

[xtraxritical]

4. Lewiston Montana? Where?

[Generic Other]

5. I thought it was Lewiston, Idaho at first

but I really think the song is about Lewiston, Maine. On a larger level it is about us all though, right?

[FailureToCommunicate]

6. We just toured the Lowell Mills (Massachusetts) It was an amazing look into the labor practices of

the 1% of the past and the harsh conditions of workers. Hint: no different than today: Workers are expendable (mostly women) paid as little as possible, and controlled by men fearful of losing THEIR jobs if they underperform. Any whiff of organizing for better pay, hour, or conditions, the owner move to the South, or now to third world countries without unions and worker safety and environmental laws...


(This song as performed by Hedy West and appears on the compilation American Folk Singers And Balladeers (1964).

"Cotton Mill Girls"

I worked in the cotton mill all my life,
I ain't got nothing but a barlow knife.
It's a hard times, cotton mill girls,
Hard times everywhere.

Chorus:
It's a hard times, cotton mill girls,
A hard times, cotton mill girls,
Hard times, cotton mill girls,
Hard times everywhere.

In 1915 we heard it said,
"Move to cotton country and get ahead."
It's a hard times, cotton mill girls,
Hard times everywhere.

Chorus

From Gilmer to Bartow is a long, long way,
Down Cartecay from Ellijay.
It's a hard times, cotton mill girls,
Hard times everywhere.

Chorus

When I die don't bury me at all,
Just hang me up on the spinning room wall,
And pickle my bones in al-ki-hol.
It's a hard times, cotton mill girls,

Chorus

(Thanks for the thread, Other.)

[Generic Other]

8. History repeating itself

with us on the down side.

[TahitiNut]

7. Golly, how else could we possibly 'compete' with China??

[Generic Other]

9. Hey you!!

Always good to see one of the old school DUers!!

[TahitiNut]

10. Careful

It's dangerous to say "old" to an olde person.