The Role Of Harriet Robinson During The Industrial Revolution

“As I looked back at the long line that followed me, I was more proud than I have ever been since at any success I may have achieved…” proclaimed Harriet Robinson as she proudly led a line of female workers protesting unfair treatment at the Lowell textile mills (“Women in the 19th Century” 15). Robinson was one of the many women working at the Lowell Mills, which were textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts, during the Industrial Revolution of the mid-1800s (Benson 932; “Women in the 19th Century” 13). These factories mainly employed young, single women between the ages of sixteen and thirty from the surrounding New England farms (Benson 932). As Robinson shows, they would protest when their working rights were deprived, and they found immense
In the early 1800s, women were seen as subservient creatures, “The ideal woman was submissive; her job was to be a meek, obedient, loving wife who was totally subservient to the men around her” (Donnaway). One way women began breaking traditional ideas was by working at the Lowell factories. Previously, their work centered in the home, being mothers, domestic aids, seamstresses, making goods for barter, and helping on the family farms (“A Letter” 11; Radek-Hall). Working in factories was outside the traditional female social norms: “It was not an accepted practice for
Thus, their factory employment began to crush the traditional idea of female work at this time. A second way women started crushing social norms was by remaining single when social norms said they should be married. An increasing number of women were deciding to remain single after their mill careers ended (“A Letter” 11). Betsy, a Lowell Mill worker, wrote about this in “A Letter About Old Maids” in 1840. She claimed, “… I think it was a part of that wise design, that there should be Old Maids” (“A Letter” 10). These “Old Maids”, or unmarried women, were a model to future women who did not want to conform to the traditional home setting (“A Letter” 10). These single women gave rise to women reformers (“A Letter” 13). Betsy references to this by saying, “They form a large portion of our authoresses; they are the founders and pillars of Anti-Slavery, Moral Reform, and all sorts of religious and charitable societies…” (“A Letter” 12). A third way women managed to challenge traditional restrictions was by becoming financially independent and supporting themselves by earning wages (“A Letter”