Did women and children work in factories during the industrial revolution in the United States?

Question

Or was it only men? I know that they working in factories in Europe...

Answer 1

Yes. Women still work in factories.

See the following link for pictures of children at work:

http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates...

Answer 2

Children as young as six years old during the industrial revolution worked hard hours for little or no pay. Children sometimes worked up to 19 hours a day, with a one-hour total break. This was a little bit on the extreme, but it was not common for children who worked in factories to work 12-14 hours with the same minimal breaks. Not only were these children subject to long hours, but also, they were in horrible conditions. Large, heavy, and dangerous equipment was very common for children to be using or working near. Many accidents occurred injuring or killing children on the job. Not until the Factory Act of 1833 did things improve. Children were paid only a fraction of what an adult would get, and sometimes factory owners would get away with paying them nothing. Orphans were the ones subject to this slave-like labor. The factory owners justified their absence of payroll by saying that they gave the orphans food, shelter, and clothing, all of which were far below par. The children who did get paid were paid very little.

Women’s involvement in labor organization in the 19th century was centered in the manufacturing industries.  The cheap and readily available labor of young women in the very beginning of industrialism allowed the U.S. to more quickly epxand. The young girls were willing and able to work while their male counterparts generally had to stay home and work on the farm.

The women generally liked being away from the drudgery of farm life. Earning their own money and living on their own was very liberating, despite the harsh conditions of the factories. The crowded, all-female environments of textile and garment factories created a feeling of community among women.  At the largest textile mill in New England, Lowel, MA, the women even started their own publication, The Lowell Offering, with their poetry and essays

Answer 3

Yes, they did.  In 'America's Women' Gail Collins writes:

'Just as the school boards came to like female teachers, the nation's infant factory system was taken with the idea of mill girls.  American employers were worried about creating a permanent class of rough, hard-to-handle industrial workers, like the ones who were causing so much trouble in England.  Girls did not usually stay long enough to become troublemakers - after a few years, most left to get married.  In the meantime they were cheaper than male workers, and easier to control.  By the 1820s, New England was full of textile factories where virtually all the workers were women, each making $2 or £3 a week (the supervisors, who were men, got $12.)  At first, they lived in paternalistic company-owned boardinghouses, where they were barred from staying out late, and required to attend Sunday services.  The girls, who had probably expected to stay at home or go into domestic service until they married, seemed pleased that they could make enough money to accumulate a trousseau, or help their families, or simply support themselves.  "Don't I feel independent!" wrote Anne Appleton to her sister. "The thought that I am living on no one is a happy one to me."  Harriet Hanson, who entered the mills at age ten, said she wanted to "earn money like the other little girls" and she may have been speaking the truth.  Her mother ran a boardinghouse, and until little Harriet entered the factory, her job was to wash the dishes for forty-five people, three times a day.

Life in places like Lowell, Massachusetts, during the textile industry's earliest days sounded rather idyllic to outsiders.  In 1833, when President Jackson visited Lowell, he was greeted by mill girls who "walked in procession, like troops of liveried angels, clothed in white (with green-fringed parasols)".  The girls contributed essays to a literary magazine The Lowell Offering, and formed their own "improving circles" in which they read and criticized each other's stories and poetry.  A third of the female workers went to night school, and some went on to become teachers, artists, librarians and missionaries.

But when the panic of 1837 hit, the mills' management became less paternalistic and more tightfisted.  Within a short time, the mill girls were on strike against speedups and wage cutbacks.  Much of their disatisfaction focused on the length of the workday.  It had always been long - in 1834 int stretched from eleven to twelve hours - but by 1850 women were working thirteen-and-a-half hour days, and at amuch faster pace.  In 1845, millworker Eliza Hemingway testified before the Massachusetts House of Representatives that in the summer she worked from 5 am to 7 pm, with two breaks for meals. "She thought there was a general desire among the females to work but ten hours regardless of pay" reported a newspaper account.  many of the native-born mill girls were replaced by immigrants of both sexes, who were desperate enough to accept starvation wages.'

Answer 4

Yes.  Definitely.  Do a search for "mill girls" and "factory children US."   Children as young as six were working in both factories and mines until they passed legislation against it.  Farm girls often came to town to work in the factories for a few years before they got married.  These were heavily chaperoned.  If they got pregnant while working in the factories, it was a major disgrace.