A Mill Girl's Day
A Mill Girl's Day A Mill Girl's Day It is 4:30 A.M. The factory bell rings. Molly Farrell wakes up in her bedroom in the boarding house. Her three roommates do the same. They all need to be at the factory gate in half an hour. Molly is smiling. Hattie is not. "Cheer up," says Molly. "Tomorrow is Saturday and payday!" It is Friday, May 30, 1835. Tomorrow, the mill girls work only half a day: 8 hours. They earn about $2.50 per week, paid on the last day of the month. By 5:00 A.M., hundreds
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A Mill Girl's Day
A Mill Girl's Day
It is 4:30 A.M. The factory bell rings.Molly Farrell wakes up in her bedroom in the boarding house.Her three roommates do the same.They all need to be at the factory gate in half an hour.
Molly is smiling. Hattie is not. "Cheer up," says Molly."Tomorrow is Saturday and payday!"
It is Friday, May 30, 1835. Tomorrow, the mill girls work only half a day: 8 hours.They earn about $2.50 per week, paid on the last day of the month.
By 5:00 A.M., hundreds of mill girls stream through the huge iron gate of the enormous cotton mill in Lowell, Massachusetts.The women range in age from 15 to 30, but they are all called mill girls.
Hattie will go to work in the spinning room.Molly will go to work in the weave room.Hattie's machine makes thread. Molly's loom weaves the thread into cloth.
Molly waves to Hattie. "See you at breakfast!"
The weave room is immense and filled with nearly 200 looms.The sound is deafening. Each girl tends two looms.Eliza tends the two looms on Molly's right.Eliza taught Molly how to work the looms when Molly first came to the mill. She was a kind teacher.
Molly watches as the shuttle speeds back and forth,carrying the weft thread and weaving it into the many warp threads.Molly sees that Eliza is coughing hard.With all the noise, though, she cannot hear her.
After two hours at the mill, the bell clangs again.It is time for breakfast. Molly hurries back to her boarding house.She eats with Hattie and the other girls in the dining room.It is good to get out of the hot and stuffy weave room.
The windows of the mill let in light, but they are always closed.Weave rooms have to be warm and damp.If they are not, the threads will dry out and break.Because the windows are closed, cotton dust floats in the air all the time.The mill girls breathe this dusty air.
