and require that they be educated during the other three. For this
purpose there are schools in Lowell; and there are churches and
chapels of various persuasions, in which the young women may
observe that form of worship in which they have been educated.
At some distance from the factories, and on the highest and
pleasantest ground in the neighbourhood, stands their hospital, or
boarding-house for the sick: it is the best house in those parts,
and was built by an eminent merchant for his own residence. Like
that institution at Boston, which I have before described, it is
not parcelled out into wards, but is divided into convenient
chambers, each of which has all the comforts of a very comfortable
home. The principal medical attendant resides under the same roof;
and were the patients members of his own family, they could not be
better cared for, or attended with greater gentleness and
consideration. The weekly charge in this establishment for each
female patient is three dollars, or twelve shillings English; but
no girl employed by any of the corporations is ever excluded for
want of the means of payment. That they do not very often want the
means, may be gathered from the fact, that in July, 1841, no fewer
than nine hundred and seventy-eight of these girls were depositors
in the Lowell Savings Bank: the amount of whose joint savings was
estimated at one hundred thousand dollars, or twenty thousand
English pounds.
I am now going to state three facts, which will startle a large
class of readers on this side of the Atlantic, very much.
Firstly, there is a joint-stock piano in a great many of the
boarding-houses. Secondly, nearly all these young ladies subscribe
to circulating libraries. Thirdly, they have got up among
themselves a periodical called THE LOWELL OFFERING, ‘A repository
of original articles, written exclusively by females actively
employed in the mills,’ – which is duly printed, published, and
sold; and whereof I brought away from Lowell four hundred good
solid pages, which I have read from beginning to end.
The large class of readers, startled by these facts, will exclaim,
with one voice, ‘How very preposterous!’ On my deferentially
inquiring why, they will answer, ‘These things are above their
station.’ In reply to that objection, I would beg to ask what
their station is.
It is their station to work. And they DO work. They labour in
these mills, upon an average, twelve hours a day, which is
unquestionably work, and pretty tight work too. Perhaps it is
above their station to indulge in such amusements, on any terms.
Are we quite sure that we in England have not formed our ideas of
the ‘station’ of working people, from accustoming ourselves to the
contemplation of that class as they are, and not as they might be?
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Dickens, Charles – American Notes for General Circulation
I think that if we examine our own feelings, we shall find that the
pianos, and the circulating libraries, and even the Lowell
Offering, startle us by their novelty, and not by their bearing
upon any abstract question of right or wrong.
For myself, I know no station in which, the occupation of to-day
cheerfully done and the occupation of to-morrow cheerfully looked
to, any one of these pursuits is not most humanising and laudable.
I know no station which is rendered more endurable to the person in
it, or more safe to the person out of it, by having ignorance for
its associate. I know no station which has a right to monopolise
the means of mutual instruction, improvement, and rational
entertainment; or which has ever continued to be a station very
long, after seeking to do so.
Of the merits of the Lowell Offering as a literary production, I
will only observe, putting entirely out of sight the fact of the
articles having been written by these girls after the arduous
labours of the day, that it will compare advantageously with a
great many English Annuals. It is pleasant to find that many of
its Tales are of the Mills and of those who work in them; that they
inculcate habits of self-denial and contentment, and teach good