How Did Lowell Contribute To The Economy During The Industrial Revolution

Lowell Mills Girls According to the article “Power Looms. One Girl Works Four.”, women held nearly two-thirds of all textile jobs in Lowell, Massachusetts. Francis Cabot Lowell hired women, mostly from farm families, to work in the city for his textile factories. These girls were soon known as “Lowell Mills Girls”. With Lowell’s advanced machinery and amount of labor, supply went up, causing more people to buy cloth. The cloth and textile industry bursted, which led to a very harsh demand for fabric. Lowell built up this fabric craze and made history. During the Industrial Revolution, Francis Cabot Lowell revolutionized the way of factories by his Mill Girls system. By bringing in women to work in the city, there became a feeling of independence

According to the article "The Lowell System." by American Eras, it states “His (Francis Lowell) mills were America’s first factories to transform cotton from raw bales to bolts of cloth ready to make into pants, shirts, sheets, and towels, all under one roof.” This machinery allowed for quicker and more consistent ways for creating textiles and fabric. More and more revenue could be made at once.“The use of factories caused the point of craftsmen drop.” (Deverell and White 354). With this new technology, it eliminated the reason for craftsmen, because more product could be made at once. The new technology of machinery made working easier and not as complicated to master. This machinery also was the reason fabric had increased in

This caused an even bigger competition for the textile industry. “Many new textile mills were producing cloth…” ("Lowell Mills." Benson, Brannen, Valentine). Industrialists started to realize that creating a factory to produce products was easier and cheaper than working as a craftsman by hand. The same article states there was “a greater demand for cloth” because more and more factories were producing it. More factories meant more workers, which caused there to be job competitions between the factories. “Wages of factory workers also went down as people competed for jobs.” (Deverell and White 354) As jobs at the factories were starting to form, more people had jobs that did not pay as much, since there were more employees working. Now that there were more factories producing cloth, cloth was in high demand and was very accessible to everyone because of the amount of factories and