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To investigate the history of the Lowell, Massachusetts, textile mills-once world-renowned for their scale and success-is to encounter the story of the "mill girls" who left farms all over New England to work in those factories in the mid-nineteenth century. This period and these people in American history have received abundant attention both in historical novels for youth and adults and in many compelling works of non-fiction that look at the history of Lowell's mills and at the lives of the men and women-especially the women-who worked there. We have in this case a perfect integration of women's history and "standard" history, in that it is impossible to teach about Lowell's (and America's) industrialization without examining the impact on and of the women who comprised at times over three-fourths of the total textile industry workforce in Lowell. Additionally, the "mill girl" story grips the imagination of most everyone who encounters it, whether through textbooks, historical fiction, museum exhibits, or other sources-including, increasingly, Web sites devoted to industrialization and workers' stories. We remain intrigued by the idea of young women of this time leaving their families and often-remote farms for a factory experience in an urban setting. Their sheer numbers impress us, the fact of this "city of women" that nineteenth-century Lowell became. The women's growing disenchantment with mill conditions over time and their consequent protest actions captivate us as well.
We wonder what this farm-to-factory experience was like, and the women tell us in the letters they left behind, in letters they wrote to newspapers, in their memoirs, and in the semi-fictional pieces they wrote for the Lowdl Offering, their own literary magazine. The petitions they submitted to the Massachusetts legislature as they fought for a shorter workday tell their story, too. Of course, the men of early Lowell have their own stories to tell, and any resources prepared for a classroom and intended to illuminate the history of this period through studies of actual people need to include stories of both genders. But the women so outnumbered the men and left such an interesting written record that they have provided us with the perfect opportunity to teach about women's history as an integral part of American history.
Used creatively in the classroom, the plentiful...