every hour. The rest of the time was their own, and when the overseer was kind
they were allowed to read, knit, or go outside the mill-yard to play....
We were paid two dollars a week....
The working-hours of all the girls extended from five o’clock in the morning
until seven in the evening, with one-half hour for breakfast and dinner. Even
the doffers were forced to be on duty nearly fourteen hours a day, and this was the
greatest hardship in the lives of these children. For it was not until 1842 that the
hours of labor for children under twelve years of age were limited to ten per day;
but the “ten-hour law” itself was not passed until long after some of these little
doffers were old enough to appear before the legislative committee on the subject,
and plead, by their presence, for a reduction of the hours of labor.Harriet H. Robinson, Loom and Spindle or Life among the Early Mill Girls (Boston: Thomas Y.
Crowell & Company, 1898), 62–63, 61, 30–31.ToPIc I | a market economy 199PrAcTIcInG historical Thinking
Identify: According to Robinson, what distinguished the mill girls of Lowell from
the factory girls in Europe?
Analyze: What is Robinson’s attitude toward the experience of working in the
mills? Cite details to support your response.
Evaluate: Compare this document with Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s statement at the
Seneca Falls Convention (Doc. 7.10). What differences do you see? What similarities?APPlyInG AP® historical Thinking Skills
sKill review Patterns of Continuity and Change over time
and interpretationBelow are two interpretations of the origins of the Market Revolution. In addition to Docu-
ments 8.1 through 8.6 of this chapter, consult your textbook and class notes for further details
on the Market Revolution. After reading each interpretation, complete the steps that follow.Commercial boom touched off industrialization, as expansive capital engrossed
the desperate rural labor set adrift by the northeastern agrarian crisis. Large
scale production started with textiles and shoes, articles of potentially enormous
demand that promised high returns to capital and entrepreneurship. When shoe-
makers in Lynn and other towns discovered distant markets for cheap, mass-
produced shoes, the more resourceful masters, usually backed by merchant capital,
began putting-out various steps of the process to rural families in the surrounding
countryside. Increasingly they assembled unskilled labor in central workshops to
perform the steps under supervision. Long before shoemaking machinery was
developed, manufacturers in many Yankee towns were mass-producing cheap
shoes for a national market through the putting-out and central shop systems....09_STA_2012_ch8_191-212.indd 199 19/03/15 5:51 PM