The Lowell mill girls were young female workers who came to work in textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts during the Industrial Revolution in the United States. The workers initially recruited by the corporations were daughters of New England farmers, typically between the ages of 15 and 35. By 1840, at the height of the Textile Revolution, the Lowell textile mills had recruited over 8,000 workers, with women making up nearly three-quarters of the mill workforce.
Tintype of two young women in Lowell, Massachusetts (c. 1870)
Cover of The Lowell Offering, Series 1, Number 1 (1840)
1836 Constitution of the Lowell Factory Girls Association
Lowell is a city in Massachusetts, United States. Alongside Cambridge, it is one of two traditional seats of Middlesex County. With an estimated population of 115,554 in 2020, it was the fifth most populous city in Massachusetts as of the last census, and the third most populous in the Boston metropolitan statistical area. The city is also part of a smaller Massachusetts statistical area, called Greater Lowell, and of New England's Merrimack Valley region.
Image: Lowell City Hall; Lowell, MA; southwest side; 2011 08 20
Image: Mill Building (now museum), Lowell, Massachusetts
Image: Coburn Hall
Image: Lowell skyline