The Long Argument: Capital vs. Labor · Episode 4 of 12 · 22 min
The Factory Arrives: Luddites, Lowell, and Wage Labor
Between roughly 1790 and 1850 the artisan's workshop gave way to the bell-governed factory. English Luddites smashed machines as a bargaining tactic and were hanged for it, Lowell's mill women walked out and petitioned, and Americans fought over whether wages were a kind of slavery. Historians still disagree whether the factory made early workers better or worse off.
Who's who
- Samuel SlaterEnglish-trained mill man who built America's first successful water-powered spinning mill
- Francis Cabot LowellBoston merchant who reconstructed the power loom and founded the Waltham mill
- Lord Byron+1 more episodeOpposed making frame-breaking a capital crime in his 1812 Lords speech
- George MellorYorkshire cropper hanged in 1813 for killing mill owner William Horsfall
- Sarah Bagley+1 more episodeLowell weaver turned organizer of ten-hour petitions
- Harriet Hanson RobinsonMill worker whose memoir records the 1836 turn-out
- Orestes BrownsonRadical who argued northern wage labor could be harsher than slavery
- George FitzhughVirginia pro-slavery theorist who made the wage-slavery taunt
Where it happens
- Pawtucket, Rhode IslandSite of America's first successful water-powered spinning mill, 1790
- Lowell, MassachusettsMill town and center of the women's turn-outs
- Nottingham, EnglandWhere Luddite frame-breaking began in 1811
- Waltham, MassachusettsSite of the first American mill integrating spinning and weaving
Timeline
- 1790Slater's spinning frames begin operating at Pawtucket
- March 1812Frame-breaking made a capital felony
- January 1813Seventeen Luddites hanged after a special commission at York
- February 1834First Lowell turn-out against a wage cut fails within days
- October 1836Second turn-out over boardinghouse rents largely succeeds
- March 1842Commonwealth v. Hunt rules a bootmakers' union no criminal conspiracy
Still debated
The standard-of-living debate for 1790 to 1850 is unresolved between pessimists and optimists. Scholars also dispute how organized Luddism was, how benevolent Lowell was, the moral hazard of the wage-slavery comparison, and how far Commonwealth v. Hunt reached.
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