Lowell Offering: Cultivating Identity in a Silencing System

Andrea Pauliuc

Even though I have only been a freshman in college for one semester, the girl who moved in five months ago is far gone—yet in the best way possible. College has been the perfect medium for my identity to develop in a way it never could before. Finally, after 18 years of listening to others and having restrictions on what I can or cannot do, college has allowed for me to make my own choices, and these choices have collectively formed a new, independent me. However, not all women are that lucky.

In this week’s lecture, when we were comparing the Lowell Mill to college—the similarities were striking. Both the Lowell girls and college students eat at a dining hall, sleep in shared rooms, and board at an unfamiliar place away from home. However, these similarities are surface level. College has given me freedom and control while the Lowell girls suffer from neverending regulations such as suffocating work days, sleeping in locked rooms at night, ect.

In contrast to college, which is designed for individual identities to flourish, the Lowell Mill is constructed in such a way that muffles the workers’ identities. The long work hours, the fact their doors are locked at night, the inability for men of the opposite sex to come into the quarters—all these factors collectively restrain these women from having a voice.  And the most ironic and frustrating part—these young women pay for this suffocation, because society has failed to give them any other options. They are forced to pay to live in a system that exploits their gender, dehumanizes them, and reduces them to being simply factory workers—nothing less, nothing more. Thus, the Lowell girls existed in a system that silenced them—and the only way they could express themselves was through writing, an option that was rejected by a majority of American society. Because of how rooted sexism was, their opinions were regarded as trivial and meaningless. 

However, so much of what these women right is still valid today. Although America has established labor laws, there still remains patches of our world that function through exploiting workers. Although the United States has eliminated child labor, the clothes we wear and many of the stores we shop at systematically mistreat workers through sweat shops and other forms of exploitation. Although the first publication of Lowell Offering was in 1840, 179 years later, the same issues still exist. 

In contrast to my circumstances, where my environment encourages my identity to form, these women lived in an environment that discouraged their identity. The Lowell Mill purposely did not foster growth. These women had to take it upon themselves to do so. Although this concept was not unfamiliar in the 19th century, this identity suppression was dehumanizing—and even triggered suicidal thoughts from the workers, as shown in the reading. Furthermore, being away from home as a college student (to a college you choose) is difficult enough, imagine leaving home and coming to the Lowell Mill—where you have little to no control, you are working over eight hours a day, and hoping for at least one meal a day. The Lowell Mill women struggle with the concept of home, knowing that their fond memories of home are “blissful moments” that will never return (134). The writers are conscious that this new place is not home. Rather, it is a place of work, of dread, of constraint. This constraint left little room for any individuality—which explains why the cycle perpetuated itself. Nevertheless, the Lowell workers found an escape through their writing; it is hard to believe some of the workers were adolescents, considering how mature the nature of the writing is. I stopped several times during the reading—recognizing how privileged I am to simply be able to leisurely read. The Lowell Mill women desired just an hour a day to have time to educate themselves. I am given that every day.

Regardless of the economic independence the Lowell Mill granted these women, it was not authentic independence. Rather, this “factory system” is a disguised form of sexism, one that pretends to promote independence while actually restraining it through various avenues of control. However, although the bosses thought these women were clueless, they were very much aware of the misogynistic structure they were bound to—and used writing to vocalize this awareness. Furthermore, although the Lowell women published profound essays of what it meant to be a working woman, they received little to no credit for these publications. Alongside receiving no credit, they did not even receive any monetary compensation, forcing them to remain voiceless in a never ending cycle of exploitation. Therefore, although the Lowell Mill girls were cultivating innovating ideas regarding identity and workers rights, they received nothing in return.

Perhaps, we should use Lowell Offering as a lesson—one that reminds us of the importance of giving rights and understanding the importance of granting all groups a proper work-life balance. Although America has improved its labor laws, other parts of our world have not. Consciousness is key. If we see, we must act.