Lowell History: Visitor Observations 1827-1913

AN ADDRESS TO THE WORKING MEN OF NEW ENGLAND 
BY SETH LUTHER

LOWELL 1833

  
We see the system of manufacturing lauded to the skies; senators, representatives, owners, and agents of cotton mills using all means to keep out of sight the evils growing up under it. Cotton mills where cruelties are practised, excessive labor required, education neglected, and vice, as a matter of course, on the increase, are denominated ‘the principalities of the destitute, and the palaces of the poor’. . . .

We believe there are many beautiful and virtuous ladies employed in cotton mills, but we do know, notwithstanding this, that the wives and daughters of the rich manufacturers would no more associate with a ‘factory girl,’ than they would with a negro slave. So much for equality in a republican country.