The fact that I am going to the Labor Notes conference made me think of this old dinosaur. There are certainly some issues with the writing and citation here, but I think it might be worth taking a glance at. I wrote this in the senior year of my undergrad years. Some of my future interests are evident.
"What we labor for--The abolition of
idleness, want and oppression; the prevalence of industry, virtue and
intelligence."
--Voice of Industry[1]
The concept of 'moral reform' and its implications has
created considerable controversy amongst historians; it was a movement of
contradictions traveling from the shadow of the asylum to women's emancipation
to the daily drill of the clock. This
vast cat's cradle of narratives has been approached from a number of different
angles. There has been a continual
examination of 'moral reform' from a traditional American perspective. This has spawned a number of different
responses. There has been a response
that has examined the way that moral reform played in forming
institutions. There has also been a
labor response. Other historians have
examined it from the perspective of women. Perhaps the most interesting work
has been the attempt to examine the issue from the cross section of both labor
and gender. It looks at the issues as
interconnected rather than placing a cause on just one of the issues.
A moment should be spent on explaining what is meant by 'moral
reform.' The first thing is that 'moral
reform' was a national phenomenon that could be seen in the East, from Maine to
Georgia and in the West as well. Its
beginnings could be seen in the great religious revivals of the 1810's,
although it could be argued that the main impetus came from the American
revolution and the notions of the Rights of Man that arise from the French
Revolution. From the revivals, it moved
in a number of directions from abolitionism to utopian societies and temperance
societies. The examination of labor as a
matter of reform came into discussion only much later, because of the rise of
the factory.
Of the approaches towards understanding moral reform, the
more traditional approach tends to accept the reformers at their word. A good example of this is contained Walters'
book, American Reformers 1815-1860.2
Walter generally sees reformers within the rubric of progressivism
bringing up connection with both the progressive movements of the early 20th
century and the New Left movement3. The most interesting information included was
the material detailing the beginning of the shift to industrialization, which
places the moral reform movement within that context.4
A later book in this tradition is
Steven Mintz's Moralists and Modernizers:
America's Pre-Civil War Reformers.5
Mintz explicitly discusses issues of institutional control, control over the
working class, etc. He acknowledges
these concerns, those being of class and gender, but tries to transcend them. Mintz brings up the urban poor explicitly at
two points. The first moment is in his
attempt to quash the labor historians' criticisms. The second occurs when he benignly assures us
that the moral reformers felt a genuine solidarity with the poor. 6 He shows the specter of societal
breakup, but he does not tie it to the rising industrialism.7 In effect, both these authors are
driven to present a culture of 'moral reform' that transcends its material
conditions.
The problems that exist within these more contemporary
authors working from the more traditional narratives, the dismissal of the
divisions and contradictions within 'moral reform', can be seen in magnified
form within some of the earlier perspectives on this subject. There was a
propensity to focus on the leadership, rather than social concerns. While this leadership certainly bears some
consideration, one cannot truly discuss 'moral reform' without examining the
actions of the thousands of men and women who made up the independent
organizations that proposed the reforms, distributed the pamphlets, and made up
the meetings that made up the ambiguous 'moral reform.' Many of the collections of original sources
fall into this spirit of the heroic individual.
For example, Henry Steele Commager's The
Era of Reform 1830-18607 and
Lorman Ratner's Pre-Civil War Reform: The
Variety of Principles and Programs8
both provide a collection of documents from various leaders of a number of
reform movements.
The institutional model tends to be more cynical in the
manner it discusses 'moral reform.' This
model deals with only a limited portion of the morass that makes up moral
reform for the reason that only certain parts of moral reform touch upon
institutions and their creation. A
number of examples came out in the 1970's and 1980's. A
History of Social Welfare and Social Work in the United States by James
Leiby is an early example of this in what Leiby himself calls a frankly
'provisional' book.9 The
primary point of interest is the rise of support for institutional reform on
the part of certain moral reformers. Leiby's techniques on analyzing the
antebellum era are a bit crude; separating discussion of religious, secular,
and institutional ideas without examining their coevalence too thoroughly.10 Later books tend to be more thorough and
more critical in their examination of the formation of the 'indoor aid' or what
would be referred to now as institutional support and the individuals who
supported it. This certainly holds true
for the second edition of From Poor Law
to Welfare State: A History of Social Welfare in America. It examines institutions in a manner that is
much more integrative, although there is less time spent on the idea of moral
reform and individual moral reformers.11
Michael Katz's In the Shadow of the
Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare also follows largely in the same
vein.12
This a side of moral reform that is important to remember in the
celebratory messages of independent civic organizations.
The labor historians', specifically New Labor History, work
is the most interesting response to the assumptions made by the general historians. Sean Wilentz's Chants Democratic was the greatest influence on the writing of this
paper, because he begins to look at the issues of moral reform within a class
context.13 He examines the entrepreneurial uses of moral
reform and uses of moral reform on the part of radicals.14
Also, he looks at opposition to moral reform, at least to its religious
aspects, as well.15 He touches on issues of gender, but doesn't
deal with them very well.16 The primary problem with Wilentz's book
(other than gender, which is considerable in of itself) is that there seems to
be a view of society very crudely built on Marx's so-called Base-Superstructure
model, which refuses to see that the superstructural elements are as
influential upon the Base as vise versa.17
This fact does not negate the interesting and useful ideas that the school of
historians produces, but it does act as a serious flaw to their constructions.
There are a number of other examples that merit examining
in this field. For example, Herbert
George Gutman's book, Work, culture, and society
in industrializing America: essays in American working class and social
history, is another good example in this tradition.18 Gutman edited another book, which has
even more relevance, The New England
Working Class and the New Labor History.
This book contains a specific essay that deals with the issues of the
conditions that the women lived under in the Lowell factory system.19 There is also a collection of primary
sources, edited and commented upon by Phillip Foner that includes many pieces
written by factory operators, including some included in my primary sources.20
There is also quite a bit of material that discusses the
issue of moral reform from a feminist position.
There are numerous websites, books, and collections of primary sources discussing
this issue from the position of women's empowerment. This material has a tension with the labor
historians' tendency to ignore gender and blindly criticize the moral reform
movement. They also note the blindness that more traditional scholars show for
the special role that women play in the 'moral reform movement. This tends to take the more positive view
that the more traditional school takes, while emphasizing the role of women in
it.
There has been a more recent movement to look at the
issue of moral reform within the rubric of both gender and class. One example is Lori D. Ginzberg's Women and the Work of Benevolence: Morality,
Politics, and Class in the Nineteenth Century United States. This is a feminist piece that specifically
looks into issues of class, while looking at the role of women in moral reform.21
Probably the example that is most applicable to my work is Teresa Anne
Murphy's Ten Hours' Labor: Religion,
Reform, and Gender in Early New England.
It essentially is the reverse of Ginzberg's work, looking at issues of
gender within a primarily labor context.
It also attempts the same weaving of class, culture and gender that I am
interesting in engaging in while looking at some of the same material.22
It is those three avenues that I am interested in
exploring and the way that those three issues interweave with each other. I am interested in the way that the growing
working classes engaged in moral reform in its movements, particularly the
labor movement, in a different manner than the middle-classes. But I am also interested in showing the way that
the culture of moral reform and its various movements from temperance to
phrenology were influential to the creation of this new class in the growing
industrialization.23 To put it another way, labor historian
Phillip Foner writes the following assessment of the literature of the factory
women:
Some of their writings contain a strong strain of
morality, a concern with respectability, and perhaps a naïve faith in Progress
of Man and Woman, and the inevitability of justice for the laboring or
producing classes. But the militant
factory girls made it clear that justice was due them because they produced the
wealth that enabled the corporation owners live in luxury, while the mill women
endured unceasing toil, inadequate wages, and stunted lives. They also made it clear that justice would
only come through organization and struggle.24
It is this notion that Foner
engages in that I want to combat. The
notion that there is a way of removing the wheat of class justice from the
chafe of moral reform. When one makes
such an effort, one misses the nuances and complexities of the given individual
situation and is left with the gray monolithic field of the utopian class
struggle.
This examination occurs within the confines of New
England, and despite the fact that both phenomena are occurring nationally, and
to some degree even internationally, their impact and interaction is very
distinct within New England. One can see
differences between it and the mid-Atlantic region, let alone the dramatic
differences between it and the southern and western regions. As Teresa Anne Murphy points out,
"Religion and reform structured the discourse of labor activism in
antebellum New England and distinguished it from labor movements
elsewhere."25 Although this discourse of religion and
reform could be seen in New York and Philadelphia, it wasn't inculcated within
the movement to the degree that it was in New England. It then probably makes sense to begin looking
at the distinct nature that New England society takes on, first in the context
of industrialization and then in the context of the various independent 'moral
reform' movements occurring within it.
After that, the next step will be to examine where the Voice of Industry fits into the scheme
of culture and industrialization. It
will also show a certain transformation as the editorship changes hands.
When precisely the beginning of industrialization began
is a rather vague process, but by the time of the 1820's and 1830's it was well
underway, particularly in the Middle Atlantic States and New England.26 This led to a process of
urbanization. There were 46 "urban
areas" of 2,500 or more in 1810 to 393 in 1860.27 The process of moving towards a more
industrial oriented economy would only really begin to take off during the
civil war, but the antebellum era began to provide the seeds that would lead to
that construction.
The process of
industrialization is a particularly significant process within New England and
it takes on specific characteristics that make it unique. Teresa Anne Murphy
states this difference out simply, "In the lives of New England working
people, capitalists were a far more visible and potent presence than they were
elsewhere."28 This can be seen rising
out of the relative unity of New England elites, as opposed to the differences
between mercantile and manufacturing pursuits, which would remain distinct in
areas such as the Middle Atlantic States.29
This doesn't mean that all difference had disappeared. There were still differences between rural
and urban apparent, as well as issues dealing with religion, but the overall
homogeneity of the elite was still strong.30
This translated into the stronger influence over the
lives of working people. Unlike in
Middle Atlantic states, where master artisans acted as the primary
responsibility for transforming the relations of production, New England saw a
visible group of merchant capitalists acting as a primary influence on this,
either acting on direct control or providing a tone for others. The move of trade had moved their capital
from trade into textile mills. There
were also many more connections between machine shops and textile mills than in
other places.31
The general mood of 'moral reform' can be seen as a
tension between the ideals of the society that were formed out of the
revolution, and the contradictions that were evident in the society. Moral
reform comes out of a certain progressive spirit and optimism around the
revolution. The revolution was combined
into a sort of progressive millenarianism that believed in an inevitable march
forwards. This can be seen in the various movements from temperance onwards,
and certainly in the labor movement, which continually insists upon its
republican virtues. However, there
certainly was not as much agreement to what the reform should be. Not only was there variety concerning this
question on the level of utopian societies, etc., but there were different
views that came out of class position and class sympathies.
Another
important aspect of the moral reform movement is that it is a movement that is
highly gendered feminine. Women were
both the primary actors within the movement and the ideal placed before it.32
This placed women within an ambiguous position within the labor
movement, because simultaneously put them in a suspect position as
representatives of a movement that was often coded as middle-class and it also
was the primary vehicle that they could get involved in the labor movement.33
By the time of the Voice of
Industry however, this position was somewhat less ambiguous and women were
playing an increasing role in the working class movement at least within the
context of New England.
The culture of moral reform also played a unique role
within New England society. While the
movement was certainly national, and one could see an impact on the society
that ranged from Michigan to Alabama, the largest and most intense impact could
be seen within the states that made up New England. This had a number of reasons behind it. A number of those can be seen because of the
composition of the society, also the role that it played in the revolution, and
lastly the role that industrialization played.
New England had a relatively homogenous society. It had some immigration, but the level of
immigration was significantly lower than the nearby Middle Atlantic area. The Lowell area, for example, had an Irish
population of 20%, as opposed to much higher percentage in New York and the
other Middle Atlantic States. Despite the tensions between the new immigrant
population, particularly the flood of pauperized Irish immigrants after the
potato blight and the older English immigrants, New England didn't have the
same level of violence that were seen in Philadelphia and New York at the same
time. There was no equivalent to the
Kensington riots of 1844.34 This created less competition for moral
reform with movements such as Nativism that tended to flourish in the more
heavily immigrant-oriented Middle Atlantic States.
The trends of industrialization and urbanization proved a
great challenge to this narrative of inevitable progress. A great deal of concern can be seen of the
disturbances and crime that these trends were creating. This terror of disorder isn't something that
is limited to certain sections of the population, even within the Voice of Industry one can see the
specter of this threat is raised frequently.
Whether seen as a formation of the unstable proletariat or the rising of
a class of aristocratic factory owners that oppress that group, this trend is
seen as the primary challenge to the institutions of republicanism.
The Voice of
Industry rises out of the nexus of these issues. One can see a serious discussion of many of
the issues brought up above, and this paper will eventually examine these
issues and the way that the paper represents the positionality of class within
this debate and the way that the culture of reform impacts the creation of this
emerging class. But first, there needs
to be an examination of the paper itself.
The Voice of
Industry originated in Fitzburgh, Massachusetts in May 29, 1845. William F. Young initially published the
paper. The following November, it war
combined with two other labor papers and moved to Lowell under a publishing
committee of Young, Sarah G. Bagley (president of the Female Labor Reform
Association), and Joel Hatch.35 Eventually, Young gave up the paper because
of ill health and Bagley took up the operations and Female Labor Reform
Association purchased the paper, although it was published under the guise of
the New England Labor Reform League.36 The editorship and publishing returned to him
at another point, where he work alongside Mehitabel Eastman after Sarah Bagley
left the paper.37 There were a couple other formations of
editorship as well. It failed soon after
the collapse of the 10-Hour workday struggle and the collapse of the
unions.
The paper covered a variety of issues and came from a
great number of sources. One could find
articles discussing issues ranging from the obvious attacks on capital, and
labor meetings, to things such as temperance, slavery, and phrenology. There are many small articles excerpted from
other papers of the region, as well as speeches by important 'moral reformers'
such as Robert Owen and Horace Greeley.
The paper makes an interesting shift in its contents beginning with its
transference to Lowell. The paper openly
called for contributions of female mill operators and put Sarah Bagley in
charge of the newly opened 'female department.'
The factory girls' articles filled an even more prominent role when the
Female Labor Reform Association bought up the paper and the vast majority of
the content was made up of commentary and literature by mill operators.
There was a literary tradition on the part of the factory
operators long before the formation of the FLRA and their contributions to the Voice of Industry. The structure of the Lowell system
(originally the Waltham system) was in itself a sort of reform on the excesses
of the English factory system. One of
the ways that this image was produced was through the narrative of the 'genteel
factory girl.' A great deal of emphasis
was placed on the cultural improvements the girls were engaged in, from pianos
to hymns to lyceums. Literature played
an important role in this and the Lowell
Offering acted as a conduit for the women's work. The publication contained some interesting
implicit criticisms of the factory system early on. However, this disappeared as the factory
owners invested in the publication, even though its editor Harriet Farley was a
former factory operator, and articles and poetry critical of the environment at
the factory were not published in its later stages. This led to a public debate within the papers
of the day between the editor of the paper, and Sarah Bagley, a militant
reformer within the textile mills. The
fallout would eventually lead to the collapse of the paper. Before the move to the Voice of Industry, the factory workers were also involved in the
publication of papers ranging from the Factory
Girl's Garland, Factory Girl's Album,
etc. Even when the Voice of Industry moved to Lowell, women continued to contribute
articles and commentary to more liberal newspapers such as the Manchester Democrat. Still the Voice of Industry became the primary
voice for these concerns and after the move to Lowell, the only one that gave
any autonomy to the women's voices.38
In discussing these issues of moral reform and class, the
Voice of Industry can be split into a
number of different topics. At the same
time, those topics should be examined in terms of the chronological order of
the paper in order to look at the differences that the paper takes under
different ownership and editorship. To
begin with, it would be interested to examine the ways that the Voice of Industry takes up some of the
traditional issues of moral reform such as disorder in the city, temperance,
slavery and religion and look at the way that they simultaneously took up these
reforms and framed them in a decidedly different manner than many of the
mainstream middle-class organizations.
The issue of gender will be discussed next, and then the construction of
class in the terms of moral reform.
This issue of disorder in the city is a considerable one
amongst moral reformers. This can be
seen in the original religious revivals that acted as an impetus to the
movement. The same fear can be seen
within the pages of the Voice of Reason
as well. This fear is abound in
morbidity. Perhaps the best example of
that is the series of narratives and suicides that occur in various short
articles in the newspaper. Then there is
a related topic that can be construed, the degradation that occurs to the
individual in more abstract terms.
The specter of suicide, inspired by poverty or alcohol,
and the act of murder for those same reasons, can be found throughout the pages
of the Voice of Reason. There's a certain morbidity, an obsession
with death that can be seen throughout the paper, the unearthing of mysterious
bodies being a favorite topic, but the narrative of dissolution is an important
one. Here are a couple examples. There are an influx of titles such as
"Robbery of Pepperell and arrest of the robber," "Distressing
suicide of a female," and "The murder at East Kingston."39
There's the tale of the man who strangled himself, mistaking his own
throat for another's and the tale of the woman who committed suicide after her
savings was stolen.40
However, there is something going on beneath these
stories that is different than the middle class narrative focused on the same
issues. There's a certain level of
sympathy and understanding. The stories
point to issues such as poverty for the acts that are committed. Even the man who nearly killed his children
in some act of madness is presented with some sympathy. These are individuals that are seen to be
trapped in a system more than they are malevolent. As the Voice puts it in a description of a
murder, "And yet there is no need of improvement in this murderous state
of society."41 Implicitly tying the murder to the unreformed
nature of society.
One can see the same narrative play out in more abstract
terms in some of the moral writing. The
view is presented that the current system encourages the lack of industry and
honest work because it disdains those qualities for the idleness that is shown
by the rich. The sons and daughters of
hardworking workers and farmers then take up these undesirable traits. They try to live by the example of the rich,
looking for anyway to make their living without the use of 'honest
industry.' When they discover that this
isn't possible, they sink into the worst kind of debauchery possible. This is in a way the narrative underlying all
the particulars that are discussed above.
It is the thread that connects murder with suicide and suicide with
madness. This narrative is ingeniously
constructed in the first issue:
"…on productive industry she [public opinion] has
placed a stigma which induces him to leave it.
When his plans, schemes, and speculations for a livelihood without
useful labor, prove abortive, and he becomes discouraged, looses his self
respect, falls into dissipation and crime, (of which she alone is the
generator) she stands ready with her grab-hooks of law, officers of justice,
prisons, and gallows to punish him, to which the various departments of society
even to the church respond Amen! And all
this for the public good and safety."42
The narrative acts ingeniously. It turns the traditional narrative of the
dissolute youth on its head. Instead of
falling into sin because they don't behavior as their social betters do, it is
precisely the emulation of the upper classes that leads the callow youth to his
or her predicament. But at the same time
a common concern is embraced. The terror
of the factory owners, priests and schoolteachers can also be seen in the
emerging working class and its representatives.
The youth that enters the gilded palace of sin that is the city, while
seen as an object of pity, is still something that is a great potential danger. The city and industrialism act as the primary
threats to the young republic. They
threaten to spill the city into the conditions that could be seen in the cities
of Europe. Those conditions are brought
up fairly commonly within the pages of the Voice
of Industry.
This
danger is something that gets discussed throughout the paper's course. However there is a distinct reduction in this
content when the paper moves to Lowell.
There are a few reasons for that.
The first is that simply by taking on the load of two other papers there
isn't as much space that is available for this sort of material. There are
other changes that occur because of this, for an example, the feature fictional
story section is also truncated and at times completely cut. But there also seems to be a conscious effort
to cut down on the sheer level of morbidity that is emblematic of the Fitzburgh
period.
The issue of temperance is one that gets
brought up again and again within the paper.
The individual who causes the dissolution of society discussed above is
frequently an imbiber of alcohol. He
(and it is almost inevitably a he) is capable of truly spectacular deeds. He has strangled himself to death mistaking
his neck for another's, he has nearly butchered his children in an orgy of
fury, and his path inevitably leads to death.43 This wildman, this pathological alcoholic is
common to the vast majority of temperance discourse. But there needs to be some distinctions drawn
between the view of temperance held within the pages of the Voice of Industry and those by more
middle-class reformers. The first is in
the way that the Voice identifies heavily with the Washingtonian movement. This heavily ties into the notion of moral
suasion as opposed to the notion of legal suasion. The last issue is the criticisms that the
Voice frequently levels against other individuals involved with the temperance
movement.
By the time of the publication, the Washingtonian
movement was by in large finished.
However, clearly its legacy had left an impact. The organization was formed in 1840 and
lasted well into the 1840's although its most important stage ended in 1843. The primary difference that the movement
reflected was in the fact that it was made up of working class and lower-middle
class women. That led to a significantly
different way of approaching drinkers and also a different way of looking at
them. This consisted of actively
approaching individuals with alcohol problems and attempting to minister to
their problems. They also were more
sympathetic to the plight of drinkers, realizing that the circumstances of
their lives frequently led to their problems.
They were also much less critical of members who fell off the wagon
temporarily.44
These points allude to the position that Voice took on
supporting 'moral suasion', that is using the techniques that were employed by
the Washingtonians as opposed to the position of 'legal suasion' that was
beginning to become popular with other segments of the temperance
movement. These sections were interested
in temperance more as a means of control while the Washingtonians and the Voice
were more interested in using the movement to empower themselves and take
greater control of their lives.
The critiques that the Voice of Industry places on other individuals in the temperance
movement are frequently focused on this issue of 'moral suasion', that is
temperance through voluntary means, vs. 'legal suasion', that is temperance
through some form of prohibition. The
paper carries on a fierce battle with a rival The Sentinel in the early part of its publication in Fitzburgh on
just this question. 'Legal suasion' is referred to as a "small and
illiberal means to support a particular bias."45
It also accuses 'legal suasion' activists of "asking no favors of moral suasion or the better feelings
which belong to humanity."46 This clearly again repeats the notion of the
Washingtonians' desire for uplift as opposed to social control by the 'legal
suasion' advocates. The paper clearly
shows some class awareness by its continual reference to their opponent as 'the
professor' along with the more innocuous 'the bachelor'47
This class element can be seen in some of the other
critiques placed on the temperance movement.
One good example can be seen in the fact that the paper criticized a
prominent temperance speaker for charging too much money to hear his
speech. The paper stated "to our
surprise at the very portals of the sanctuary professedly dedicated to god and
humanity stood the "golden calf"
in the shape of "12 1-2 cents admittance… a virtual prohibition on the
poor inebriate…."48
Another way that this is used on these lines can be seen in an article on
temperance, which ties the notion of that:
"Our present tedious system of half paid labor, is a
generator of intemperance, men who exhaust too large a portion of their
physical powers require a stimulus, and many of them will have it; others being
deprived of suitable associates shut out the whole long day from congenial
companions will seek some source of gratification, though it be the haunts of
dissipation. And avarice; intemperance's
twin sister, is ever ready to furnish such gratification, and steal away their
hard earned pittance."49
The issues around temperance are consistent throughout
the publication. This places it in a
different position than many other workingmen's organizations in New York and
Philadelphia. This does not mean to
imply that temperance didn't have an impact on these other locations. One certainly cannot dismiss the enormity of
the Washingtonian movement. However,
there existed considerably more ambiguity even on official levels, for example,
veteran union organizers in New York saw nothing wrong with having meetings in
taverns and many workers saw being able to drink at work as a part of
controlling their labor.50
The issue of slavery is certainly an interesting one,
particularly the way that a correlation between the chattel slavery of the
south is tied to the notion of 'white slavery' that occurs within the mills and
manufactories. There is a clear stance
take against the institution of slavery at a number of locations in the paper,
and one cannot see a significant change in this policy through its publication.
A good example of this rhetoric can be seen in a letter sent to the editor by
one "A Factory Girl.":
"Compare and contrast the condition of the slave
with that of your own; while you enjoy the liberty of conscience, and possess
all of the natural and endearing relations of human existence, the slave who is
made in the image of the God who "made of one blood all the nations of the
earth," is denied the rights,
aye the name of human beings--are bought and sold like cattle--families
scattered, and hearths made desolate--infants torn from the found embrace of a
mother and sold by the pound!"51
However, one can detect notes of ambiguity
within this. There is the joke "A
certain poet sings of "dark eyed
maidens of the south." We grant him
that the farther down south he gets the more numerous the dark-IES become."52 and at one point the argument for abolition
is made on the premise that then the former slaves would stay in the south.53
The totality of the issue of 'white slavery' is not one
that can be delved into the level that it requires in this paper. But what does need to be discussed about this
topic is the way the New England labor movement both embraces and appropriates
the language of abolitionism. The Voice of Industry inevitably takes the
abolition view on topic ranging from the war with Mexico to slave catchers and
runaway slave laws, however they also ask why is that abolitionists who are so
concerned with the atrocities committed in the south against slave, but refuse
to look at the horrifying conditions that workers are faced with in their own
backyard.54 Out of this comes the notion of the white
slave, which takes up the language abolitionism to deal with the issues of the
new working class. One manifesto in
favor of the 10-hour workday includes the statement; "Tell them we will be
no longer slaves!"55
The topic of
religion also comes up frequently in the paper.
It takes the view that most reformers take on this issue, one that
religion should be judged on deeds rather than obscure doctrines. The paper frequently spends time attacking
various religious sects. The statement,
"Intolerance--Being irreligious for the sake of religion, and hateing our
fellow creatures out of a pretend love of the creator"56 is quite indicative of these feelings.
However, the
critique went beyond this into issues of class.
The Voice of Industry actively
criticized much of the clergy for being hand in hand with the ruling
classes. They showed how this church
behaved in an elitist manner in an article titled 'Aristocracy in Church."
"Trinity Church people are exercising their ingenuity to keep the common
herd at a respectable distance."
After explaining the church's policies, the paper makes sure to drive
the class message home, " The church is dedicated to God but the inside is
private property. This is a new pattern
of reform, but with a fortune of thirty millions in Hand, Trinity can afford to
have original ways of her own."57 This construction of religion also plays a
significant role within class construction, which will be discussed later on.
The issue of
gender, that is in this case the thin veil for discussing the role that women
play in a space that is so often clearly demarcated within masculine terms,
needs to finally be elucidated. Perhaps
it would be best to begin by discussing masculinity, its mirror image, within
the labor milieu and more specifically within the paper. Then the whole tangle of femininity will be
unraveled within the context of the paper, examining notions of that play into
the idea of the cult of femininity that dominates the 'moral reform' ideology
and the way that allows for women's access into the public sphere of labor
organizing and the way that it restricts it.
The early working-class movement was
definitely a masculine movement and the use of the term 'workingmen' was not
coincidental. The New England labor
movement certainly didn't escape this ideology.
Men were the subjects of discussion within the pages of its
publications, the words of its speeches, etc.
Women were able to place a word in edgewise more often because of the
connections to moral reform that existed but even in the late 1840's women
labor activists still had to battle individuals such as "the
Spectator", who still insisted upon a view of femininity based on weakness
and childishness.58
The view that
men frequently took of women workers could be termed 'dependent workers.'59
The men in organizations in the thirties saw women as being to weak to
be able to negotiate fair contracts with capitalists. Like child labor, their labor was best
protected through legislative means.
Teresa Anne Murphy puts this best, "An assumption that guided the
petitioning efforts60 of
male workingmen in 1832 was that women and children were the same category of
workers: dependents, who were unable to organize themselves to combat their
employers. This perception would
continue, even as the activities of female industrial workers in 1834
challenged these assumptions."61 This bias can also be seen in the early pages
of the Voice of Industry, despite its efforts to look at the interests of
women. A good example of this can be
seen in a discussion of women as boarding house keepers. This discusses how companies want to hire
"widow women and defenseless women, as keepers of Corporation boarding
house keepers" because their "circumstances would require them to
submit to many burdens" and the women were forced to submit "without
a murmur or protest."62 Still another example of the ambiguous
position that women are held in can be seen the repeating of this joke.63
This left women
in a tenuous position within the labor movement. As it was said before, the idea of moral
reform, the way for women to become involved in the public sphere and remain
safely in the folds of the 'cult of domesticity' was coded middle class and was
viewed with considerable suspicion even among New England workingmen. Still it was a place to work from for women
and was thus taken advantage of.
The notion of
the cult of domesticity is a fascinating one, although one usually looked at
within middle-class terms. This occurs
because it was coded in that manner by the middle-class reformers who took the
idea up. However, it can also be seen in
the ideas of the factory girls as well.
A good example can be seen in an article entitled "The Rights of
Women." After a great deal of time
is spent establishing women's equality this important qualifier is placed upon
it, "And, in doing this, we shall encroach on no domestic duty or
privilege founded on sexuality, reason and common sense. Let her as she has to be, remain the woman;
and let her appropriate and specified duties be domestic, or engage in any line of action in any calling which shall
not interfere with their discharge."64
(italics added) This can be seen at
another point, where Sarah Bagley is speaking to the New England Workingmen's
Association on behalf of the Female Labor Reform Association:
"We do not
expect to enter the field as soldiers in this great warfare; but we would like
the heroines of the Revolution, be permitted to furnish the soldiers with a
blanket or replenish their knapsacks from our pantries."65
Coded within this speech,
Bagley is making assurances to the workingmen that the women involved in the
Association will not step outside their gendered roles.
It would be easy to continue in this vein, to show the
continued collusion that the FLRA and many of the factory girls have with
traditional gender roles, but in that repetition, something else would be
missed. One thing that would be left out
for instance would be the class elements taken up in the use of domesticity. While middle-class women claim to be superior
wives because of their culture, the factory girls claim the same because of
their industry in the workplace. example66 It is at this point where the ideas of the
women writing for the Voice of Industry are
in fullest agreement with the ideas in Lowell
Offering. The Offering also looks to defend the virtue of the factory girls
against the charges of, "the population of Lowell is made up of 'scraps'
and refugees--the cast off 'non-essentials of refined society."67
Also the murmurs of resistance to the men's assumptions
would also be missed. The missives
against the women's would be allies are naturally more hidden and muffled, but
it still can be seen. The statement made
by operatives, "The operatives can
unite and they will yet give evidence to their employers that "Union is
strength""68 may be
a comment directed primarily towards the employers, but it also can be seen to
be directed towards their male counterparts who see the women as 'dependent
workers.'
It is also of
some value to return to the statements that Sarah Bagly made to the
Workingmen's association made before.
While creating a domestic role for the women, she also insisted,
"We claim no exalted place in your deliberations, nor do we expect to be
instrumental of any great revolutions, yet we would not sit idly down and fold
our hands and refuse to do the little that we may and ought to…."69
There other examples that one can see.
Another strong example can be found of in the Factory Girls’ Album:
“Away with the mean prejudice and jealousy which sneer at
women for trying to get an honest living.
Girls deprive journeymen of employment, and the latter cry aloud in
consequence. As well might the
Mississippi boatmen protest against steamboats.
Say, that this or that is not a woman’s place or a woman’s
business? Has poor woman no fit place
but the kitchen or factory? Can her hand wield no implement but the needle and
the dishcloth”70
It also should be stated that there are further traces of
dissatisfaction on the current state of things.
Ellen Munroe wrote a piece criticizing the way that girls are raised,
pointing while boys are allowed to grow strong, “almost everything that can be,
is done, to enervate and weaken girls, both mentally and bodily.”71
Also, they respond that much of their weakness is created by having to
work the excessive hours at the factory.
In effect, they criticize both the factory owners and the paternalism of
their fellow workers.
At this point there needs to be a change of pace, before
this section the emphasis has been on the impact that being a factory operative
or artisan had on the ideas of moral reform, but the reverse needs to be
done. There already is a start of this
in the section before looking at the dual role of gender and labor. Now there needs to be an investigation into
how, the culture of 'moral reform' impacted the creation of the rising working
class of New England. The primary
document that will be looked at is a speech by the Labor Reform League of New
England delivered to an audience in Nashua, New Hampshire, but other documents
will be discussed to back this point up.
The first and most important point is that the whole
notion of workers' rights is constructed heavily within republicanism. The rhetoric of the Voice of Industry frequently comments on the superior patriotism of
the workingman, and his superior position as citizen despite his
depravations. In fact, the whole labor
struggle is colored in these terms within the speech, "in the present
contest for the realization those acknowledged 'inalienable rights, s'set forth
in the Declaration of American Independence and among which are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness."72
This can be moved into a broader spirit within the
discourse. The body of the speech
reflects this:
"The object then of the present movement, among the
producing classes of this country and Europe, is to enquire into the cause of
these great evils which are scattering desolation over the Race, and blighting
the fairest fruits of human excellence, and when once discovered, to use such
means as the wisdom of the age shall develop to bring about a peaceful,
philosophical and radical Reformation."73
This paragraph perfectly
captures the relationship between the culture of moral reform and working class
identity. It ties this new class of
producers into the narrative of progress, and gives them a privileged position
as the ones who will unlock the secrets to find and destroy the great evils
that stalked the society such as disorder and dissipation. It holds with the reformers' beliefs that
rational thought can eventually solve all problems and the millenarian beliefs
of a dramatic change soon to come.
The best example of the value placed on contemplation is
best seen in the rhetoric of the ten-hour movement. The logic for the movement is well presented
here, "This is proposed as a means rather than an end; its object being to
give the operatives time to cultivate their moral, mental, and physical powers,
therefore of primary importance, as forming the basis of true prosperity and
without no people can enjoy the blessings of rational liberty."74
This ties into the ideas above.
Workers, who are the way to the future, need to have the time to create
the abilities to fulfill their destiny.
There are definite religious overtones within this as
well. At one time the paper refers to
the class struggle as, “the combat between unholy
oppression and equal rights for
all.”75 The elite classes are not only failing
as republicans in their duties but as Christians as well. This is well phrased by an operative’s letter
from Manchester:
“Shall we ever remain subjected to the tyrannical will of
a corporated body of men who, although they bear the title of christians, have
ho more christian feeling and sympathy for those in their employ than Heathen.”76
The paper even quotes the
Bible in this venue. “The laborer is worthy of his hire—Bible.”77
The need for a movement comes from the need to receive the rights
granted workers by God that have been taken away from them by supposed
Christians who do not live up to their duties, instead to sit in luxury.
There is something utopic in the image of the world that
the movement wants to create. It is a
world where, “Industry is not only a duty binding upon all men, but it is one
of the most fruitful sources of real enjoyment and peace.”78
This world can only be created by “cultivating a love of industry,
whether physical or mental” and once this world is created, “neither despair
nor vice can penetrate” this virtuous world of labor.79
This may be a world wear “the last shall be first and the first shall be
last”, but is definitely a world that bears a definite resemblance to the
ideals of the Protestant work ethic that is so often associated with the middle
class. There is conflict, but it occurs
within the bounds of a common culture.
This antebellum world was soon to disappear, engulfed by
immigration and the civil war. New
formations of class and culture were soon to rise up in the preceding
years. The beginnings of the economic
revolution that were begun in the antebellum period were to explode during the
civil war and any hopes of turning from this new form of economy were to be
dashed. It also cut deeply into the
optimistic ideals of the culture of 'moral reform'. Immigration similarly added problems to
this. Many immigrants simply had no
interest in living up to the ideals set up by others.
The specter of the factory and the idyll of the artisan's
shop played important roles in the formation of 'moral reform.' It was the fear of the chaos, isolation,
dissipation, etc. that was created in the new cities that the factory produced,
which drove the morbid imaginings of reformers whether middle-class or working class. But at the same time, the ideas of 'moral reform' were deeply involved in the
formation of both the factories themselves and the workers' organizations as
well. In effect, the field of events
coalesced together rather than one element acting as the causation for the
others.
There is a need to look at class as a localized
phenomenon. What it means to be a
worker, a capitalist, or middle-class is woven together with the other complex
elements of a society, and becomes meaningless when one tries to remove the
strand from the other elements that compose it.
This is not to say that a formation of discreetly separated geographic
regions should replace class or any other phenomenon as the universal. What is New England during the antebellum era
is the coming together of a number of different elements, which changed quickly
when those elements changed.
There will always be attempts to compare events of
different times, regions, cultures, etc. and there is real value in that. However, as soon as one attempts to create a
universal essential notion of class out of these phenomena, the ideas will fail
to understand the complexities of the individual circumstances in which class
is located. In that case, the universal
notion of class will only be a pale shadow of the different individual
manifestations.
[1] Voice of Industry
2 Ronald G
Waters, American Reformers 1815-1860,
ed. Eric Foner (New York: Hill and Wong, 1978.)
3 Ibid.,
ix-xiv.
4 Ibid., 3-6.
5 Steven
Mintz, Moralists and Modernizers:
America's Pre Civil War Reformers (Baltimore, Maryland: John Hopkins University
Press, 1995).
6 Ibid.,
7 Ibid.,
7 Commager,
Henry Steele, The Era of Reform:
1830-1860 (Malabar, Florida: Robert E. Krieger Publishing Company, 1982;
reprint, Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand, 1960.)
8 Ratner,
Lorman, Pre-Civil War Reform: The Variety
of Principles and Programs (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc.,
1967.)
9 James
Leiby, A History of Social Welfare and
Social Work in the United States (New York: Columbia University Press,
1978.)
10 Mr. Leiby
separates his chapters on Social Welfare between, 1: American Society, 1815: The Rural Democracy;
2: Religious Ideas About Social Welfare;
3: 1815-1845, Secular Ideas About Social Welfare, 1815-1845; 4: The Poor Law,
1815-1845. As these chapters imply,
there is a far to discreet separation of these various ideas into autonomous
parts. Ibid., vii, 6-47.
11 Walter I.
Trattner, From Poor Law to Welfare State:
A History of Social Welfare in America, Second Edition (New York: The Free
Press, 1979.)
12 Michael
Katz, In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A
Social History of Welfare (New York: Basic Books, 1986.)
13 Sean
Wilentz, Chants Democratic: New York City
and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788-1850 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1984.)
14 ibid.,
145-153,157-168.
15 ibid.,
153-157. Wilentz lies out a discourse of
anti-evangelicalism from workingmen that sprouts from the ideas of Thomas Paine
and finds itself in Thomas Skidmore's ideas as well.
16 For an
interesting critique of Wilentz's views on women, see Ruth M. Alexander,
""We are Engaged as a Band of
Sisters": Class and Domesticity in the Washingtonian Temperance Movement,
1840-1850"
17 "The
materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production of the means to support human
life--and, next to production, the exchange of things produced--is the basis of
all social structure; that in every society that has appeared in human
society that has appeared in history, the manner in which wealth is divided
into classes or orders is depended what is produced, how it is produced, and
how the products are exchanged. From
this point of view the final causes of all social changes are to be sought not
in men's brains, not in man's better insight into truth and justice, but in
changes in the modes of production and exchange. Friedrich Engels, Socialism: Utopian or Scientific
18 Herbert
George Gutman, Work, culture, and society
in industrializing America: essays in American working class and social history
(
19 Jonathan
Prude, "The Social System of Early New England Textile Mills: A Case
Study, 1812-1840", Ed. Herbert G. Gutman and Donald H. Bell, The New England Working Class and the New
Labor History (Chicago, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1987.)
20 Phillip
Foner ed., The Factory Girls
(Chicago, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1977.)
21 Lori D.
Ginzberg, Women and the Work of
Benevolence: Morality, Politics, and Class in the Nineteenth Century United
States (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990.)
22 Teresa
Anne Murphy, Ten Hours' Labor: Religion,
Reform, and Gender in Early New England (Ithica, New York: Cornell
University Press, 1992.)
23 Ibid.,
2-3.
24 Phillip
Foner, The Factory Girls, xxv.
25 Teresa
Anne Murphy, Ten Hours' Labor,
26 Ronald G.
Walters, American Reformers,
4-5. More specific discussion can be found
in Teresa Anne Murphy, Ten Hours' Labor,
and even Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic.
27 Ibid., 5.
28 Teresa
Anne Murphy, Ten Hours' Labor, 20.
29 Ibid.,
30 Ibid., 30
31 Ibid.,
16-20.
32 Lori D.
Ginzberg, Women and the Work of
Benevolence, 1, 11-14.
33 Teresa
Anne Murphy, Ten Hours' Labor,
34 Ibid.,
23.
35 Phillip
Foner, The Factory Girls, 75.
36 Ibid.,
99-100
37 Ibid.,
194.
38 Phillip
Foner, The Factory Girls, 74-75.
39 Voice of Industry, June 12, 1845, Voice of Industry, August 7, 1845
40 Voice of Industry, July 3, 1845
41 Voice of Industry, June 12, 1845
42 Voice of Industry, May 29, 1845
43 Voice of Industry, #25
44 Ruth M.
Alexander, ""We are Engaged as
a Band of Sisters": Class and Domesticity in the Washingtonian
Temperance Movement, 1840-1850" also Teresa Anne Murphy, Ten Hours' Labor, 100-130.
45 Voice of Industry, July 24, 1845
46 Voice of Industry, July 24, 1845
47 There are
a number of references to this including Voice
of Industry, September 11, 1845, Voice
of Industry, September 25, 1845.
48 Voice of Industry, May 29, 1845
49 Voice of Industry, June 5, 1845
50 Sean
Wilentz, Chants Democratic, 255.
51 Voice of Industry, September 25, 1845.
52 Voice of Industry, August 14, 1845
53 Voice of
Industry
54 A good
example of this rhetoric is the following from The Mechanic, October 5,
1844. “I, for one, have been greatly
disappointed in men who have heretofore advocated the cause of humanity, but
whose acts of late do not agree with their professions—men who would stand up
and dole out pity for the souther[n] slave, but would crush with an iron hand
the white laborer of the north. A TEN
HOUR WOMAN.” Philip Foner, The Factory Girls, 276.
55 Voice of Industry, January 22, 1847
56 Voice of Industry, May 29, 1845
57 Voice of Industry, November 6, 1846
58 For this
debate see Voice of Industry, January
22, 1847, March 5, 1847, April 16, 1847
59 Teresa
Anne Murphy, Ten Hours' Labor,
60 this
pertains to the ten hour work legislation that was being petitioned for.
61 Teresa
Anne Murphy, Ten Hours' Labor, 50.
62 Voice of Industry, September 25, 1845
63 Voice of
Industry
64 Voice of Industry, May 8, 1846
65 Voice of Industry, June 5, 1845
66 Voice of
Industry
67 Operatives' Magazine, December 1841,
Phillip Foner, The Factory Girls, 46.
68 Voice of Industry, May 15, 1846
69 Voice of Industry, June 5, 1845
70 Factory Girls’ Album, Exeter, N.H.,
April 25,1846, Philip Foner, The Factory Girls, 299.
71 Boston Bee, reprinted in Voice of Industry, March 13, 1845
72 Voice of Industry, October 9, 1846
73 Voice of Industry, October 9, 1846
74 Voice of
Industry, October 9, 1845
75 Voice of
Industry, September 25, 1845
76 Voice of Industry, December 4, 1846
77 Voice of Industry, September 25, 1845.
78 Voice of Industry, December 11, 1846
79 Ibid.
