Thursday, March 19, 2020

The Lowell Mill Girls in the 19th Century

The Lowell Mill Girls in the 19th Century The Lowell Mill Girls were female workers in early 19th century America, young women employed in an innovative system of labor in textile mills centered in Lowell, Massachusetts. The employment of women in a factory was  novel to the point of being revolutionary. And the system of labor in the Lowell mills became widely admired because the young women were housed in an environment which was not only safe but reputed to be culturally advantageous. The young women were encouraged to engage in educational pursuits while not working, and they even contributed articles to a magazine, the Lowell Offering.   The Lowell System of Labor Employed Young Women Francis Cabot Lowell founded the Boston Manufacturing Company, prompted by the increased demand for cloth during the War of 1812. Utilizing the latest technology, he built a factory in Massachusetts which used water power to run machines that processed raw cotton into finished fabric. The factory needed workers, and Lowell wanted to avoid using child labor, which was commonly used in fabric mills in England. The workers did not need to be physically strong, as the work was not strenuous. However, the workers had to be fairly intelligent to master the complicated machinery. The solution was to hire young women. In New England, there were a number of girls who had some education, in that they could read and write. And working in the textile mill seemed like a step up from working on the family farm. Working at a job and earning wages was an innovation in the early decades of the 19th century, when many Americans still worked on family farms or at small family businesses. And for young women at the time, it was considered a great adventure to be able to assert some independence from their families. The company set up boardinghouses to provide safe places for the women employees to live, and also imposed a strict moral code. Instead of it being thought scandalous for women to work in a factory, the mill girls were actually considered respectable. Lowell Became the Center of Industry Francis Cabot Lowell, the founder of the Boston Manufacturing Company, died in 1817. But his colleagues continued the company  and built a larger and improved mill along the Merrimack River in a town which they renamed in Lowells honor. In the 1820s and 1830s, Lowell and its mill girls became fairly famous. In 1834, faced with increased competition in the textile business, the mill cut the workers wages, and the workers responded by forming the Factory Girls Association, an early labor union. The efforts at organized labor were not successful, however. In the late 1830s, the housing rates for the female mill workers were raised, and they attempted to hold a strike, but it did not succeed. They were back on the job within weeks. Mill Girls and Their Cultural Programs Were Famous The mill girls became known for engaging in cultural programs centered around their boardinghouses. The young women tended to read, and discussions of books were a common pursuit. The women also began publishing their own magazine, the Lowell Magazine.  The magazine was published from 1840 to 1845, and sold for six cents a copy. The content poems and autobiographical sketches, which were usually published anonymously, or with the authors identified solely by their initials. The mill owners essentially controlled what appeared in the magazine, so the articles tended to be a positive nature. Yet the magazines very existence was seen as evidence of a positive work environment.   When Charles Dickens, the great Victorian novelist, visited the United States in 1842, he was taken to Lowell to see the factory system. Dickens, who had seen the horrible conditions of British factories up close, was very impressed at the conditions of the mills in Lowell. He was also impressed by the publication issued by the mill workers. The Lowell Offering ceased publication in 1845, when tensions between the workers and the mill owners increased. Over the last year of publication the magazine had published material that was not entirely positive, such as an article which pointed out that loud machinery in the mills could damage a workers hearing. When the magazine promoted the cause of a workday shortened to ten hours, tensions between workers and management became inflamed and the magazine was shut down. Immigration Brought the End of the Lowell System of Labor In the mid-1840s, the Lowell workers organized the Female Labor Reform Association, which tried to bargain for improved wages. But the Lowell System of Labor was essentially undone by increased immigration to the United States. Instead of hiring local New England girls to work in the mills, the factory owners discovered they would hire newly arrived immigrants. The immigrants, many of whom had come from Ireland, fleeing the Great Famine, were content to find any work at all, even for relatively low wages.

Monday, March 2, 2020

Von Versus Aus - Expressing Where You Are From

Von Versus Aus - Expressing Where You Are From Whatever language you may be learning, trying to explain where you are from or where you have been can be very frustrating and is often stated incorrectly in the beginning stages of your language learning. That is because expressing where you are from takes the accurate knowledge of preposition usage and that can differ greatly from your native tongue. For German learners, you have the added disadvantage that prepositions can sound similar between German and English. (von/ from, zu/ to) and you instinctively associate the same patterns and meaning in both languages. Mastering this German grammar hurdle  is really just a matter of retraining your brain and, most importantly, to stop comparing it to English grammar (if your native tongue is English). First things first: What is the difference between aus and von? Strictly speaking: Aus means ‘out of’ Ein Neugeborenes kommt aus dem Mutterleib. - A newborn comes out of the mother’s womb. Aus explains your roots Ich komme aus Spanien. - I come from Spain. Or that you are moving physically ‘out of’ a place Wann kommt sie aus dem Bad? - When are done your bath? Von means ‘from’ Es ist nicht sehr weit von hier bis zum Bahnhof. - It is not too far from here  to the train station. Or when you want to explain the starting point of a physical motion Wann kommst du von der Arbeit zurà ¼ck? - When are getting back from work? Wir kommen gerade vom Spielplatz. - We are returning from the playground. As you can see, the problem, for English native speakers especially,  is that there is usually only one general translation for both of these German pronouns, namely ‘from’. What you need to do is always keep these literal core German meanings at the forefront, while being aware of the following when wanting to express where you are from or have come from: To explain that you are from a certain city or country, be it either you grew up there or were born there, you use aus: Ich komme aus Deutschland. When you want to explain that you have traveled from a certain city or country geographically, you will also use aus, however, you need to add more explanation to convey the correct context: Ich komme aus gerade aus Italien, wo ich meine Familie besucht habe. In English, you have the verbs to distinguish which meaning you are relating (‘am from’ versus come from), in German, it is the context of the sentence that will reveal the meaning. Having said all that, we need to throw a wrench in your learning: Colloquially, Germans will also use von to state where a person has traveled from geographically. Ich komme von Italien. Even so, all of the German grammar books state that the correct pronoun for the above usage is aus. Remember, the von/aus dilemma is confusing for Germans too! Now that you have grumbled over this double standard, boost your morale with this grammatical tidbit: Both pronouns use the dative! That knowledge in itself is a cause for celebration, knowing that you have one less decision to make in your German phrasing. (German grammar can be kind at times.) Here is a good rule of thumb to help you determine whether to use aus or von: The preposition aus is used, when you can answer a wo  (where) question with in. Die Fische kommen aus dem Meer. Where are the fish? / Wo sind die Fische?In the ocean / I m Meer. In other words, the fish are not physically coming out of the ocean. This sentence states where they are from. The preposition von is used when you can answer a wo (where) question with either an, auf, bei, or zu Das Mdchen kommt gerade von ihrer Oma. Where was the girl? Wo war das Mdchen?Sie war bei ihrer Oma. Note: Notice that the word gerade was placed before von ihrer in the above sentence. This adverb  strengthens the phrasal context that the girl was actually physically coming from her grandmother’s. You will often see an adverb or other word that helps define the action in a von sentence: Heidi kommt aus den Bergen.Heidi kommt vom Berg runter. It’s no secret that prepositions are hard in German. Because of their different nuances in meaning, the most important words are actually the words around the prepositions that form the context. Keep this in mind as you learn their subtle differences and remember to not think in your native tongue.