First Strike by Female Workers

It was May 24, 1824, and the Slater Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island was working their employees hard, timing their work to the minute, factory bells, a company store, and then, they offered the female employees a twenty-five percent wage cut and an extra hour per week of work. That did not go over well. One hundred and two women walked out on strike, vowing not to return until their wages were restored. Women between the ages of 15 and 30 had been working at the mills for several years after the introduction of the power loom.

The walk-out expanded to include children and some men, plus other townspeople. It then moved through the other eight mills in the town. In total, around five hundred workers were striking. Doors were blocked so other workers could not enter. Rocks and insults were tossed at the mill owner's houses, much of that done by the farmers in the area who provided the raw material. The fight between the townspeople had started at the inception of the mills, who blocked up the river with dams, and wanted all public improvements to be pushed in their direction.

"On Wednesday evening a tumultuous crowd filled the streets, led by the most unprincipled and disorderly part of the village, and made an excessive noise - they visited successively the houses of the manufacturers, shouting, exclaiming and using every imaginable term of abuse and insult. The window in the yellow mill was broken in. ... The next day the manufacturers shut their gates and the mills have not run since," Pawtucket Journal.

But the owners were not prepared to be shutting their gates for long. After one of the mills was destroyed, the owners caved within one week, on June 3, 1824, with almost all of the wages restored. The particulars are not known. But this first strike led by female laborers was the first in the United States; it would not be the last.

Photo above: Slater Mill in steroscope photo, 1927, Keystone View Company. Courtesy Library of Congress. Source: "Labor History: The First Factory Strike, ... in 1824 in Pawtucket, R.I., women weavers led the mother of all strikes," 2014, Joey L. DeFrancesco and David Segal, inthesetimes.com; New England Historical Society.

Slater Mill History

Credit for the inception of the Industrial Revolution in America often goes to Sam Slater, whose cotton mill on the Blackstone River in 1793 got the ball rolling for other industrialists. He was a typical mill owner prior to Union organization, hiring the cheapest labor he could find. Who was that? Try children, ages seven to thirteen. How long were they required to work? Twelve hours per day, six days a week, in the winter, sixteen hour days, six days per week, in the summer.

Did they get paid well? You already know that answer. No. Forty to sixty cents per week.

Slater and other mill owners would have continued to use child labor after 1810, but the requirements of the power loom required more sophisticated minds. So they hired young women 15 to 30, who could do the work well.

They were, however, less easy to persuade that dropping their wages was for their own benefit.

Photo above: Slater Mill from the southeast, 1991, Joseph E.B. Elliot. Courtesy Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress.

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Blackstone River Valley NHS

Established by President Obama in 2014, the Blackstone River Valley NHS was meant to tell the history of how the industrial revolution in America started around the nature that was available to power its machines. Whether that be, at first, a waterwheel, or later a power loom, or other devices needed to accomplish their goals.

The park itself has Visitor Centers at many different sites, some run by partners of the National Park Service, coordinated during its era as a National Heritage corridor. They are located at the Old Slater Mill National Historic Landmark District, Blackstone River State Park, Ashton Historic District, Slatersville Historic District, Whitinsville Historic District, Hopedale Village Historic District, Blackstone River and the tributaries of Blackstone River, and the Blackstone Canal.

Some of these units are widespread, even into Massachusetts.

Photo above: Wilkerson Mill on the left with Slater Mill in distance, 1991, Joseph E.B. Elliot. Courtesy Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress.