Taking the Risk

There were many pros and cons when it came to young girls deciding to take the risk and go to the Lowell Mills.  Deciding to leave their homes, families, and everything they knew was extremely nerve-wracking and took quite a lot of courage.  For the girls who decided to accept the challenge and go to work in the mills, they felt as though the benefits outweighed the doubts that they had.  Although there were definitely benefits to leaving home to work in the mills, there were some issues that also came along with being brave enough to try.
I, as well as any other teenage girl, well know that independence is something that is extremely sought after during the time of teenage years, and the biggest draw to leaving home for the mills was to try and find just that.  For most of the girls, going to Lowell allowed them to feel as though they were seeing the world for the first time, because most of them lived in small towns in the countryside and knew nothing but rolling hills, their families, and the next door neighbors.   If the girls did not leave the farm, they would most likely live on a farm of their own in the future, and be married off to a husband they did not choose- going to the mills allowed a girl to take charge of her own destiny.  However, the family also benefited from the girls' choice by being able to have their daughters send a portion of their earnings back home to help with paying the bills; many families needed this extra help at the time, and most were poor or poorer than before because the economy was changing so rapidly based on the rise in numbers of machines and factories.  The girls could also keep some of the money for themselves, giving them the capability to use the money leftover from paying for board to buy nice new clothes and other similar items that they could not obtain back home on the farm.  Besides their hard work at the factories, the girls were given breaks at the end of the day, and did not have to work at all on Sunday, allowing them to make a living but also focus on passions of their own that they could pursue in the future.  The mills' education of the girls, and their acceptance of the girls moving on once they were about 20 years old and to be married off, changed the view of women at the time, showing how strong women were and still are, and how they could and can be in charge of their own destiny.
Although the mill girls began to change the common perception of women at the time, they were still treated unfairly by the overseers simply because they were women.  Overseers could be cruel to the girls working in the mills, but it was expected that the girls would not talk back because their societal role at the time taught them to be quiet and obedient.  The machines that these girls worked at with the overseers watching close by were very dangerous, and many girls were scalped because of a loose piece of hair getting caught in the machines.  Although most girls did not have to go through the immense pain of being scalped, many broken fingers and limbs were common considering how quickly the machines were working and how fast the girls were required to do their work.  Keeping in mind how dangerous the work was that the girls did, especially with far less safety precautions than we have today, they should have been paid much more than they were.  Most girls were paid very little, and most of their wages would go towards the cost of boarding at the mills, leaving them with usually one to two dollars to spend as they pleased.  While they walked around town and shopped using that money, they were not allowed to talk to men under any circumstances for fear of losing their job.
It was hard to tell whether the positive parts of going to work in the mills outweighed the negatives, but it is evident that mill girls started to change the way society viewed women at the time of the Industrial Revolution.