Marchand Archive

Sully, Mother and Son, 1840, detail

Image ID: 8477

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Domesticity

Region(s):

CA Standard(s): 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast.

National Standard(s):

Trussell Farm, c. 1860

Image ID: 8316

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Lowell, Agriculture, Architecture, Business 19th century, Child labor, Class and Status, Early mills and factories, Early National Period, Emigration and Passage, Environmental History, Family to 1920, Gender-Bending, Immigrants, Industrial Revolution, Labor, Labor Organizations and Leaders, Plantation Exterior, Pro feminist and suffrage, Strikes and Violence, Success 19th century, Sweatshops, Temp to 1870's, Urbanization, Victorian Culture, Women in labor movement, Women's work, Work and Housing, Working Class Culture, Working Conditions

Region(s): United States

CA Standard(s): 8.12 - The transformation of the American economy and the changing social and political conditions…in response to the Industrial Revolution, 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation, 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast.

National Standard(s): Expansion and Reform (1801-1861), An Age of Revolutions, 1750-1914

Two Women Weavers, Lowell, MA, 1860

Image ID: 8319

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Lowell, Abolitionism, Americanization and Political Activity, Antebellum Reform, Arrival, Business 19th century, Child labor, Class and Status, Corporate Image, Domesticity, Early mills and factories, Early National Period, Emerging industrial city, Environmental History, Factory as symbol, Family to 1920, Immigrants, Industrial Revolution, Invention, Irish, Labor Organizations and Leaders, Market Economy, Moral lessons, National Events, Parents, Children, Families, Politics & Government, Prejudice and Discrimination, Pro feminist and suffrage, Pullman and Model Towns, Religion, Social disorder and order to 1865, Strikes and Violence, Success 19th century, Sweatshops, Technology, Urbanization, War of 1812, Whites, non planters ante bellum, Women in labor movement, Women's liberation, Women's organizations, Work and Housing, Working Class Culture, Working Conditions

Region(s): United States

CA Standard(s): 8.12 - The transformation of the American economy and the changing social and political conditions…in response to the Industrial Revolution, 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation, 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast. , 8.9 - The early and steady attempts to abolish slavery and to realize the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.

National Standard(s): Expansion and Reform (1801-1861), Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877) , The Development of the Industrial United States (1870-1900)

Card Text: Two women weavers, Lowell, MA, 1860. Samuel Slater’s construction of a water-powered spinning mill in Rhode Island in 1790 pioneered the manufacturing wave that swept across New England after the War of 1812. Factory production helped to transform the United States from the mostly agrarian society Thomas Jefferson had envisioned to the dual agricultural and manufacturing giant of which George Washington had dreamed. Industrialization was a gradual process, but it profoundly affected the American economy and society. An early indication of change occurred in the 1830s and 1840s with the emergence of the factory system and a new, vocal sector of working-class women in and around Lowell, Massachusetts. Women had actively participated in the US workforce before industrialization. In 1820, more than 90 percent of the population lived in the countryside or in villages of fewer than 2,500 inhabitants. More than 70 percent engaged in agriculture. But rural workers did not just milk cows and till fields. As in Europe, women did most of the pre-industrial manufacturing inside their own homes. Small Rhode Island spinning mills followed Slater’s example in employing whole families on site, including children, but generally outsourced the final steps of production to laborers who toiled at home. This process was called the Rhode Island or "outwork" system. Female domestic workers dominated this form of textile production in the early 19th century, producing more than two-thirds of the clothing manufactured in the US. Working conditions were hard. In addition to sewing, knitting, and weaving, women working at home had to bear and raise children, prepare food, carry out domestic chores, and manage household finances. Nor could they enjoy the proceeds of their own labor except in common with their families. Their legal rights, particularly in the ownership of property, were almost nonexistent. In such circumstances, opportunities to work outside the home in the large, new textile factories arising in New England after 1814 looked attractive to many young, single women. Boston merchant Francis Cabot Lowell visited Great Britain just before the War of 1812, observing the new technologies at use in the growing factories there. Unable legally to obtain printed specifications of these technologies, Lowell, like Samuel Slater, carried them in his mind. In 1813, he and master mechanic Paul Moody succeeded in replicating a British power loom. Lowell then partnered with other merchants to create the Boston Manufacturing Co. and built a large textile mill in Waltham, Massachusetts. This company started the Northeastern textile industry by building water-powered textile mills along suitable rivers and developing mill towns around them. The old water-powered spinning mills produced yarn that workers finished at home on hand looms, but the new power loom allowed all this work to be finished in one process at one location. Lowell and his Boston Associates used an organizational method called vertical integration, in which a company controls all the stages of production from the raw materials to marketing. The creation of the plant itself encouraged technological innovations to the spinning machines that improved productivity from year to year. And the plant employed almost no children. Instead, Lowell and his colleagues chose to recruit a workforce of young, single women. This new process, called the factory system, was extremely successful despite British efforts to dump cheap textiles into the North American market after the war in 1815. From its founding until 1823, Boston Manufacturing Co.’s sales increased from $3,000 annually to more than $300,000. In the 1820s, mills and mill settlements expanded along the Merrimack River in Massachusetts. The most important, the town of Lowell, was named in honor of the company’s founder, who died in 1817. Thanks to the success of its factories, Lowell grew quickly. Its population soared from 6000 in 1830 to 33,000 in 1850, making it second in population in Massachusetts only to Boston. A few magnates, the Boston Associates, concentrated in their hands control of almost all of these mills. They worked together as a cartel on common policies for technology and labor, holding down wages and dictating working conditions. They frowned on competition among themselves and appointed an agent in Lowell to ensure that every aspect of their factory system was managed efficiently. Eighty to 90 percent of the mill workers were women, who came to be known as the "Lowell Girls." Almost all were single, from rural or small-town families of modest means. Their testaments were published in their own periodical, the "Lowell Offering," and suggest they entered the factory system not under orders from their families or driven by want, but because they wanted to better their own lives and earn money before they married. In consequence, female mill workers tended to marry much later than other women. Their work also gave them new experiences that made them less likely to retain their parents’ values. And when they left the mills, they tended to settle in large towns rather than returning to farms. The female workers made sacrifices, too. Unlike domestic industries, the factory environment was highly controlled. The women worked six days a week for 12 to 14 hours a day, with only three holidays and Sundays to rest. They had to work at least a year in any job and give two weeks’ notice before departure. If anyone violated these terms, the Lowell bosses "blackballed" her, making certain she never worked in their factories again. The work was repetitive and often dangerous, with no government oversight of working conditions for safety. Penny-pinching managers regulated every moment of the work day to ensure maximum productivity, essentially cutting laborers off from the outside world. Women rarely held supervisory responsibilities and were employed in part because they accepted such low wages. The Lowell manufacturers required their female workers to board together in brick company housing, built in the 1830s to replace earlier ramshackle wooden structures. Up to forty women lived in a typical boardinghouse, with up to eight per room and two per bed. The houses were kept clean and reasonably comfortable, and the meals were adequate and regular. However, the women were expected to obey strict rules designed to ensure "moral" living, including regular church attendance. Boardinghouse keepers attempted to enforce these rules but could not be everywhere at once. Ultimately, the women developed their own community values. Through working and boarding together in company housing, and by producing their own literature, they created a shared culture and experience. They did not fight the system as it stood, but when the Boston Associates colluded to reduce their wages in 1834 and 1836, the women went on strike. When management proposed rent increases for those living in company boarding houses, the female textile workers in Lowell responded in 1836 by forming the Lowell Factory Girls Association and organizing a “turn-out” or strike, and writing a constitution for their association, an early labor union. In doing so, they joined a wider pattern of labor organization and unrest across the country, spurred by the rise of the factory system. By the 1840s, the Lowell Girls' labor activism had become fairly constant. The Ten-Hour Movement began during that decade as the women petitioned the state legislature every year to reduce the working day by two hours. They formed the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association (LFLRA) in 1844, and this group, well-organized and eventually offering sickness insurance to members, became a fully integrated and active part of larger New England labor organizations such as the New England Workingmen’s Association (NEWA). The NEWA made the newspaper "Voice of Industry" its organ in 1845, and the LFLRA’s president Sarah Bagley became a member of the paper’s three-person committee. Under Bagley's influence the paper protested the new, profit-driven economic system that we today call “capitalism.” An uncompromising advocate for women’s rights, publishing pieces about marriage, suffrage, and equality, the paper also addressed itself to a range of social issues including slavery, capital punishment, and war. Workers did not always agree. Activists usually remained in the minority, competing with conservatives, who published their opinions in the "Lowell Offering." Yet the scale of this women’s labor movement was unprecedented even though the Ten-Hour Movement did not secure any meaningful concessions for workers at the time. Shrugging off the labor agitation, the Boston Associates continued to grow, with output doubling between 1850 and 1860. The social implications were tremendous. Vast profits drove the growth of the wealthy class and the great expansion of the urban poor. By 1860, about 41 percent of the US workforce labored outside agriculture, and standardized production of cotton textiles and footwear in the factory system had become the norm. In New England, the creation of factories produced urbanization, with 36 percent of the population living in cities or large towns by 1860. Approximately 60,000 women worked in the large New England textile mills by this time. The factory system also fostered immigration, and in the wake of the Irish famine of 1846-1852, thousands of Irish immigrants moved to Lowell to work in the factories. The companies did not provide them houses, churches, or other services as they had for the mill girls earlier. By 1860, immigrants from Ireland, French Canada and Germany made up perhaps 50 percent of the Lowell factory workforce. Photo.

Women Mill Workers, Lowell, MA, c. 1870

Image ID: 8317

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Lowell, Business 19th century, Class Structure, Early mills and factories, Early National Period, Emerging industrial city, Environmental History, Industrial Revolution, Labor, Market Economy, Mills Factories Post Civil War, National Events, Sweatshops, Technology, Urban poverty, Victorian Culture, Women in labor movement, Women's liberation, Women's work, Work and Workers

Region(s): United States

CA Standard(s): 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast. , 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.10 - The multiple causes, key events, and complex consequences of the Civil War, 8.11 - The character and lasting consequences of Reconstruction, 8.12 - The transformation of the American economy and the changing social and political conditions…in response to the Industrial Revolution, 11.2 - The the relationship among the rise of industrialization, large-scale rural-to-urban migration, and massive immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe

National Standard(s): Expansion and Reform (1801-1861), Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877) , The Development of the Industrial United States (1870-1900)

Card Text: Women mill workers, Lowell, MA, c. 1870. Who were the “mill girls”? Antebellum newspapers and periodicals used the term for the young Yankee women, generally 15 to 30 years old, who came to work in the large New England textile factories of the 19th century. They were also called “female operatives.” Female textile workers, too, often called themselves "mill girls" while affirming the virtue of their class and the dignity of their labor. During early labor protests, they asserted that they were “the daughters of freemen” whose rights could not be “trampled upon with impunity.” Despite the hardship of mill work, women remained an important part of the textile workforce for many years. By 1840, Lowell, Massachusetts, had 32 textile factories and was a bustling city. Between 1820 and 1840 the number of factory workers increased eightfold. In the late 19th century, women held nearly two-thirds of all Lowell textile jobs, with many immigrant women joining the Yankee "mill girls" in the industry. Wanting cheap labor for their mills in early Lowell, the textile corporations recruited young women from New England farms and villages. These “daughters of Yankee farmers” had few economic opportunities, and many were enticed by the prospect of monthly cash wages and room and board in a comfortable boardinghouse. Beginning in 1823, with the opening of Lowell’s first factory, large numbers of young women moved to the growing city. In the mills, they faced long hours of toil under grueling working conditions, but many were able to save money and gain a measure of economic independence. In addition, the city’s shops and religious institutions, along with its educational and recreational activities, offered an exciting social life that most village women had never experienced. Most women who came to Lowell were from farms and small villages, and some had labored in small textile mills. Others had produced cotton or woolen goods or shoes under the domestic system: merchants had employed them to work in their homes and paid them according to the number of pieces they produced. On many farms, the father was the property owner and head of household. Legally, the mother usually owned nothing as she was a type of property herself. Family members shared daily and seasonal tasks. Mothers and daughters performed strenuous outdoor chores and labored in the home, cooking, cleaning, and making clothes. This hardscrabble life proved increasingly difficult for young women, and by the early 1800s a growing number of Yankee farm families faced poverty. For many young rural women, the decision to leave home for a city like Lowell was born of necessity. For most, Lowell’s social and economic opportunities were limited by the powerful textile corporations, which controlled the lives of their workers. The men who ran the corporations and managed the mills sought to regulate the women's moral conduct and social behavior. In the factory, overseers were responsible for maintaining work discipline and meeting production schedules. In the boardinghouses, the keepers enforced curfews and strict codes of conduct. Male and female workers were expected to observe the Sabbath and temperance was strongly encouraged. The clanging factory bell summoned operatives to and from the mill, constantly reminding them that their days were structured around work. Most textile workers stood and toiled for 12 to 14 hours a day and half a day on Saturdays; the mills were closed on Sundays. Typically, mill girls were employed for nine to ten months of the year, and many left the factories during part of the summer to visit their families back home. Most mill girls in Lowell lived in boardinghouses. These large, corporation-owned buildings were often run by a female keeper, or a husband and wife, with control over the young women. A typical boardinghouse consisted of eight units, with 20 to 40 women living in each unit. For most young women, life in the boardinghouse was dramatically different from life on the farm. They usually shared a room with three to seven other women, sleeping two to a bed. A fireplace in each room provided warmth in the colder seasons. The keeper prepared three meals a day, and the women workers dined together in a common room. The women usually formed friendships with other female boarders, and these bonds helped new workers adjust to the rigorous demands of factory life. During labor protests, the boardinghouses often became informal centers of organizing activity. Lowell’s textile corporations paid higher wages than those in other textile cities, but always much less to their female employees than the males. Work was arduous and conditions were frequently unhealthy and unsafe. Although the corporations threatened labor reformers with firing or blacklisting, many mill girls protested wage cuts and dangerous working conditions. Female workers struck twice in the 1830s. In the 1840s, female labor reformers banded together to promote the ten-hour day in the face of strong corporate opposition. Few strikes succeeded, however, and Lowell’s workforce remained largely unorganized. Adding to the difficulties of organizing Lowell’s workers was the changing ethnic composition of the workforce. The number of Irish immigrants employed in Lowell’s mills rose dramatically in the 1840s as they fled their famine-struck land. These immigrant workers were mostly women with large families who were willing to work longer for lower wages than the American women could. These immigrants often had to demand their children work as well. This reliance on immigrant workers slowly turned into a system that exploited the lower classes and made them permanently dependent on low-paying mill jobs. Although most of the original Lowell mill girls were laid off and replaced by immigrants by 1850, the grown, single women who had been used to earning their own money often ended up using their educations to become librarians, teachers, and social workers. In this manner, the Lowell system was seen as producing some "benefits for the workers and the larger society." Thousands of immigrants from many countries settled in Lowell after the Civil War, yet women remained a major part of Lowell’s cheap labor force. They played prominent roles in the large strikes against the textile manufacturers in 1903 and 1912. One of Lowell’s early leading labor leaders was a "mill girl" named Sarah Bagley. Born on a New Hampshire farm in 1806, Bagley arrived in Lowell in 1836 and worked in a number of mills. She became a powerful speaker on behalf of workers and women's rights, promoted the 10-hour workday, and edited the labor newspaper, "The Voice of Industry." In 1846, Bagley promoted the labor reform publication, "Factory Tracts," as representing the interests of those “who are not willing to see our sex made into living machines to do the bidding of the incorporated aristocrats and reduced to a sum for their bodily services hardly sufficient to keep soul and body together.” Although the struggles of Bagley and other mill girls to achieve legislation for a 10-hour day failed, Lowell’s textile corporations did reduce the workday to 11 hours. In 1844, Bagley and five other women formed the Lowell Labor Female Reform Association, one of the earliest successful organizations of women workers in the United States. With time, the mill women's struggles for workers' rights bore fruit for US - and international - labor. By the 1850s, the Lowell system was considered a failed experiment and its mills began using more immigrant and child labor. In the 1890s, the South emerged as the center of US textile manufacturing. The South grew cotton locally and at lower labor costs, partly due to the subjugation of newly-freed slaves, suppression of labor unions, and cheaper energy. By the mid-20th century, all of the New England textile mills, including the Lowell mills, had either closed or relocated south. Photo.

Kidder, View of Lowell, 1830

Image ID: 8315

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Lowell, Architecture, Business 19th century, Class Structure, Early mills and factories, Early National Period, Emerging industrial city, Environmental History, Family to 1920, Future Progress, Industrial Revolution, Invention, Labor, Naive Art, National Events, Pullman and Model Towns, Strikes and Violence, Success 19th century, Sweatshops, Technology, Town and city planning, Trade, Urbanization, Women in labor movement, Women's work, Work and Workers

Region(s): United States

CA Standard(s): 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast. , 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation

National Standard(s): Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)

West, The Hope Family of Sydenham, Kent, 1802, detail

Image ID: 8391

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Domesticity, 18th Century Families, Agriculture, Arts and Architecture, Business 19th century, Business 20th century, Class Separation, Early American Slavery, Early National Period, Family to 1920, Luxury, Market Economy, Nineteenth Century Children, Nineteenth Century Interiors, Nineteenth Century Slavery, Parents, Children, Families, Popular recreation to 1865, Pre-Industrial Work - Misc., Slave Trading, Success 19th century, Trade, Upper class ante bellum

Region(s): Europe, United States

CA Standard(s): 10.3 - The effects of the Industrial Revolution in England, France, Germany, Japan, and the United States. , 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation, 8.5 - U.S. foreign policy in the early Republic, 8.7 - The divergent paths of the American people in the South from 1800 to the mid-1800s

National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861), An Age of Revolutions, 1750-1914

Card Text: Benjamin West (1738–1820), "The Hope Family of Sydenham, Kent," 1802, detail of Henry Hope's sister's grandchildren, Adrian and Elizabeth. Rococo style. Massachusetts-born Henry Hope (1736-1811)) and his family pose below a maquette (a model of an unfinished sculpture) of his villa Welgelegen in Haarlem, The Netherlands. From left to right in the full painting are: Henry, his sister Harriet Goddard's grandchildren Henry (1785), Adrian (1788), Elizabeth (1794), Henrietta (1790), Harriet herself, Henry's adopted son John Williams Hope (1757–1813), John's youngest son William (1802), and John's wife Ann Goddard (1763-1820). Painted in London during the family's exile from invading French forces in Amsterdam. Ann Goddard was the apple of Henry's eye until she started an affair with Baron van Dopff. This painting was made partially to repair her marriage, and it didn't work. As soon as Henry died she moved in with Dopff, and when John Williams died she married Dopff. Henry is pointing to the ashes of John Goddard, his brother-in-law and business associate, and above his head rests a model of Welgelegen. Henry and his family were heirs of the Hope brothers Archibald, Isaac and Zachary, who made their money organizing shipment for Quakers out of Rotterdam; and Thomas and Adrian, who were involved in the slave trade in Amsterdam, hence the background painting of ships, which enriched the family. Top years for the Quaker transport to Pennsylvania were 1738, 1744, 1753 and 1765. The slave trade was much less lucrative, but much more brutal — 16% of the slaves died during transport. The Hopes also financed plantations in the Dutch Caribbean, Danish West Indies and United States — and they were actively involved in the management of the plantations. Around 1780 almost half of their profits came from slavery and the trade in sugar, coffee and diamonds. Despite the movements to abolish slavery, Hope & Co., the largest financial and commercial company in the Netherlands at the end of the 18th century, remained active in slavery until its abolition in the Netherlands in 1863. In 2022 its corporate descendant, Dutch bank ABN AMRO, publicly apologized for this involvement in slavery. According to NL Times, "The bank will not offer financial compensation for those affected by its practices in generations past, but the banking group will take more action to combat social inequality." Oil on canvas. 183.2 x 258.44 cm (72-1/8 x 101-3/4".)

Lowell Co. Mills, 1868

Image ID: 8318

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Lowell, Arts and Architecture, Business 19th century, Class and Status, Corporate Image, Early mills and factories, Early National Period, Emerging industrial city, Environmental History, Factory as symbol, Family to 1920, Future Progress, Immigrants, Individualism, Technology, Industrial Revolution, Invention, Irish, Labor, Mills Factories Post Civil War, National Events, Pullman and Model Towns, Success 19th century, Sweatshops, Technology, Trade, Upper Class to 1865, Urbanization, Whites, non planters ante bellum, Women in labor movement, Women's work, Work and Housing, Working Conditions

Region(s): United States

CA Standard(s): 8.10 - The multiple causes, key events, and complex consequences of the Civil War, 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation, 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast.

National Standard(s): Expansion and Reform (1801-1861), Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877)

Card Text: Franklin Hedge, "Lowell Co. Mills," 1868. In 1814 on the Charles River in Waltham, Massachusetts, a group of Boston investors introduced the first integrated cotton textile mill. Here each step in the production of cloth from bale to bolt took place under one roof with machinery powered by water. Management also turned to an innovative source of labor, the daughters of New England Yankee farmers. The success of the "Waltham Experiment" encouraged investors to explore other sites on which to expand and print calico cloth. In 1821, they chose an area around the Pawtucket Falls on the Merrimack River at East Chelmsford, Massachusetts. This site became Lowell, the first large, planned, industrial city in America. The system of factories and power canals created here surpassed previous engineering schemes in both scale and sophistication. At the Pawtucket Falls, the Merrimack River fell 32 feet over a series of drops and rapids in the space of a half mile. In 1796, a company called the Proprietors of Locks and Canals on Merrimack River built the Pawtucket Canal as a transportation canal to bypass these falls. The Boston investors purchased the Proprietors of Locks and Canals and some 250 acres of adjacent farmland for development in 1821. Between 1822 and 1848, they rebuilt Pawtucket Canal into a feeder canal. They planned and constructed a dam at the head of the falls, seven power canals, and 10 large companies consisting of more than 50 mill buildings, including two print works, a bleachery, and a machine shop. They also provided schools, churches, libraries, and housing for their workers. During this period, Lowell's population grew from about 2,500 to 33,000. Lowell became America's model industrial city during the first half of the 19th century, offering the hope that the country would profit socially as well as economically by adopting industrialism as a way of life. The early Lowell system was distinguished by its state-of-the-art technology, the engineers and inventors who worked on its canal system, its mill architecture, enormous production capabilities, rational city planning, and most of all, by its much-heralded workforce of Yankee "mill girls." Throughout the 19th century wave after wave of immigrants--Irish, French-Canadians, Greeks, Poles, and Portuguese--arrived in Lowell looking for job opportunities in the expanding textile industry. During this period Massachusetts implemented reform legislation affecting child labor, education, and working conditions that cut into investors' profit margins. In the 1920s, rather than reinvesting in aging Northern textile factories with high taxes, union labor, and expensive transportation, Lowell investors turned to new textile plants in the South. As a result, many of the textile companies in Lowell closed or moved south. A few companies diversified or produced specialized products, but from the 1920s until the 1970s, except for occasional economic booms such as during World War II, Lowell experienced some of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Lowell was not, as sometimes claimed, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution in America. Most of the industrial developments in the nation's history had their origins elsewhere, but at Lowell these developments converged in a revolutionary way. New forms of technology, power generation, finance, labor, and industrial organization were combined on a scale that foreshadowed today's industrialized and urbanized society. The typical Lowell textile mill consisted of an integrated sequence of mechanized processes that transformed raw cotton into finished cloth. The system drew on diverse people and skills to make it work. Factory owners, workers, agents, overseers, machinists, millwrights, checkers, and boardinghouse keepers, together with machine belts, shafting, waterwheels, turbines, lighting and fire safety equipment, and even the building itself were all parts of an immense, complex process of interrelated functions. Viewed in its broadest perspective, the Lowell factory system reached far beyond the city limits. Vital raw material (cotton) was shipped from the American South, and finished textile products could be found in all sections of the United States, Europe, Central America, Canada, and even China. Included in this system were railroad workers, seamen, plantation owners, enslaved workers, sales agents, retail merchants, and cotton factors. From a more limited perspective, the factory system encompassed every aspect of activity confined within the walls of a given mill. Two central components of the Boott Mills and others like the Boott were the power system and the production system. There were several other vital subsystems such as communications, lighting, heat and humidity, sanitation and safety, fire prevention, transportation, maintenance and repair, machine building, architecture and construction, management, and labor. Changes in these subsystems affected both power and production. In turn, innovations in either the power system or the production system affected the subsystems. As a result, many of the innovations and changes inherent in the founding and development of the factory system brought unanticipated consequences. In the factory system, change was the order of the day and the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. In the United States, the first use of water-powered spinning frames took place at Slater Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Additional mills based on the Slater Mill pattern were quickly built. Using this "Rhode Island System," these mills borrowed heavily from standard English patterns, especially that of spinning in a factory and "putting out" the spun yarn to be woven into cloth at workers' homes. The spinning mills were housed in a variety of building types that were usually based on house types and buildings used for light industry in the region. Slater Mill was typical of early Rhode Island mills and used traditional building construction forms and techniques to meet the requirements of the evolving industry. Early wooden mills like Slater were replaced in the early 1800s by larger structures of either rubble stone or granite block with interior wood framing. They still looked like large houses, but they were more solid and provided better protection against the danger of fire. Francis Cabot Lowell and his circle of Boston friends were the first to improve upon the design and organization of the early New England textile mills. Lowell's Boston Manufacturing Company was producing cloth by 1815, using power looms he had developed after observing similar machines in British factories. Their mill at Waltham, Massachusetts, was the first vertically integrated factory in the United States, meaning that all operations for its cloth production from raw materials to shipping product were accomplished under one roof. Construction of the second mill at Waltham in 1816-1818 completed the evolution of the physical form, structural system, and construction technique that later would be used in Lowell. The standard Waltham factory plan was rectangular, 150'-160' long, reflecting the dependability of interior overhead line shafting, by 40'-50' wide, the optimum for spaces relying on exterior windows for natural light. The four stories of open floor space had a dormer-lit gable roof, brick construction with stone foundations, and a full-height exterior stair tower centered in one of the long elevations. Initially, these mills were built either as a series of similar structures, or constructed so they could easily be expanded. Drawing.

Homer, The Dance After the Husking, 1858

Image ID: 8307

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Industrialization, Agriculture, 19th century Genre painting, Arts and Architecture, Domesticity, Early National Period, Environmental History, Family to 1920, Games 19th century, Labor, Market Economy, Middle-Class Culture, Naive Art, Nineteenth Century Interiors, Parents, Children, Families, Plantation Interior, Popular recreation to 1865, Pre-Industrial Work - Misc., Success 19th century, Victorian Culture, Women's work, Work and Workers

Region(s): United States

CA Standard(s): 8.12 - The transformation of the American economy and the changing social and political conditions…in response to the Industrial Revolution, 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation, 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 11.2 - The the relationship among the rise of industrialization, large-scale rural-to-urban migration, and massive immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe

National Standard(s): Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)

Card Text: Winslow Homer (American, 1836–1910), "The Dance After the Husking," 1858. Many couples dance in a Victorian home. In the back right corner of the room a band is playing while other couples sit along the edges watching the dancers. Near a fireplace on the right side an older couple and young girl stand watching. This stereotypically nostalgic vision shows hard work and its rewards in rural America. "When the Indian corn has been gathered into the corn-house, or the barn, the neighbors are all invited to the husking. This consists simply of stripping the leaves or husks from the full ripened ears, which is done by hand. The ears are thrown into a heap and the husks gathered in a corner. The scene is one of great merriment, and usually winds up with a banquet and social games. Although Halloween was not celebrated in New England until the late 19th century, the locals did have festivities called “husking parties” and “frolics.” Husking parties were an important activity meant to prepare food for the winter. After the annual harvest, farmers needed to ready their corn for storage by removing the silky husk that trapped moisture and caused rotting. This “husking” ensured the families' survival through a harsh winter. Families spent weeks preparing for a husking frolic: The house was cleaned, food prepared, and the cider barrel "hossed up" in the dooryard beside a bountiful pile of "eating apples.” In 1828, John Neil of Concord, MA, described “A Husking As It Is”: “When one of our thrifty New England farmers intends to have a husking, he picks his corn from the hill, or cuts it up by the roots and hauls it too, and piles it up in one end of his barn for two or three days previous to the appointed night; the day preceding the husking he sends a boy round within the circumference of a mile perhaps, with particular and general invitations… The boy who bares the invitation sometimes carries the empty jugs about with him, as a sort of bait, or to let them know that white-eye [New Rum] will be there.” “Huskings” or “frolics” provided an opportunity for neighbors to gather and for the young to begin romantic courtships. On the day of the husking, “when company gets collected, and the ‘how d’ye do” is over, they sit down and apply themselves to business…” Another participant recalled, “the evening began with steady work, which was mainly performed by the younger and more nimble of the party.” During the tedious but absent-minded process of husking, the company often found joyous ways to entertain themselves; “… they sing many songs, which are vulgar and obscene, but then the old grandfathers tell many cleaver stories of by-gone days, and some moral ones too—it is not [infrequent] to hear now and then a good, perhaps very good song, or set piece, when a hardy choir of songsters happen to get together…” In some areas local tradition held that finding a red ear of corn was good luck, deserving of a prize. Red ears of corn were an infrequent discovery, caused by an imbalance of sugar in the plant. The rarity of these red ears inspired local folklore. Some early accounts of husking frolics held that the individual who found a red ear received a kiss as a reward. For the young romantics in a husking party, finding the red ear became a highly coveted tradition. In later accounts, finding the ear caused the entire party to chase the finder until the ear was forfeited via capture. Traditionally, after husking a large supper was set, and “…they all repair to the house, or the refreshment is brought out to them, where a motherly quantity of lusty pumpkin and coalpit or two-story apple platter pies are provided, with a fresh new skimm’d milk cheese (green) and hot biscuit. Oh what a luxury! Every one eats his fill, and washes down with good old orchard, or hop beer…” . After dinner festivities carried on long into the night as the young people were left “…to engage in games, and the elders, grouped about the sitting room fire, talked of olden times…” In many instances, dark stories of witchcraft and the devil’s minions enthralled participants. Fortune telling was another popular tradition of frolics and husking parties. When young romantic sentiments took hold, fortune telling promised to reveal future lovers. Practices ranged from roasting nuts over a fire, looking down wells to see the face of a future spouse, and throwing balls of yarn in hopes their soul mate would follow it. Other games included “Button—roll the plate—chase the lady,” “wrestle, scuffle, jump, heels overhead, pull sticks, throw corn, &c, &c.” When on their own the younger romantics danced, sang, and frolicked together in ways that future generations referred to as “scenes of vile lewdness.” John Neil in Concord warned of the many “romping plays,” where “they kiss,” and sometimes, “sit on each others knees, or lap.” After hours of music, games, food, and drinking the festivities came to an end. “Rain or shine,” participants headed home, likely thinking over the spooky tales of haunting devils lurking in the dark, or their romantic interests left by the fireside. For generations, husking parties and autumn frolics remained a staple of New England tradition. In the early 19h century, an era of socially conservative values, the grandchildren of the revolutionary period shifted towards temperance, modesty, and proper etiquette. By 1828, John Neil recorded that “it is no more the fashion for females to go a husking in the country…though it undoubtedly has been in days of yore.” Fortunately, these restrictive conditions did not last and by the mid-19th century frolics and husking emerged again as a tradition for all. Over time, those practices mingled with the cultural rituals flowing into America via waves of immigration. When Scottish and Irish immigrants brought holidays such as All Hollow’s Eve, they mixed with other forms of traditional folklore to create a uniquely American experience. Today, many aspects of husking parties are still present within our own Halloween traditions. A New England corn-husking: 'The days grow short; but though the falling sun To the glad swain proclaims his day's work done, Night's pleasing shades his various task prolong, and yield new subject to my various song. For now, the corn-house filled, the harvest-home, the invited neighbors to the husking come; A frolic scene, where work, and mirth, and play Unite their charms to chase the hours away. Where the huge heap lies centred in the hall, The lamp suspended from the cheerful wall, Brown corn-fed nymphs, and strong hard-handed beaux, Alternate ranged, extend in circling rows, Assume their seats, the solid mass attack, The dry husks rustle, and the corn-cobs crack, The song, the laugh, alternate notes resound, and the sweet cider trips in silence round....Various the sport as are the wit and brains Of well-pleased lasses, and contending swains; Till the vast mound of corn is swept away, And he that gets the last ear wins the day. Meanwhile the housewife plies her evening care The well-earned feast to hasten and prepare....When to the board the thronging huskers pour And take their seats as at the corn before." Winslow Homer is regarded by many as the greatest American painter of the 19th century. Born in Boston and raised in rural Cambridge, he began his career as a commercial printmaker in Boston and then in New York, where he settled in 1859. He briefly studied oil painting in the spring of 1861. Wood engraving. 5-7/8 x 9-1/4" (14.9 x 23.5 cm)

Merrimack Mill No. 6, Lowell, MA, 1868

Image ID: 8320

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Lowell, Architecture, Business 19th century, Civil Rights, Class and Status, Corporate Image, Early mills and factories, Early National Period, Emerging industrial city, Environmental History, Family to 1920, Gender-Bending, Immigrants, Industrial Revolution, Invention, Irish, Labor Organizations and Leaders, National Events, Pullman and Model Towns, Strikes and Violence, Sweatshops, Technology, Town and city planning, Urbanization, Women in labor movement, Women's work, Work and Housing, Working Conditions

Region(s): United States

CA Standard(s): 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast. , 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation

National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861), Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877)

Card Text: "Merrimack Mill No. 6," Lowell, MA, 1868. The Merrimack Manufacturing Company, also known as Merrimack Mills, was the first of the major textile manufacturing concerns to open in Lowell, Massachusetts, beginning operations in 1823. After the death of Francis Cabot Lowell of the Boston Manufacturing Co., his associates (commonly referred to as the Boston Associates) began planning a larger operation in East Chelmsford, MA, along the Merrimack River. The Merrimack Manufacturing Co. was modeled after the second Boston Manufacturing Co. mill and built concurrently with the necessary canals, machine shop, dye-house, and boardinghouses for the workers. The company used an operating system known as the Lowell System. Initially capitalized with $600,000, its typical product was calico cloth. The original mills were located at the foot of the Merrimack Canal and received the full 32' drop of the river. Closely associated with the Proprietors of Locks and Canals, and at one point merged with the company under the same agents (such as Kirk Boott), the Merrimack Co. was the parent company of the later Lowell firms - although they were technically competitors. The Merrimack Co. was very powerful in the politics of the settlement, later town, and then city, of Lowell. However, as US textile production shifted away from New England, the Merrimack Manufacturing Co.'s fortunes reversed. The company was able to survive the Great Depression due to military contracts and awards that revamped the surrounding economy, and it was among the last of Lowell's textile giants to close. It ceased operations in the late 1950s and nearly the entire complex was demolished for urban renewal in 1960. A few years later, many of the boardinghouses were destroyed as well. Today, the site is occupied by new arterial roads, parking lots, a few low-rise office buildings, a high-rise housing tower, and the newer buildings of Lowell High School. The mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, attracted the most attention for they were on a new scale, larger and more industrial than anything Americans had seen. Americans applied an English metaphor: Lowell was the "Manchester of America," a new industrial city built from scratch by a group of Boston capitalists. These men had earlier invested in the Boston Manufacturing Co., a textile mill Francis Cabot Lowell had founded in 1814 in Waltham, Massachusetts, about ten miles west of Boston. That mill was the first large-scale textile mill in America. It went beyond earlier American mills by including power-loom weaving and spinning. The Lowell mills extended the ideas experimented with at Waltham; and in their size, corporate structure, and urban setting, these large textile mills set the style for much subsequent American industrial development. A mill was, in a way, a vast machine, connected by a complicated system of shafts and belts. If it were to work properly, all the spinners and weavers and carders and dressers had to be in place when it was started and work until it was stopped. The great cost of the machines meant that the mills had to be kept running, even when the market for their product was weak. That often meant cuts in the workers' pay. And most important, the machines' steady motion insisted on a machine-like pace for the workers. The managers set the speed of the machines, and the machines set the pace of work. The mills of Lowell employed a new industrial work force; not families, as in the mills of England and southern New England, but rather young women labored there. The 1820s were hard times for the farmers of New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine. The opening of the Erie Canal was bringing in cheaper goods from the West, and the West was luring their sons off the poor New England soil. Their daughters, looking for work outside the home - some to earn money for their families, some to earn money for themselves - were attracted to Lowell. There were other reasons the mills employed women. First, women were traditionally employed in home textile work. Second, they were not expected to support families and so could be paid less. Third, in this period women were never expected to be independent, equal citizens - they could not vote, after all - and unlike male artisans, they had no independence to lose when they became factory hands. When these young women arrived at Lowell they found housing in the rows of boardinghouses that surrounded the mills. Here respectable boardinghouse keepers, paid by the Lowell corporations, ensured the "morality" of the factory experience, reporting any misconduct to the agents of the corporations. Their guidance was supplemented by a code of moral rules in the mills themselves; girls were fired for offenses ranging from "hysteria" to "insubordination" and could be blacklisted and kept from working at other mills. Most mill girls stayed in Lowell only a few years before marrying or returning to their families' farms. The mill girls of Lowell even became famous for their attainments in literature and the arts. One group published "The Lowell Offering," a literary magazine often cited as an example of the elevated moral attainments of a truly American industrial work force. Why did the proprietors of the Lowell mills spend the extra money to establish a paternalistic regime there? Some of them took seriously the warnings about the evils of factory work. Some feared that they would not be able to attract workers to do the hard labor the mills required without the amenities they offered, or feared that the mill girls' parents would not allow them to work at the mills without supervision. Some may have feared American reactions to Lowell if it adopted the harsh English factory model, widely despised in the US. Whatever the reasons, the paternalism of the Boston Associates, though widely admired, was not without its tarnish. The first strike of women factory workers in this country occurred at the Boston Manufacturing Co. in 1821, when the company cut wages. A mechanic at the mill wrote in a letter, "The girls as one revolted," and they stopped work for two days. At Lowell there were similar strikes when management cut pay or sped up the work. The mill girls appealed to American democratic ideals in their strikes, striking for "liberty" against the "oppressing hand of avarice that doth enslave us." They published labor newspapers and circulated petitions for shorter working hours. The 1820s and 1830s have been called Lowell's Golden Age. It was the time of the New England mill girls, relatively unpressured working conditions, closely supervised boardinghouses, and "The Lowell Offering." The 1840s saw the bosses "speeding up" and "stretching out" in the mills, running the machines faster and forcing each worker to tend more machines to make up for falling profits. The Yankee mill girls began to leave, replaced by Irish immigrants with no better options. The Civil War meant the end of Lowell as an industrial experiment for the owners who, thinking the war would last only months, mistakenly sold off their cotton to make quick profits. When the mills reopened after the war, the "Lowell experiment" was over: The Yankee work force was gone, replaced with immigrant workers. Lower wages and sped-up machinery indicated the owners' drive only for profit, not for a moral workplace. Drawing.

Railroad Suspension Bridge Near Niagara Falls, NY, 1856

Image ID: 8211

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Transportation, African Americans, Arts and Architecture, Brooklyn Bridge, Business 19th century, Canada, Developing Nations, Emerging industrial city, Environmental History, Free Blacks, Industrial Revolution, Invention, Market Economy, Middle-Class Culture, Nationhood, Nineteenth Century Slavery, Railroad and steamboat, Railroads, Slaves Violence Resistance, Success 19th century, Symbols, US Nationalism, Niagara

Region(s): Canada, United States

CA Standard(s): 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast. , 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation, 8.5 - U.S. foreign policy in the early Republic, 8.9 - The early and steady attempts to abolish slavery and to realize the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.

National Standard(s): Expansion and Reform (1801-1861), Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877) , The Development of the Industrial United States (1870-1900)

Card Text: Unidentified American artist, "The Railroad Suspension Bridge Near Niagara Falls," NY, 1856 or later. A train crosses the top of the double-deck Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge. The world's first working railway suspension bridge, it spanned the Niagara River from 1855 to 1897. It stood 825 feet (251 m) across the river, 2.5 miles (4.0 km) downstream of Niagara Falls, where it connected the Falls in Ontario to the Falls in New York. Trains used the upper deck while pedestrians and carriages used the lower. The bridge was the idea of Canadian politicians, and it was built by an American company and a Canadian one. The bridge was part of the vision of Canadian politician William Hamilton Merritt to promote trade within Canada and with the US. Bridge builders and others argued that a suspension bridge could not support the safe passage of trains. Nonetheless, the bridge companies hired Charles Ellet, Jr., who used a kite to lay a line across the 800-foot chasm and built a temporary suspension bridge in 1848. Ellet left the project after a financial dispute with the bridge companies, who hired John Augustus Roebling to complete the project. By 1854, his bridge was nearly finished, and the lower deck was opened for pedestrian and carriage travel. On March 18, 1855, a fully-laden passenger train officially opened the completed bridge. The Suspension Bridge provided a border crossing between Canada and the US, and it played a significant role in the histories of the Niagara region and the two countries. Three railway lines crossed the bridge, connecting cities on the border. The Great Western Railway, New York Central, and New York and Erie Railroad differed in track gauge, so the bridge used a triple gauge system to conserve space, overlapping two tracks and using a rail of each to form the third track. The railroads brought a large influx of trade and tourists to the Niagara Falls region. Before the American Civil War, the Underground Railroad helped enslaved workers escape across the Suspension Bridge to freedom in Canada. After the war, the bridge inspired Americans to rebuild - and industrialize - their nation. The bridge's success proved that a railway suspension bridge could be safe and operational. When its wooden structures began to decay, they were replaced with stronger steel and iron versions by 1886. Heavier trains required it be replaced by the "Steel Arch Bridge," later renamed the "Whirlpool Rapids Bridge," in 1897. The bridge shook whenever a train trundled over it, and although safe, its trembling made some passengers uncomfortable. Writer Mark Twain noted, "You drive over to Suspension Bridge and divide your misery between the chances of smashing down two hundred feet into the river below, and the chances of having a railway-train overhead smashing down onto you. Either possibility is discomforting taken by itself, but, mixed together, they amount in the aggregate to positive unhappiness." Yet thousands of people crossed the bridge safely every day. American engineers regard the Suspension Bridge as a major achievement of efficiency. In a fledgling country with limited material and financial resources, the engineers had to make do with available assets. Although the Suspension Bridge proved that the system could safely carry trains, no more suspension railway bridges were built. A beautiful engineering marvel, the bridge lured many visitors to the Falls. Travelers crossing the bridge could enjoy a view of the Falls, enhanced by the sensation of standing 250 feet in the air. Daredevils such as Maria Spelterini, the only woman known to cross the Niagara gorge on a tightrope, performed their stunts for crowds on the shore and the bridge. On June 30, 1859, Charles Blondin become the first man to cross the chasm on a tightrope. In mid-crossing, Blondin sat down on the rope and lowered a line to retrieve a drink from the deck of a boat below. In each of his later tightrope acts, he performed a different stunt, once cooking and eating an omelette in mid-crossing; another time he carried his manager Harry Colcord on his back. While giving Colcord the piggyback ride, Blondin stopped five times on the tightrope to rest and recover his strength; each time Colcord gingerly got off Blondin's back and stood on the tightrope, climbing back on after the acrobat had enough rest. Blondin's success inspired other death-defying acrobats, such as William Leonard Hunt ("The Great Farini"), Samuel Dixon, Clifford Calverly, and Spelterini, to emulate and try to surpass his acts at the same spot. The Signorina once crossed while blindfolded and a second time with her hands and legs in manacles. Another group of Americans made their own risky crossings over the Niagara Gorge as they fled the US: Enslaved African-Americans sought freedom by escaping to Canada, which declared the liberation of any slave who entered it. The bridge was part of the Underground Railroad, a network of routes designed to smuggle the enslaved to freedom in Canada. Before the American Civil War, fleeing slaves had only four main routes into Canada, of which one was crossing the Niagara River. They had help from several quarters. The state of New York generally favored granting freedom to enslaved people, and this attitude emboldened free African-American workers in Niagara, who frequently helped enslaved people flee to Canada. Before the Suspension Bridge was completed, fugitives either crossed the raging river on a boat or risked their lives by swimming at calmer points of the river. The Suspension Bridge made escape across the river easier and safer, although there was still risk. To avoid being caught and sent back to their owners, enslaved people had to sneak across on foot or hide aboard trains and oxcarts. Antislavery activist Harriet Tubman guided fugitives at night and bribed customs officials to turn a blind eye to their escape. As a result, many enslaved Americans crossed the Suspension Bridge to freedom before the United States was engulfed in civil war. After the Civil War, national pride rose as Americans lauded the bridge. The completion of the bridge that had been deemed impossible by the Western world gave Americans, who had lesser technical accomplishments than Europeans at that time, a great trophy. The Suspension Bridge became an American symbol of braving the toughest challenges and doing the impossible, pushing their drive for industrialization. Oil on canvas, 79.06 x 102.55 cm (31-1/8 x 40-3/8".)

Exterior, Private Railroad Car, c. 1890

Image ID: 8243

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Transportation, Arts and Architecture, Business 19th century, Business 20th century, Class Separation, Coal, Cooption of styles, Domesticity, Environmental History, Exhibition, Gilded Age, Industrial Revolution, Invention, Luxury, Middle-Class Culture, Nature and Civilization, Popular recreation 1870-1920, Popular recreation since 1920, Pullman and Model Towns, Railroad and steamboat, Railroads, Recreation - upper class, Symbols, Technology, The West, Twentieth Century Misc., Victorian Culture

Region(s): United States

CA Standard(s): 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast. , 8.12 - The transformation of the American economy and the changing social and political conditions…in response to the Industrial Revolution, 11.2 - The the relationship among the rise of industrialization, large-scale rural-to-urban migration, and massive immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, 11.4 - The rise of the United States to its role as a world power in the twentieth century, 11.5 - Major political, social, economic, technological, and cultural developments of the 1920s.

National Standard(s): The Development of the Industrial United States (1870-1900) , The Emergence of Modern America (1890-1930), The Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945), Postwar United States (1945 to early 1970s)

Card Text: Exterior view, private railroad car built by Wagner Palace Car Co., c. 1890. Early rail travel was uncomfortable. From the 1830s through the '50s, long-distance train travel allowed passengers little sleep if the train didn't stop at a village or city for an overnight accommodation. Webster Wagner (1817-82) was a New York Central Railroad freight agent in Palatine Bridge, NY, who saw the need for better comfort. He came up with the idea of building sleeping cars. With the assistance of other enterprising men, Wagner constructed four such cars at a cost of $3,200 each. Berths were provided for the sleepers, along with a pair of cheap blankets and pillows. Wagner invented and put into operation his first drawing-room or palace car, "the first ever seen in America," in 1867. This car and its comforts of home became so popular with tourists that it made Wagner a fortune. The company became the second largest builder of sleeping cars in the United States. The Wagner Company began as the New York Central Sleeping Car Company, founded in 1858 in New York City by Wagner in cooperation with Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose New York Central used the four original coaches. About 1870 Wagner negotiated a deal with Pullman to use its berths in the Wagner cars, with the understanding that Wagner would limit its operations to the New York Central. But in 1875, Pullman sued, and settled out-of-court. Wagner died in 1882 aboard one of his own sleeping cars in a rear-end collision. The company nevertheless continued doing business, and in 1888 was in court again against Pullman, this time for having allegedly infringed upon Pullman’s vestibule patents. This time Pullman won. The battles between the Pullman and Wagner companies continued until Vanderbilt’s death, when the Wagner directors sold the company to Pullman on January 1, 1900. The Wagner Palace Car Company was one of the largest employers in Buffalo, NY, in 1890, and its works occupied 35.7 acres. In addition to brass finishers, the company employed blacksmiths, car builders, carpenters, carvers, marble finishers, steamfitters and even a storekeeper. Most of these workers lived on the east side of Buffalo, and likely walked, rode a bicycle or took a horse-drawn streetcar to work. The former Wagner Palace Car complex is one of the last Reconstruction-era industrial sites in Buffalo, the construction site of some of the luxurious railcars of the “Golden Age” of American railroading.

Quaker Meeting, 18th c.

Image ID: 8364

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Antebellum Reform, 17th Century Interiors, 18th Century Interiors, Americanization and Political Activity, Arts and Architecture, British Empire, Civil Rights, Colonial America, Early American Slavery

Region(s):

CA Standard(s): 8.9 - The early and steady attempts to abolish slavery and to realize the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.

National Standard(s):

Card Text: Unidentified British artist, "Quaker Meeting," 18th c. or first quarter 19th c., illustrating the prominent place of women in Quaker gatherings. The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) is a movement that began in 17th-century England. George Fox was frustrated by the Christian institutions of his day. He spent years wandering the English countryside, seeking spiritual solace, sometimes consulting with ministers and other religious leaders—but, as he later wrote, “there was none among them all that could speak to my condition.” “And when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, then, oh, then, I heard a voice which said, ‘There is one, [namely] Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition’; and when I heard it my heart did leap for joy.” Fox continued to roam the land, but now he began sharing the insights he gained from this and other spiritual experiences. In 1652, he met Margaret Fell, who became an active member of the growing Religious Society, and would spend several years in prison for her faith. It was there that she wrote the pamphlet “Women’s Speaking Justified,” which articulated the Quaker belief that men and women were equally capable of receiving and sharing prophetic visions from God. In 1669, having been widowed for more than a decade, she married Fox, although between missionary work and imprisonment they were often apart. The early Friends sought to revive “primitive Christianity” by going back to Christian roots in Jesus’ teachings about nonviolence, simple living, God’s concern for the marginalized, and the immediate and equal access to God’s Spirit. They refused to pay tithes to the Church of England, though this was a required tax at the time. They also refused to take oaths by swearing on the Bible, insisting that Jesus’s mandate to “let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay” (Matthew 5:37) was sufficient. They rejected all priestly authority and the pomp of church sacrament, choosing instead to gather in “expectant silence,” where they waited for the Spirit present among them to share whatever messages it had, choosing whoever among them it deemed fit. While Quakerism started in England and soon spread to the American colonies, today’s Religious Society of Friends is a global faith community with diversity in its members’ theological principles and religious practices. Many Quakers still worship in silence, with no clergy presiding over the service, while other Quakers have pastors who lead their meetings in song and prayer (though silent prayer is still frequently a component of their worship). Some Friends maintain a strong connection to the Society’s Christian roots, while others incorporate other religious traditions into their understanding of the divine—or even abandon belief in any divine power while remaining committed to a life of ethical conduct: "We all share four things in common: our belief in the possibility of receiving direct communications from God, a commitment to nurturing our spiritual life through worship, a commitment to practicing spiritual discernment together as a community, and a commitment to making our lives a testimony to our faith." The last English colony to be established in the 17th century was Pennsylvania. The proprietor, William Penn, envisioned it as a place where those facing religious persecution in Europe could enjoy spiritual freedom, and colonists and Native peoples would coexist in harmony. Penn’s late father had been a supporter and creditor of Charles II. To cancel his debt to the Penn family and bolster the English presence in North America, the king in 1681 granted Penn a vast tract of land south and west of New York, as well as the old Swedish-Dutch colony that became Delaware. A devout member of the Society of Friends, Penn was particularly concerned with establishing a refuge for his coreligionists, who faced increasing persecution in England. He had already assisted a group of English Quakers in purchasing half of what became the colony of New Jersey from Lord John Berkeley, who had received a land grant from the Duke of York. Penn was largely responsible for the government structure announced in 1677, the West Jersey Concessions, one of the most liberal of the era. Based on Quaker ideals, it created an elected assembly with a broad suffrage and established religious liberty. Penn hoped that West Jersey would become a society of small farmers, not large. Like the Puritans, Penn considered his colony a “holy experiment,” but of a different kind—“a free colony for all mankind that should go hither.” He hoped that Pennsylvania could be governed according to Quaker principles, among them the equality of all persons (including women, blacks, immigrants and Indians) before God and the primacy of the individual conscience. To Quakers, liberty was a universal entitlement, not the possession of any single people—a position that would eventually make them the first group of whites to repudiate slavery. Penn also treated indigenous people with a consideration almost unique in the colonial experience, arranging to purchase land before reselling it to colonists and offering refuge to tribes driven out of other colonies by warfare. Sometimes, he even purchased the same land twice, when more than one Native tribe claimed it. Since Quakers were pacifists who came to America unarmed and did not even organize a militia until the 1740s, peace with the Native population was essential. Penn’s Chain of Friendship appealed to the local Indians, promising protection from rival tribes who claimed power over them. Religious freedom was Penn’s most fundamental principle. He condemned attempts to enforce “religious Uniformity” for depriving thousands of “free inhabitants” of England of the right to worship as they desired. His Charter of Liberty, approved by the assembly in 1682, offered “Christian liberty” to all who affirmed a belief in God and did not use their freedom to promote “licentiousness.” There was no established church in Pennsylvania, and attendance at religious services was entirely voluntary, although Jews were barred from office by a required oath affirming belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ. At the same time, the Quakers upheld a strict code of personal morality. Penn’s Frame of Government prohibited swearing, drunkenness, and adultery, as well as popular entertainments of the era such as “revels, bull-baiting, and cock-fighting.” Private religious belief may not have been enforced by the government, but moral public behavior certainly was. Not religious uniformity but a virtuous citizenry would be the foundation of Penn’s social order. Given the power to determine the colony’s form of government, Penn established an appointed council to originate legislation and an assembly elected by male taxpayers and “freemen” (owners of 100 acres of land for free immigrants and 50 acres for former indentured servants). These rules made a majority of the male population eligible to vote. Penn owned all the colony’s land and sold it to settlers at low prices rather than granting it outright. Like other proprietors, he expected to turn a profit, and like most of them, he never really did. But if Penn did not prosper, Pennsylvania did. A majority of the early settlers were Quakers from the British Isles. But Pennsylvania’s religious toleration, healthy climate, and inexpensive land, along with Penn’s aggressive efforts to publicize the colony’s advantages, soon attracted immigrants from all over western Europe. Ironically, the freedoms Pennsylvania offered to European immigrants contributed to the deterioration of freedom for others. The colony’s successful efforts to attract settlers would eventually come into conflict with Penn’s benevolent Indian policy. And the opening of Pennsylvania led to an immediate decline in the number of indentured servants choosing to sail for Virginia and Maryland, a development that did much to shift those colonies toward reliance on slave labor. Oil on canvas. 64.1 x 76.2 cm (25-1/4 x 30".)

Rail Truck, 19th c.

Image ID: 8230

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Transportation, Agriculture, Business 19th century, Class Separation, Early National Period, Emigration and Passage, Environmental History, Expansion, Frontier, Future Progress, Immigration, Industrial Revolution, Invention, Labor, Luxury, Middle-Class Culture, National Events, Nationhood, Nature and Civilization, Railroad and steamboat, Railroads, Technology, The West, Trade, Whites, non planters ante bellum

Region(s): United States

CA Standard(s): 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast. , 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.12 - The transformation of the American economy and the changing social and political conditions…in response to the Industrial Revolution, 8.8 - The divergent paths of the American people in the West from 1800 to the mid-1800s

National Standard(s): Expansion and Reform (1801-1861), Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877) , The Development of the Industrial United States (1870-1900)

Card Text: Rail trucks are swiveling carriages with four or six wheels beneath the front part of a locomotive or one end of a railway car. They allow rail cars to turn tight curves. Travel in early railroad carriages was uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous. The first railroad passenger cars were built by carriage makers, so they looked like coaches mounted on four-wheeled railroad wagons. Passengers rode both inside the coach and on benches mounted on its top. Judge J.L. Gillis recalled his first railcar journey from Albany to Schenectady, NY, in 1831: "The trucks were coupled together with chains or chain-links, leaving from two to three feet slack, and when the locomotive started it took up the slack by jerks, with sufficient force to jerk the passengers, who sat on seats across the top of the coaches, out from under their hats, and in stopping they came together with such force as to send them flying from their seats....There being no smoke or spark-catcher to the chimney or smoke-stack, a volume of black smoke, strongly impregnated with sparks, coals, and cinders, came pouring back the whole length of the train. Each of the outside passengers who had an umbrella raised it as a protection against the smoke and fire. They were found to be but a momentary protection...all having their covers burnt off from the frames... [and] the deck-passengers, each whipping his neighbor to put out the fire." By 1834, mounted carriages were replaced by rectangular rail cars with wooden benches and a center aisle in a style recognizable today. The first cars were necessarily short to enable them to navigate tight curves. Later the cars were mounted on four-wheeled swiveling trucks, allowing the longer cars to easily navigate curves. Early cars were called day coaches, since most trips were short and occurred during the day. A short journey was preferred because travel was extremely uncomfortable. Originally, cars were not segregated by social class; people of all walks of life rode together. By the 1840s, however, passage was sold on second-class cars and, in some cases, third-class or "emigrant" cars that carried settlers west. Passengers on the emigrant cars endured miserable conditions, often having to sit on a wooden bench along the wall. Some emigrant cars were freight cars fitted temporarily with wooden seats or benches for the trip to the Midwest and then filled with grain for the trip back East. With westward movement, trains covered longer distances and passengers demanded increased amenities. As rail travel extended into the Midwest, a passenger from the East might sit on a hard, wooden seat for 48 hours to reach Chicago. Some effort was made to make the coaches more comfortable by upholstering the seats, but low ceilings, lack of heating and ventilation, and rudimentary suspension systems still made for an awful ride. As ridership and competition between railroads flourished, passengers reaped the rewards of improved car design. Though sleeping cars were introduced early (Richard Imlay built the first sleeper in 1837 for the Cumberland Valley Railroad), they were often just folded-down wooden seat backs or wooden shelves hanging from the car ceiling. The passenger felt each jolt and sway. In the early years, with most trains operating only in daylight on fairly short runs, there was little demand for sleeping cars. By the 1850s, with travel distances lengthening, demand increased. When Pullman sleeping cars were introduced in the 1860s, long-distance travel became quite comfortable. Though George Pullman did not invent the sleeping car, his name became synonymous with it. His first cars were fairly primitive but over time he raised ceilings, improved ventilation, increased comfort, and introduced a dedicated car attendant to make the beds and assist the travelers. By the 1860s and '70s, Pullman cars were elegant and even lavish, further distinguishing first class travel. Pullman eventually monopolized the sleeping car industry. Food amenities were difficult to come by in the early years of train travel. Vendors sold sandwiches at some stations. On the longer routes, some stations had restaurants, but stops were short, with few tables, and passengers had to make a mad dash in hopes of being served in time. Many passengers supplied their own food for the journey. Dining cars came into fashion in the late 1860s but were expensive to build and operate. Because the high cost made them impractical, they were first used only in the Midwest to accommodate passengers travelling long distances. By the 1880s, dining cars were more common and more elegant. They were included on long-distance trains into the 20th century, but they almost always lost money and were maintained only as a convenience for the passengers. Other specialty cars sprang up along the way. Originally, baggage travelled in the same car with the passenger, though dedicated cars soon followed. Trains carried mail as early as 1831, and by the early 1860s, mail was sorted and bundled in cars designed for the purpose and delivered along the rail line. Various "mailbag catchers" were designed to exchange mailbags on the fly as trains passed through towns. Refrigerator cars came into use in the 1860s, mainly to cool shipments by packing ice into insulated walls at the ends or in the middle of the cars. Livestock cars were designed to carry animals to market. As a demand of labor, the caboose evolved from use as a storage car to an office and living quarters for the conductor and crew.

Coffin in Jail Cell, Williamsburg, VA, 1704

Image ID: 8343

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Antebellum Reform, 18th Century Interiors, Architecture, British Empire, Class and Status, Colonial America, Early cities, Early National Period, Early Virginia, Eighteenth Century, Environmental History, Institutions and social disorder, Moral lessons, National Politics, Nineteenth Century Interiors, Politics & Government, Pre-Industrial Work - Misc., Prejudice and Discrimination, Social disorder and order to 1865, Southern Society, Temp to 1870's, Urban poverty, Victorian Culture, Williamsburg, Women's misc., Working Class Culture

Region(s): United States

CA Standard(s): 5.4 - Political, religious, social, and economic institutions that evolved in the colonial era. , 5.5 - The causes of the American Revolution, 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s...

National Standard(s): Colonization and Settlement (1585-1763), Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)

Card Text: Coffin in jail cell, Williamsburg, VA. Thieves, runaway enslaved workers, murderers, cutthroats, pirates, debtors, political prisoners, and the criminally insane once paced the smelly, filthy cells of the 1704 Public Gaol as they waited to be tried - and perhaps hanged. In this two-story brick prison, the incarcerated didn’t just wake up to austere and depressing cells. With fellow occupants, including bloodthirsty pirates and traitors, they were also often greeted by belligerent bunkmates itching for conflict. The prisoners had only piles of straw for beds. Rodents, cockroaches, and lice infested the cells, the food was horrible, and typhus was common. The windows had no glass so the prisoners, chained in heavy leg irons and handcuffs, were at risk from the weather. The poor living conditions and overcrowding caused more inmates to die of starvation and disease than hanging. When Williamsburg became the capital of the Colony of Virginia in 1699, city officials realized that with economic growth came crime, and with heightened political activity, corruption. They therefore hired the best building contractor in the state, Henry Cary, to construct “a strong sweet prison” in 1701. Initial specifications for the gaol kept it small and simple because it was not intended to house murderers, thieves, and other dangerous miscreants. At first the Public Gaol had only three rooms: two for inmates and one for the gaoler. But officials soon realized that the city’s population of wrongdoers was larger than they’d estimated; a 30- x 20-foot building simply could not house all the enslaved runaways, thieves, Tories, and spies sentenced to prison. An exercise yard was therefore added in 1703, a “Debtor’s Prison” in 1711, and a separate brick dwelling for the gaoler in 1722. Unfortunately, despite all these additions, the Public Gaol failed to live up to its “strong and sweet” expectations. It was an inhumane environment. The food was beyond terrible (soggy peas and overly salted beef, for instance); the cells were freezing (many inmates shivered to death); and the cleaning staff left much to be desired (“Gaol fever,” or typhus, plagued prisoners and jailers alike). Incarceration in such an inhumane place is arguably a fitting punishment for evil pirates, especially if they served under the infamous Blackbeard. They were the gaol's most notorious inmates, captured with him in 1718. Before Edward Teach earned that name and a reputation for terrorizing the seas, he was just a humble sailor. Once he joined Benjamin Hornigold’s Flying Gang of pirates, however, he quickly learned their ways and became one of the most feared pirates to roam colonial coastlines. When Blackbeard sailed the "Queen Anne’s Revenge" to the Carolinas, Virginia Governor Alexander Spotswood ordered Lt Robert Maynard to engage and capture Blackbeard and his crew, but the pirate captain was killed during the bloody hand-to-hand conflict that followed. Some say that the governor had a pike fixed with Blackbeard’s skull displayed prominently on the banks of the Hampton River to scare off other freebooters and prevent them from landing. As for Blackbeard’s 15 henchmen who survived the struggle: “Taken to Williamsburg to stand trial, they were held in the public 'gaol' on Nicholson Street just north of the Capitol. At least some faced an admiralty court...one was acquitted, one pardoned and the rest sentenced to hang.” In 1719, the remaining pirates left the Public Gaol and walked down the streets of Williamsburg. They rode on top of their own coffins, a custom of the time, along Gallows Road to be hanged. Their bodies were allowed to rot for months in cages at the city entrance to deter would-be pirates. Another of the gaol’s most famous occupants was Governor Henry Hamilton. Hamilton’s ability to forge friendships with Indian chiefs had earned him two nicknames, which he detested: the “Scalp-taker” and the “Hair-Buyer General.” Rumors had spread of Hamilton's purchasing the scalps of dead settlers from Native American raiding parties, and he was captured by Colonel George Rogers Clark in 1779 to face these allegations. As he awaited trial, the poor governor discovered that even political prominence did not exempt him from brutal treatment at the Public Gaol: He was refused pen and paper, shackled in a tiny cell with six other criminals, and forced to eat disgusting food. Many prisoners, of course, belonged in a hospital, not a jail, but only in 1773 did Williamsburg open its first public hospital. Before the colonists understood the huge difference between lawbreakers and “lunaticks,” the mentally ill were forced to bunk with convicts - to everyone's disadvantage. In Virginia, at least four people were incarcerated in the Public Gaol in the 1760s, and it had a substantial female population. The ghosts of two women are still rumored to lurk in the gaoler’s upstairs quarters. The women’s animated conversations and the thumping of their heavy shoes are yet heard coming from the deserted room. It is as if the evil thoughts of criminals, and the pain of the innocent, have all seeped into the prison’s walls, where they remain to this day. One tourist recalls: “I went in there and I felt really, really, like there was something wrong, like something’s in there. I walked in further and further until I got to the very end where I could barely see light coming out from the door I walked in. Then, I noticed the chains moving and the ball, because it’s the ball and chain that hang on a wall, and I noticed it was moving and I was like, that’s kinda cool."

Hill, The Last Spike, 1881

Image ID: 8238

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Transportation, Railroads, Anti Catholic Nativism, Anti-Immigration, Arts and Architecture, Chinese, Class Structure, Corporate Image, Developing Nations, Environmental History, Exhibition, Expansion, Frontier, Gilded Age, Immigrants, Industrial Revolution, Invention, Irish, Labor, Liquor, Masculinity, Mythology, National Events, Nationhood, Personalization, Prejudice and Discrimination, Propaganda, Prostitution, Reconstruction, Religion, Success 19th century, Symbols of mass society, Taxes, Technology, The West, Upper Class since 1865, US Nationalism, Women's image, Women's work, Working Conditions

Region(s): United States

CA Standard(s): 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast. , 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation, 8.8 - The divergent paths of the American people in the West from 1800 to the mid-1800s , 11.2 - The the relationship among the rise of industrialization, large-scale rural-to-urban migration, and massive immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, 11.4 - The rise of the United States to its role as a world power in the twentieth century

National Standard(s): Expansion and Reform (1801-1861), Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877) , The Development of the Industrial United States (1870-1900)

Card Text: Thomas Hill, "The Last Spike," c. 1881. The completion of the transcontinental railroad. Leland Stanford, the Civil War governor of California and one of the founders of the Central Pacific Railroad, commissioned California painter Thomas Hill to paint a monumental portrait of the ceremony at Promontory Point, Utah. Popular lithographs of this painting gave the event mythological status, mingling fact and fiction. Stanford decided who would be included among the portraits and he included people who were not present at the 1869 ceremony. Meanwhile, the Chinese and Irish workers who laid the last rails to Promontory Point were erased. The painting is an imagined recreation of the ceremony held May 10, 1869 to celebrate the completion of the railroad, when the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroad tracks were joined. Hill began the painting in 1877 at the request of Stanford, who later refused to pay for the commission. Hill's famous painting depicts the driving of the "Last Spike" at Promontory Summit, but is a largely fictional vision. Historians agreed that the most dramatic and most significant single date in the record of the American West was May 10, 1869, when the rails were joined at this desolate spot in the Utah desert about forty miles northwest of Ogden. Here in a single day and hour, the American people achieved a continental dimension, Manifest Destiny was realized, and the Old West reached its apotheosis. The conquest of the American continent by white men was recapitulated in the driving of the spike of California gold in a ceremonial tie of laurel, along with a tie of Nevada silver from the Comstock Lode and another from Arizona of silver, gold, and iron in equal parts. This shining moment of the achievement of empire was also a scene of low comedy and lamentable moral tone. First, the Union Pacific train from the East was delayed by heavy rains and washouts in Weber Canyon and was a day late. The ceremonies were postponed from May 9, but no word of the change in plans reached San Francisco in time, with the result that the entire city closed up shop a day before the event it was celebrating and stayed at a fine pitch of patriotic alcoholism for three whole days. The weather at Promontory was inclement. Low clouds and rain and a chill wind off the Great Salt Lake made for discomfort. Collis Huntington, one of the Central’s “Big Four,” was in New York, while Charlie Crocker and Mark Hopkins, others of the four, had been unable to leave Sacramento and San Francisco, respectively. Brigham Young, president of the Latter-day Saints, sent his excuses and stayed away in a huff because the railroad right-of-way had avoided the Mormon capital at Salt Lake City. William Henry Jackson, greatest of western photographers, got mixed up in his dates and arrived a week after the excitement was over, but his place was taken by Colonel Charles Savage, who immortalized the event on wet plates in his enormous view camera, capturing the scene at a moment when the sun emerged briefly from behind the dull gray clouds. A considerable number of celebrants arrived to maintain the low, joyous moral tone that had characterized the progress of the Union Pacific all the way from Omaha and constituted the “Hell on Wheels” that accompanied the track-laying gangs across Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, and part of Utah. A generous contingent of prostitutes arrived from Corrine, a construction camp a few miles down the track. “They contributed a quota of furbelows,” delicately recorded Edwin Sabin, the Union Pacific’s official historian, but their presence earned hard looks from the Reverend John Todd of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, who had been imported to lend piety to the event. Then, too, the construction workers themselves displayed a lamentable lack of restraint. Bottles passed freely from hand to hand amidst uncouth salutations, to show up prominently in Colonel Savage’s official photograph of the great moment. At the ceremony itself, minor squabbles gathered and multiplied. Everyone had to wait on the Western Union telegrapher, who was testing the circuits that would instantly convey to Washington, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and other great eastern cities the news that the spike had been driven. When the gold spike itself was inserted into the hole prepared for it, President Leland Stanford of the Central Pacific took a mighty swipe at it with the official silver spike maul and missed by a generous margin. There was rude laughter among the numerous experts present. Vice President Thomas C. Durant likewise missed. A professional, General Jack Casement, head of U.P. construction, finally smote the spike home amidst ironical cheers from the Paddies. Col. Savage's photograph of the event was not inspiring enough for the railroad executives. When his historic wet plate was developed, it was unsatisfactory to Stanford; it was vulgar in its general tone, uncouth, and, for a perpetual candidate for public honors, a bit boozy. Three champagne bottles showed in the center of the picture, and the presence of others was strongly suggested. Stanford himself didn’t show up in the group and neither did the imported man of God. From Stanford’s viewpoint it was all most unfortunate. Stanford therefore commissioned Thomas Hill, a portrait painter, to clean up the history a little, and Hill included the likenesses of 70 upright citizens. It was also one of the most monumental historical fakes. The official painting is full of dignity and decorum lamentably absent in the actual photograph. No ladies from Corrine appeared in the finished masterpiece. There were no bottles. A look of appropriate solemnity was on every bearded face. Included were at least four persons who hadn’t actually been present—Stanford’s three associates, Crocker, Hopkins, and Huntington, and Theodore Judah, original engineer of the Central Pacific, who had been dead for years. Conspicuous in the foreground were the Reverend Todd and, of course, the well-composed features of Leland Stanford. Even though Hill’s painting had been tailored to his explicit directions, when he saw the finished work, Stanford wanted no part of it any more than he had of Colonel Savage’s photograph. Several people who he felt might be useful to him politically did not appear prominently. The Chinese and Irish builders of the railroad were entirely omitted. The painting hangs today in the California capitol in Sacramento, a bogus re-creation of a dramatic and perhaps hilarious moment in American history, an object for mirth, pity, or cynicism.

Conestoga Wagon, 1820-40

Image ID: 8210

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Transportation, 18th Century Furniture, Colonial America, Developing Nations, Early National Period, Emigration and Passage, Environmental History, Expansion, Founding Myths, Frontier, Immigrants, Individualism, Technology, Invention, Labor, Market Economy, Middle-Class Culture, Nineteenth Century Furniture, Stores, Symbols, The West, Trade

Region(s): United States

CA Standard(s): 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast. , 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation

National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)

Card Text: Conestoga wagon. Pennsylvania Germans near the Conestoga River built the first Conestoga wagons around 1750 to haul freight. By the 1810s, improved roads to Pittsburgh and Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia) stimulated trade between Philadelphia, Baltimore, and farms near the Ohio River. Wagoners driving horse-drawn Conestoga wagons carried supplies and finished goods westward on three- to four-week journeys and returned with flour, whiskey, tobacco, and other products. The Conestoga wagon’s curved shape shifted cargo toward the center and prevented goods from sliding on mountain slopes. The Conestoga wagons' peak years of use were 1820 to 1840. Railroads replaced them by the 1850s, and by the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 they were no longer built. The prairie schooner, a lightweight, flat-bottomed variant of the Conestoga, carried pioneer settlers from Missouri to the west coast. The origins of this distinctive horse-drawn freight wagon can be traced to the Conestoga River region of Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County in the mid- to late-18th century. Conestoga wagons, with their distinctive curved floors and canvas covers arched over wooden hoops, became a common sight over the next century as they carried farm products to cities and other goods from cities to rural communities, particularly in Pennsylvania and the nearby states of Maryland, Ohio and Virginia, and elsewhere in the US and Canada. The term "Conestoga wagon" is incorrect as a synonym for "covered wagon." It refers only to the heavy, broad-wheeled covered wagon first built in the Conestoga River region in the mid-18th century. The Conestoga River is a tributary of the Susquehanna River that flows through the center of Lancaster County. The word “Conestoga” probably derives from the Iroquois language, and sometimes means “people of the cabin pole.” Before the arrival of European settlers in the region, the Conestoga people–a Native American tribe also known as the Susquehanna or Susquehannock–lived along the Susquehanna River. Around 1700, the Conestoga people began trading with the English colony that would become Pennsylvania, founded by the Quaker leader William Penn. As the fur trade moved west of the region, the Conestoga people's influence declined and many moved west as well. In late 1763, in retaliation for what they deemed Native American aggression on the western frontier during Pontiac’s Rebellion, a vigilante group called the Paxton Boys brutally massacred most of the remaining Conestogas. By that time, skilled craftsmen in the Susquehanna Valley, believed to be Mennonite German settlers, had begun to build the distinctive covered wagons that would bear the Conestoga name. Designed for hauling heavy loads over rough roads, these covered wagons could carry as much as six tons of freight. Each one was handcrafted from oak and poplar wood. The floor of the Conestoga wagon curved upwards at each end, shifting cargo to the center to prevent it from moving or falling out when in motion. Gates at the end were held in place by a chain and could be dropped for loading and unloading. The white canvas cover of the Conestoga wagon protected the freight from inclement weather. It was stretched taut over a series of wooden hoops that arched over the wagon bed. The fabric could be soaked in linseed oil to make it waterproof. Each Conestoga wagon was pulled by four to six horses, ideally of a type bred in the region and known as Conestoga horses. These docile, strong horses could cover 12 to 14 miles a day. The wagon driver would not usually ride inside the vehicle but walk alongside, ride one of the rear horses, or perch on the "lazy board," a piece of wood pulled out from beneath the wagon bed in front of one of the rear wheels. Conestoga wagons did not play a role in the great westward migration to Oregon and California during the 19th century. They were too heavy to be pulled such long distances, and west-bound travelers turned instead to the sturdy covered wagons known as prairie schooners or “Western wagons.” These had flat bodies and lower sides than the Conestoga; their white canvas covers made the wagons look from the distance like sailing ships, earning them the “schooner” name.

View of Lowell, Massachusetts, 1834

Image ID: 8324

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Lowell, Architecture, Business 19th century, Civil Rights, Class Structure, Early mills and factories, Early National Period, Emerging industrial city, Environmental History, Family to 1920, Gender-Bending, Immigrants, Industrial Revolution, Invention, Irish, Labor, Labor Organizations and Leaders, Moral lessons, National Events, Pullman and Model Towns, Strikes and Violence, Success 19th century, Sweatshops, Technology, Town and city planning, Urbanization, Women in labor movement, Women's work, Work and Housing, Working Conditions

Region(s): United States

CA Standard(s): 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast. , 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation

National Standard(s): Expansion and Reform (1801-1861), Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877)

Card Text: View of Lowell, MA, 1834. Young unmarried women worked the early mills of New England towns such as Winooski, Vermont, and Lowell, Massachusetts, as the primary labor force, chosen because they were available, knowledgeable in textile construction and, most importantly to their employers, cheap. The Industrial Revolution came to New England in the early 1800s. Previously, most manufacturing was done by artisans and craftsmen in their workshops for individual customers. Textiles were routinely made by farm wives and daughters in their homes. The early mills that did line the Winooski River, for example, sawed lumber and ground grain into flour, but these were not factories. That pattern of small-scale production shifted dramatically as the mechanization of textile production developed and changed everything. Very quickly, the original craftsmens' and artisans’ businesses were displaced by factories, which brought new modes of work: hourly wages paid for factory labor. While the most famous of these new industrial complexes in New England was Lowell, Massachusetts, many mill towns including Winooski followed the model established by the Boston Associates who created Lowell. The concept established by these new industrial entrepreneurs was twofold: to create efficiency and profit in manufacturing and to avoid the wretched conditions of factories as they existed in England. Starting in the first two decades of the 19th century, factory employers began to recruit and employ young women aged 15 to 30 to run their machines. Availability was an important factor; in New England there was a surplus of young unmarried women willing to take up the work. Despite the fact that they were not paid as much as men would have been, the wages these new employers offered were attractive and the factory towns offered a freedom and excitement that drew young women from rural farms to the developing urban centers. Why did parents allow their daughters to go, sometimes many miles away, to take up these jobs? For some parents, it was a way to find relief from the cost of feeding large families. Many young women sent part of their wages home to help their family members left at home. For other parents, the benefits of education, cultural improvement, and economic mobility for their daughters was enticing. Moreover, parents were assured by mill owners that their daughters would be cared for, housed, and supervised appropriately. Employers required that mill girls be lodged in company-owned and -operated boarding houses, supervised throughout the day by their employers and then at night by the “housemothers” who would make sure they went to work, attended church services, and engaged in worthy reading and intellectual pursuits. “The most efficient guards were adopted in establishing boardinghouses, at the cost of the Company, under the charge of respectable women,” noted a Massachusetts mill owner. “Under these circumstances, the daughters of respectable farmers were readily induced to come to these mills for a temporary period.” The idea was that the girls would work in the mills until they married, and the money they earned would presumably expand their “going to housekeeping” goods, thereby improving their married lives. In this era of industrial paternalism, the supervised boardinghouses served to ease parents’ minds and guide the new “factory operatives” in the shift from rural, seasonal work habits to industrial timeclocks. For a while, the Lowell model worked well. Young women streamed into factory towns and took up the work. Boardinghouses provided safe and affordable accommodations a short walk from the factories. The mill whistles marked the times for getting out of bed, being at the work station, and going home to rest. The work week was five and a half days long, with 12- to 14-hour work days. The cloth produced by these young women began to rival that of England’s mills in quality as well as in quantity, and by mid-century, American manufacturers began to challenge English dominance in textile production. The wealth gained from the sales of their manufactured cloth encouraged mill owners to experiment with methods to improve production while cutting costs. They tinkered with the speed of machines and began to assign more machines to individual operators. It was these “speed-ups” and “stretch-outs” that began to spark a response the mill owners had not anticipated: a mounting resistance to their demands. When the glutted market caused a retrenchment in the sales of cloth, employers cut wages, further galvanizing female operatives to protest their working conditions. In anger, the factory owners tried to throw out the most outspoken of these protestors. Women who protested were labeled “unfeminine” and “ungrateful” for the benefits that the factory work had given them. Together at night in their boarding houses, mill girls discussed their unfair treatment and undeserved criticism. Some argued for more overt action. One of the mill girls' first major strikes took place in Lowell in October, 1836. When the mill owners announced a wage cut and a withdrawal of a subsidy for their room and board, the workers decided to strike. Without their primary workers in place, the mills were forced to shut down. The striking workers marched to Chapel Hill and, according to operative Harriet Robinson, “listened to incendiary speeches.” Although the strike failed to force the mill owners to retract their wage cuts, the mill girls were not discouraged and continued their resistance to the exploitation by their bosses. As Yankee mill girls began to make more demands, employers began to look elsewhere for more pliable workers. They found cheaper workers in the waves of Irish and French Canadian immigrants who began to arrive in large numbers between 1840 and 1860. The older model of an industrial utopia receded and the new workers faced even less sympathy from factory managers. Factory conditions deteriorated, wages fluctuated, and the decent boarding houses were now deemed unnecessary as immigrants did not have insistent parents to protect them.

Interior, Private Railroad Car, c. 1890

Image ID: 8245

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Transportation, Arts and Architecture, Business 19th century, Business 20th century, Class Separation, Coal, Cooption of styles, Domesticity, Exhibition, Gilded Age, Industrial Revolution, Invention, Luxury, Nature and Civilization, Nineteenth Century Interiors, Popular recreation 1870-1920, Popular recreation since 1920, Pullman and Model Towns, Railroad and steamboat, Railroads, Recreation - upper class, Symbols, Technology, Twentieth Century Misc., Victorian Culture

Region(s): United States

CA Standard(s): 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast. , 8.12 - The transformation of the American economy and the changing social and political conditions…in response to the Industrial Revolution, 11.2 - The the relationship among the rise of industrialization, large-scale rural-to-urban migration, and massive immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, 11.4 - The rise of the United States to its role as a world power in the twentieth century, 11.5 - Major political, social, economic, technological, and cultural developments of the 1920s.

National Standard(s): The Emergence of Modern America (1890-1930), The Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945), Postwar United States (1945 to early 1970s)

Card Text: Private railroad car with mahogany paneling, built by Wagner Palace Car Co., c. 1890. Early rail travel was uncomfortable. From the 1830s through the '50s, long-distance train travel allowed passengers little sleep if the train didn't stop at a village or city for an overnight accommodation. Webster Wagner (1817-82) was a New York Central Railroad freight agent in Palatine Bridge, NY, who saw the need for better comfort. He came up with the idea of building sleeping cars. With the assistance of other enterprising men, Wagner constructed four such cars at a cost of $3,200 each. Berths were provided for the sleepers, along with a pair of cheap blankets and pillows. Wagner invented and put into operation his first drawing-room or palace car, "the first ever seen in America," in 1867. This car and its comforts of home became so popular with tourists that it made Wagner a fortune. The company became the second largest builder of sleeping cars in the United States. The Wagner Company began as the New York Central Sleeping Car Company, founded in 1858 in New York City by Wagner in cooperation with Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose New York Central used the four original coaches. About 1870 Wagner negotiated a deal with Pullman to use its berths in the Wagner cars, with the understanding that Wagner would limit its operations to the New York Central. But in 1875, Pullman sued, and settled out-of-court. Wagner died in 1882 aboard one of his own sleeping cars in a rear-end collision. The company nevertheless continued doing business, and in 1888 was in court again against Pullman, this time for having allegedly infringed upon Pullman’s vestibule patents. This time Pullman won. The battles between the Pullman and Wagner companies continued until Vanderbilt’s death, when the Wagner directors sold the company to Pullman on January 1, 1900. The Wagner Palace Car Company was one of the largest employers in Buffalo, NY, in 1890, and its works occupied 35.7 acres. In addition to brass finishers, the company employed blacksmiths, car builders, carpenters, carvers, marble finishers, steamfitters and even a storekeeper. Most of these workers lived on the east side of Buffalo, and likely walked, rode a bicycle or took a horse-drawn streetcar to work. The former Wagner Palace Car complex is one of the last Reconstruction-era industrial sites in Buffalo, the construction site of some of the luxurious railcars of the “Golden Age” of American railroading.

Portrait of a Man, c. 1835

Image ID: 8384

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Domesticity, Arts and Architecture, Class and Status, Early National Period, Family to 1920, Jacksonian Era, Luxury, Middle-Class Culture, Naive Art, Nineteenth Century Interiors, Success 19th century, Victorian Culture, Whites, non planters ante bellum

Region(s): United States

CA Standard(s): 8.1 - Major events preceding the founding of the nation and the development of American constitutional democracy, 5.8 - The colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s..., 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation, 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast.

National Standard(s): Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)

Hamilton Co. Mills, Lowell, MA, 1834

Image ID: 8322

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Lowell, Architecture, Business 19th century, Class Structure, Corporate Image, Early mills and factories, Early National Period, Emerging industrial city, Environmental History, Factory as symbol, Family to 1920, Industrial Revolution, Invention, Labor, Market Economy, National Events, Parents, Children, Families, Pullman and Model Towns, Religion, Success 19th century, Sweatshops, Technology, Temp to 1870's, Town and city planning, Trade, Urbanization, Utopias pre 1860, Women in labor movement, Women's work, Work and Housing

Region(s): United States

CA Standard(s): 8.10 - The multiple causes, key events, and complex consequences of the Civil War, 8.4 - The aspirations and ideals of the people of the new nation, 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast. , 11.2 - The the relationship among the rise of industrialization, large-scale rural-to-urban migration, and massive immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe

National Standard(s): Expansion and Reform (1801-1861), The Development of the Industrial United States (1870-1900)

Card Text: Hamilton Co. Mills with bell tower, Lowell, MA, 1834, rebuilt in 1846. The Hamilton was the second manufacturing company founded in Lowell (1825), and it went out of business in 1929. Like the Appleton, many of the buildings in the complex were demolished and rebuilt in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Hamilton Manufacturing Company produced flannels, jeans, ginghams, shirtings, and worsted dress goods. The narrow brick building in front is the Hamilton Counting House, built in 1870 as the office and headquarters for the company. The building had to be built to fit between the canal and the railroad line that once ran right beside this building up and down Jackson Street. The six-story mill across the canal is Mill #6, built in 1881. Hamilton Penstocks funnel water down into the turbine, which turns and spins the driveshaft to operate the gears and machinery in the mill. To power the mills, water was rushed through the canals and into long, wide pipes called penstocks that delivered it to the turbines underneath the mill buildings. The large steel gate controlled the flow of water into the penstock. It was raised or lowered depending on the amount of power needed from the turbines. Below the gate, a series of slats alternating with openings formed the trash rack, meant to keep debris from entering the penstock and damaging the turbine. These penstocks are still in use today. Though the waterpower is no longer necessary to run textile machines, the turbines still work and are connected to generators that produce electricity that is sold into the power grid. The Hamilton Manufacturing Company boardinghouses once stood on Jackson Street. Hamilton Storehouse, built in 1865, was used as a storehouse for the Hamilton Manufacturing Company. The arched openings allowed supplies and finished goods to be loaded and unloaded from the factory to the trains that ran along the tracks. Mill building #4 (the second building in) is a 48 X 317 brick bearing-wall structure of six stories topped by a flat roof. The first four stories, dating from the 1840s building period, are Greek Revival in style with rock-faced granite sills and lintels. This portion of No.4 is the earliest structure remaining in the Hamilton complex. Mills No.1 (1826), No.2 (1827), No.2 "New Part" (1846), and No.3 (1830) were razed and replaced by Hamilton Mill No. 7 early in the 20th century. The Hamilton Print Works complex (1830s and 1840s) was also demolished, leaving only Mill No.4 to represent the pre-1850 phase of Hamilton's architectural development. Mill building #7 was built between 1911 and 1920. At 135' wide and 653' long, it was one of the largest mill buildings ever built in New England. "Hamilton Company - Factory Rules," from the Handbook to Lowell 1948: "Regulations to be observed by all persons employed in the factories of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company. The overseers are to be always in their rooms at the starting of the mill, and not absent unnecessarily during working hours. They are to see that all those employed in their rooms, are in their places in due season, and keep a correct account of their time and work. They may grant leave of absence to those employed under them, when they have spare hands to supply their places, and not otherwise, except in cases of absolute necessity. "All persons in the employ of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company are to observe the regulations of the room where they are employed. They are not to be absent from their work without the consent of the over-seer, except in cases of sickness, and then they are to send him word of the cause of their absence. They are to board in one of the houses of the company and give information at the counting room, where they board, when they begin, or, whenever they change their boarding place; and are to observe the regulations of their boarding-house. "Those intending to leave the employment of the company are to give at least two weeks' notice thereof to their overseer. "All persons entering into the employment of the company are considered as engaged for twelve months, and those who leave sooner, or do not comply with all these regulations, will not be entitled to a regular discharge. "The company will not employ any one who is habitually absent from public worship on the Sabbath, or known to be guilty of immorality. "A physician will attend once in every month at the counting-room, to vaccinate all who may need it, free of expense. "Any one who shall take from the mills or the yard, any yarn, cloth or other article belonging to the company, will be considered guilty of stealing and be liable to prosecution. "Payment will be made monthly, including board and wages. The accounts will be made up to the last Saturday but one in every month, and paid in the course of the following week. "These regulations are considered part of the contract, with which all persons entering into the employment of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, engage to comply." –John Avery, Agent.

Region

Collection

Topic

California Standard

Sully, Mother and Son, 1840, detail

Trussell Farm, c. 1860

Two Women Weavers, Lowell, MA, 1860

Women Mill Workers, Lowell, MA, c. 1870

Kidder, View of Lowell, 1830

West, The Hope Family of Sydenham, Kent, 1802, detail

Lowell Co. Mills, 1868

Homer, The Dance After the Husking, 1858

Merrimack Mill No. 6, Lowell, MA, 1868

Railroad Suspension Bridge Near Niagara Falls, NY, 1856

Exterior, Private Railroad Car, c. 1890

Quaker Meeting, 18th c.

Rail Truck, 19th c.

Coffin in Jail Cell, Williamsburg, VA, 1704

Hill, The Last Spike, 1881

Conestoga Wagon, 1820-40

View of Lowell, Massachusetts, 1834

Interior, Private Railroad Car, c. 1890

Portrait of a Man, c. 1835

Hamilton Co. Mills, Lowell, MA, 1834

Sully, Mother and Son, 1840, detail

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Domesticity

Region(s):

CA Standard(s): 8.6 - The divergent paths of the American people from 1800 to the mid-1800s...with emphasis on the Northeast.

National Standard(s):

Trussell Farm, c. 1860

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Region(s): United States

National Standard(s): Expansion and Reform (1801-1861), An Age of Revolutions, 1750-1914

Citation: Copyright holder unknown. Mildred Tunis. In Thomas Dublin, "Farm to Factory: Women's Letters, 1830-1860," Columbia University Press, New York, N.Y., ©1993. All rights reserved. Front cover. Sept 30, 2023.

Two Women Weavers, Lowell, MA, 1860

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Region(s): United States

National Standard(s): Expansion and Reform (1801-1861), Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877) , The Development of the Industrial United States (1870-1900)

Women Mill Workers, Lowell, MA, c. 1870

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Region(s): United States

National Standard(s): Expansion and Reform (1801-1861), Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877) , The Development of the Industrial United States (1870-1900)

Kidder, View of Lowell, 1830

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Region(s): United States

National Standard(s): Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)

West, The Hope Family of Sydenham, Kent, 1802, detail

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Region(s): Europe, United States

National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861), An Age of Revolutions, 1750-1914

Lowell Co. Mills, 1868

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Region(s): United States

National Standard(s): Expansion and Reform (1801-1861), Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877)

Homer, The Dance After the Husking, 1858

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Region(s): United States

National Standard(s): Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)

Merrimack Mill No. 6, Lowell, MA, 1868

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Region(s): United States

National Standard(s): Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s) , Expansion and Reform (1801-1861), Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877)

Railroad Suspension Bridge Near Niagara Falls, NY, 1856

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Region(s): Canada, United States

National Standard(s): Expansion and Reform (1801-1861), Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877) , The Development of the Industrial United States (1870-1900)

Citation: Image and text: Copyright Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115-5523. Gift of Maxim Karolik for the M. and M. Karolik Collection of American Paintings, 1815–1865, 1962. Acc. No: 62.259. https://collections.mfa.org/objects/33717. All rights reserved. June 2, 2022.

Exterior, Private Railroad Car, c. 1890

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Region(s): United States

National Standard(s): The Development of the Industrial United States (1870-1900) , The Emergence of Modern America (1890-1930), The Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945), Postwar United States (1945 to early 1970s)

Quaker Meeting, 18th c.

Collection: Karen Halttunen

Topic(s): Nineteenth Century, Antebellum Reform, 17th Century Interiors, 18th Century Interiors, Americanization and Political Activity, Arts and Architecture, British Empire, Civil Rights, Colonial America, Early American Slavery

Region(s):

CA Standard(s): 8.9 - The early and steady attempts to abolish slavery and to realize the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.

National Standard(s):

Rail Truck, 19th c.

Collection: Karen Halttunen