American Textile Museum in Lowell, MA

I visited the Textile Museum (http://www.athm.org/home2.htm several years ago. The tour was mainly about what happened inside the factories. Mainly women were employed, some where only girls. They came from far away places and new housing facilities had to be build to house them. They usually worked until they got married. But what impressed me most was the noise the loom-machines made; we had to use ear plugs to be inside, and I wondered how many of those girls and young women suffered of deafness after working several years in the Lowell factories.

The effect these new factories had in MA changed the way people lived, moving from their home cities to the ‘new city’ of Lowell. It altered the labor composition of the time, having girls and young women working outside the home. The health of the people who worked inside the factories was also affected. The ecology of the river was completely altered by creating dams and changing the level of the water. Even the economy of the towns near the river, from New Hampshire to Massachusetts, had to change around the will of the factory owners.

The changes brought by the new technologies impacted the society as a whole. Was this good or bad? It all depends on the way you look at it!