Slater Mill was site of America's first factory strike 200 years ago | Opinion

Scott Molloy is a University of Rhode Island professor emeritus and founder of the R.I. Labor History Society.

On May 25, 1824, two centuries ago, several hundred young women at Slater Mill in Pawtucket marched into American history.

They became the very first females in the new industrial order to protest an abridgement in overall working conditions. These teenagers took matters into their own hands when global competition (from England) and new technology (the power loom) jeopardized job security and work rules at the nation's first textile factory.

The strike, or "turnout" in the language of the day, unleashed a torrent of bitterness against the manufacturing masters who replaced the British elite after the American Revolution. The walkout detonated demonstrations and arson along the Blackstone River that gave its name to an archipelago of cloth mills.

More: Interior secretary visits Old Slater Mill to highlight creation of national historical park

Moses Brown, a Quaker abolitionist, the youngest member of the famous slave trading Brown Brothers (Brown University), sought new revenues. He saw an opportunity from the old Mother Country. He shrewdly hired a skilled  English Immigrant, Samuel Slater, to build and operate a pathbreaking and iconic textile mill in 1790. 

The changeover from slave labor to wage labor took a toll. Owners formulated many industrial practices almost on the run without previous experience to guide them, despite Slater's ingenuity. Hours of operation stretched over 12 hours, gender politics made an early rehearsal as most female weavers learned the trade at home, and inexpensive child employment prevailed. The owners flouted their wealth and rang factory bells like an alarm clock to alert workers to rise and shine, according to industrial historian Gary Kulik. Unlike traditional farm work, which also encompassed never-ending days, factory toil stood repetitive, dangerous and alien.

Establishment owners also practiced an insidious form of control. They hired entire families. If one child got out of line, the whole brood might be fired. Furthermore, any serious infractions might end in corporal punishment; several incidents ended in the death of an adolescent worker while the superintendent skipped town. With the passage of time, communicable diseases like tuberculosis decimated the workplace. The little hands of the children also led to innumerable accidents as they squeezed between machines or straddled a frozen waterwheel to make repairs. Only shorter winter days abbreviated the workday.

More: Stroll through industrial history in Slatersville, America's first planned mill village

Where were the parents in the shadow of the revolutionary upsurge of 1776 in tolerating this undemocratic behavior? Bought off! Farmers at the time still bartered goods and services to make ends meet. Brown and Slater brilliantly paid the kids of these currency-starved tillers in cash, allegedly $2 weekly. Emerging capitalism triumphed, but not without a fight.

When the manufacturers reduced wages by 25% and protracted the work day to 14 hours in 1824, mill "girls" resisted. An eyewitness described "a mob of a very daring aspect, insulting the Managers of Cotton Mills ... pulling and hauling − screaming & shouting."  The weavers stood firm for a week and sparked mass meetings by dissatisfied, skilled male mechanics. City fathers called for vigilantes. Between June 1 and Aug. 25, arsonists burned three mills.

In the immediate aftermath of the strike, these courageous women beat back the worst aspects of the cutbacks. The authorities retaliated with public safety "watches," temperance societies and Sunday schools. Local citizens, however, raised funds for a public clock in the new church steeple to democratize time (no one had watches) and stop the suspected rigging of the bells to add a few unpaid minutes to each workday.

Sadly, the financial Panic of 1837 put a temporary end to the progressive aspects of the strike.

The National Parks Service will commemorate the events on Saturday, May 11, from noon to 4 p.m. at Slater Mill in Pawtucket.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Unlike traditional farm work, which also encompassed never-ending days, factory toil stood repetitive, dangerous and alien.