The pull of the mills

Most people know about the Lowell mills. For those who don't know, it was almost forced labor for young to late teen girls to weave, with awful conditions and small pay. But what possible motivations could these girls have had? 

The people who would recruit the girls were very smart. In a way, they would try to appeal more to the girl than the parents. In a video we watched in class about a specific girl's experience, the person would try to convince the parents. They would be told of all the benefits, but the parents were not convinced. The girl then took what she heard and glorified it to her parents. 

The mills were not all bad. It gave some families an income that some needed. It gave experience with the real world to the girls.  The big city seemed interesting to most people, as they worked on farms. But the big thing about it was it was the beginning of girls working. Before this, girls stayed at home, and it was unheard of for them to be working. At the same time, people at the time were really confused, and almost disgusted at the thought of the girls working, as again, it was unheard of. 

However, the good part of the mills stops there. The conditions were awful, leading to many children being mutilated, maimed, and not uncommonly killed by the machines they were working with. Over time, as the demand for cloth dropped, so did wages for the girls. They were getting paid almost nothing, making their roll at the mill almost pointless.