Continental Mills Spinning Room, photograph by Henri Larocque, Lewiston, Maine, ca. 1875. Courtesy of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission.
Continental Mills Spinning Room, photograph by Henri Larocque, Lewiston, Maine, ca. 1875. Courtesy of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission.
Until the 1850s, most mill workers were young New England women who expected to work a few years before marriage. Although "mill girls" worked long hours, they enjoyed earning cash wages and living in a community of like-minded women. By the 1850s, owners sought to increase profit by lowering wages and introducing new machines that sped production and set a grueling pace for workers. Rather than accept these new working conditions, many mill girls returned home.
The Continental Mill, pictured here, opened in Lewiston in 1866. By this time, French Canadians formed the core of Maine's textile mill workforce. Unlike New England farm girls, the French Canadians permanently moved with their families to mill towns. Immigrants accepted lower wages because they were often escaping harsher conditions in their home country.