"View of Boott Cotton Mills at Lowell, Massachusetts," Gleason's Pictorial, 1852. Color postcard of wood engraving.
The Pattern: From Lowell to Today
Immigrant Waves - Same System, Different Faces
Yankee mill girls were replaced by successive waves of immigrants, each more desperate, each paid less. The system reformed against every new workforce while appearing to offer opportunity.
Conditions in the mill, unchanged from the 1840s
"I work in the mill for 27 years and in the first job 20 years... dust and fur you inhale all that dust in your lungs so many years thank God I’m still alive."
—Former Lowell Mill Operative, Last generation of women who worked in the Lowell textile mills. Interview. And That's How We Did in the Mill: Women in the Lowell Textile Mills, directed by Martha Norkunas
"It was so noisy in there, very noisy. And I'd come home and my mother and father said how did you like work well I just sat there and didn't you what I didn't hear them I didn't hear one word my mother was saying to me and my father and my father says tell me he said what's the matter with you I'm talking to you oh I says what did you say how did you like your work and he really screamed because I couldn't hear him that's how bad it was"
—Former Lowell Mill Operative, Last generation of women who worked in the Lowell textile mills. Interview. And That's How We Did in the Mill: Women in the Lowell Textile Mills, directed by Martha Norkunas
"Cotton that’s all you can see we go outside with a cotton on our heads flying all over dust and everything"
—Former Lowell Mill Operative, Last generation of women who worked in the Lowell textile mills. Interview. And That's How We Did in the Mill: Women in the Lowell Textile Mills, directed by Martha Norkunas
"When you first went in and seen all these machines together you couldn’t hear anything and you had to make your mind that either you’re going to work there or you weren’t going to work there... they gave you a job they were doing you an honor you get a job and this is it."
—Former Lowell Mill Operative, Last generation of women who worked in the Lowell textile mills. Interview. And That's How We Did in the Mill: Women in the Lowell Textile Mills, directed by Martha Norkunas
Wage Insecurities
"Well, sometimes we work a year let’s say now one year we work full the next year they start slack... sometimes you work two days a week sometimes you work 3 days a week and they just to keep you there so you want to go to some other place we try anyway but every place was like that slack all over."
—Former Lowell Mill Operative, Last generation of women who worked in the Lowell textile mills. Interview. And That's How We Did in the Mill: Women in the Lowell Textile Mills, directed by Martha Norkunas
"Well, when you took the job, they didn’t tell you it was going to be steady."
—Former Lowell Mill Operative, Last generation of women who worked in the Lowell textile mills. Interview. And That's How We Did in the Mill: Women in the Lowell Textile Mills, directed by Martha Norkunas
Moving South, Then Global
The replacement of Yankee women with immigrants was the first instance of a logic the system would repeat whenever organized workers gained enough power to threaten it. The mills moved toward workers who couldn’t organize, and moved again when those workers started to.
The Move South (1920s-1950s)
New England mills began relocating to the Carolinas and Georgia with lower wages, no unions, and workers with no alternative economy.
"“They were paying more money here than they do down south the labor was cheap up there so that’s how they moved out from Lowell into down south."
—Former Lowell Mill Operative, Last generation of women who worked in the Lowell textile mills. Interview. And That's How We Did in the Mill: Women in the Lowell Textile Mills, directed by Martha Norkunas
"When they decided to close down you know go south for cheaper for help... I worked in the Appleton Mill... it went down south. So did the Hamilton. So did most of the mills in Lowell."
—Former Lowell Mill Operative, Last generation of women who worked in the Lowell textile mills. Interview. And That's How We Did in the Mill: Women in the Lowell Textile Mills, directed by Martha Norkunas
In 1929, during the Gastonia Strike in North Carolina, textile workers organized; the National Guard was called in; the strike leader was shot and killed.
Southern workers organized. The mills moved again.
The Move Global (1970s-Present)
American textile employment: 2.5 million in 1970 to under 500,000 by year 2000
Each move follows workers too economically desperate to refuse, with conditions too difficult to organize.
Mexico → China
"A United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) study found the loss of Mexican manufacturing related to China's 2001 entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) includes almost 50 percent of jobs in the yarn-textile-garment chain, furniture and toy production sectors."
— Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, and Labor Council for Latin American Advancement. "Fracaso: NAFTA's Disproportionate Damage to U.S. Latino and Mexican Working People." Public Citizen, 3 Dec. 2018
"Since July 2000, over 500 factories and 90000 apparel jobs have disappeared in Mexico's export processing zones."
— EPI Economist Robert E. Scott. "Can CAFTA Save Textile and Apparel Producers?" Economic Policy Institute, 10 Aug. 2005
"The [yarn-textile-garment] sector shed more than 50% of its jobs during the period 2000-2010 and is in a deep crisis region-wide: nafta incentives have lost their impact, and both Mexico and the United States lost hundreds of thousands of jobs over the decade. The erosion of nafta rules of origin, the signing of other free trade agreements since nafta took effect, and competition with Asia and China took their toll within the nafta region: China’s share of total United States imports expanded from 12% to 42.1% in 2000-2010, while Mexico’s fell from 13.22% to 6.51%."
— Enrique Dussel Peters and Kevin P. Gallagher. "NAFTA's Uninvited Guest: China and the Disintegration of North American Trade." CEPAL Review, no. 110, Aug. 2013.
"The vast majority are only earning the minimum wage, so in order to maintain a basic standard of living and send some money to their family back in their villages, they have no choice but to work long hours"
— Qiang Li. "Rising Costs in China Are Not an Excuse to Exploit Workers." China Labor Watch, 21 June 2013
"There is no freedom of association to form trade unions and non-governmental labour organisations are closely monitored by the Government who carry out regular crackdowns. Multinational corporations and national factory owners take advantage of the anti-union climate, the workers’ lack of awareness of their own rights and the Chinese government’s unwillingness to address the abuse of migrant workers’ rights."
— War on Want. "Sweatshops in China." War on Want, 10 Dec. 2009
China → Bangladesh
Berg, Achim et al. "Bangladesh Ready-Made Garment Landscape," McKinsey & Company, Nov. 2011
"Wages in Coastal China are increasing… As Western RMG buyers search for the ‘next China,’ they are evaluating all options... Bangladesh is clearly the preferred next stop for the sourcing caravan."
— Principal at McKinsey & Company Achim Berg, Knowledge Expert in McKinsey's Apparel, Fashion & Luxury Practice Saskia Hedrich, Consultant at McKinsey & Company Sebastian Kempf, Director at McKinsey & Company Thomas Tochtermann. "Bangladesh Ready-Made Garment Landscape," McKinsey & Company, Nov. 2011
Berg, Achim et al. "Bangladesh Ready-Made Garment Landscape," McKinsey & Company, Nov. 2011
"We are poor. We work to live… We entered the factory because we needed to be paid. But the government should have overseen the construction of Rana Plaza; it was built on marshy land."
— Rojina Akter, "Bangladesh Collapse: The Garment Workers Who Survived." NPR, National Public Radio, 10 July 2013
Bangladesh → Vietnam
"Data from European and US imports indicate that Vietnam likely overtook Bangladesh in 2020."
— Principal at McKinsey & Company Achim Berg, Partner at McKinsey & Company Harsh Chhaparia, Knowledge Expert in McKinsey's Apparel, Fashion & Luxury Practice Saskia Hedrich, Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company Karl-Hendrik Magnus. "What's Next for Bangladesh's Garment Industry, After a Decade of Growth?" McKinsey & Company, 25 Mar. 2021.
Berg, Achim et al. "What's Next for Bangladesh's Garment Industry, After a Decade of Growth?" McKinsey & Company, 25 Mar. 2021.
"At the Hoang Ha garment factory, a sewing machine operator reported being compelled to work “28 days each month for 10 hours each day,” saying, “I’m really tired and need rest because I’m four-month[s] pregnant. But I have no other choice. I was lucky to get this job anyway, or I would be unemployed.”"
— Worker Rights Consortium, "Made in Vietnam: Labor Rights Violations in Vietnam's Export Manufacturing Sector." Worker Rights Consortium, 2013
"We were all so exhausted from the job, but whenever somebody asked for a reduction in overtime they were fired."
— Worker at Doojung Vietnam factory, cited in Nguyen, "Fast Fashion and Workers' Rights Violations in Vietnam." Human Rights Research Center, 18 Sept. 2024
"It’s patently false to claim that Vietnamese workers can organize unions or that their wages are the result of free bargaining between labor and management… Not a single independent union exists in Vietnam and no working legal frameworks exist for unions to be created or for workers to enforce labor rights."
— Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch John Sifton, "Vietnam: False Claims on Labor Rights." Human Rights Watch, 8 May 2024
The mills moved, each time toward workers who couldn’t yet organize, and each time for the same reason.