Allegheny

On this day in labor history, the year was 1845.

5,000 female workers at the Allegheny Cotton Mill went on strike for a 10-hour workday.

The fast streams around Pittsburgh and Allegheny City were ideal to power cotton mills.

The mills were overheated and filled with dangerous dust.

Many of these women and child workers suffered from work-related lung diseases.

The seven factories of Allegheny City employed about 1,500 young women.

These women earned between $2.50 and $6 a week.

They worked from sunrise to sunset six days a week.

In 1848, a family of four got off a boat from Scotland with no money and nothing to their name, just like my family did years ago.

They settled in Allegheny City, across the river in Pittsburgh.

Their older boy went to work in a cotton mill.

He was 12 years old.