Episode 31: Brown Lung and Blow Outs: The First Mills and Millworkers in New England

Thank you to our sponsor, Quiltfolk! Visit Quiltfolk.com and use code HandmadeHistory for 20% off your first order. When Francis Cabot Lowell built the first end-to-end cotton mill in Waltham, MA, he needed workers. Instead of hiring children, like many other factory workers (horrifying), he hired women. The farmers' daughters of New England flocked to mill towns and for the first time ever, made their own money. A decade or so later, many of the New England natives worked alongside Irish immigrants--the first immigrant labor force to work in sizeable numbers in the mills. As...