Subtle Disapprobation of Labor Conditions the Harbinger's

¶ … Subtle Disapprobation of Labor Conditions The Harbinger's magazine article, "Female Workers of Lowell," which was initially published November 14, 1836 by an unidentified author, is one of the earliest surviving accounts of conditions of labor (not associated with institutionalized, chattel slavery) in the post-Industrial era United States of America. This particular excerpt, which details the living and working quarters of an entirely female textile mill presumably in the North Eastern (New England) region of the U.S., is decidedly sympathetic to the harsh existence many young female labors were forced to endure.

However, this sympathy is tempered by the powerful economic impetus of profit, or capital (as it is termed in the magazine article), which was used to justify the development and implementation of just such means of industrialization. A close read of the text illustrates the fact that the author begins the article favoring the institution of such an oppressive labor factory, yet ends his narration with a switch in partisanship in which his or her sympathetic tendencies to the laborers and their rather indecent labor conditions emerge.

There can be little doubt that the author's initial purpose in composing this document was to deliver an unbiased accounting of the textile mills and the stream of revenue they produced which was so valuable to this county's economy in the early part of the 19th century.

The author begins this article in a rather removed, calculating manner which does not consider the humanity of the laborers nor the inhumane treatment in which they largely toiled in, due in no small part to the fact that he or she had yet to witness the latter at this stage of the article.

The author's purpose is distinctly implied in the first sentence of the excerpt, "When capital has got thirteen hours of labor daily out of a being, it can get nothing more." This quotation precedes a comparison between slave labor in the South and paid labor in the North.

Yet it is important to consider the fact that the author is merely considering these two varying means of labor; at this point the textile workers are merely operatives assisting capitalism, which the author is not concerned about in any sort of individual, humane way. After investigating the stifling hot textile factories and the cramped, crowded quarters in which the laborers lived, however, the author shifts his or her purpose to a more humanitarian, sympathetic tone for the laborers and the ghastly conditions in which they endured.

This reversal of perspective (which should not be confused with a reversal of the article's purpose, which always was to investigate the labor conditions of the textile mills in Lowell) occurred as soon as the author entered one of the mills, as the following quotation proves.

"The…looms…struck us on first entering as something frightful and infernal, for it seemed such an atrocious violation of one of the faculties of the human soul, the sense of hearing." The human connotations of the soul and the looms being described as terrible and hellish ("infernal") certainly connote the author's sympathy with the women who labored in these conditions. The author continues the duration of his description of these conditions with similarly sympathetic, humane approach that implies the author's dissatisfaction with such a system.

In regards to the effectiveness of the author in achieving the goal of investigating the textile factories, and even in inducing a perspective of disfavor of these factories despite the means of capital they produce, the author was fairly persuasive.

He or she does so by utilizing sensory imagery -- of dust particles corroding the lungs, of the oppressive heat of the mills, of a young woman composing an epistle on a trunk because there was not room enough for even a table -- that appeals to emotions intrinsic to human nature.

Yet what is most remarkable about this account is that even though the author's perspective and regard for the textile mills industry and its conditions have changed, the removed, non-partisan delivery of his or her prose, although colored with human imagery, has not. The author has passed no judgment upon these conditions, as the neutral tone of the final sentence of the article evidences, yet has distinctly implied a subtle shifting in his or her regard for this industry.

In conclusion, the nuances in the author's tone reveal that he or she has changed his.