Article • Lyddie - Books to Parks

Lyddie: Chapter 14 - Ills and Petitions

Lowell Hospital from 1850 Map — Mill workers who were sick or hurt went to the Corporation hospital.
Drawing of Lowell Hospital from the 1850 Plan of the City of Lowell, Massachusetts.
Sidney & Neff. "Plan of the city of Lowell, Massachusetts." Map. Philadelphia: S. Moody, 1850. Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center, https://collections.leventhalmap.org/search/commonwealth:wd3761962

Lyddie soon feels better and returns to work, although she isn’t fully healed. She is determined not to let anything stop her from paying her family's debt. One evening, she notices that Betsy has developed the wracking cough that comes from working in the mills. Amelia encourages Betsy to see a doctor and says that she is planning to leave the mills. Betsy begs her not to go, but when Amelia leaves to visit her family in January, she doesn’t return.

A new girl, an Irish immigrant named Brigid, arrives in the weaving room, and Lyddie is asked to teach her how to work the machines. Brigid dresses and speaks differently from the New England girls, and she lives in a neighborhood called The Acre. Lyddie is prejudiced against the immigrant, who she describes as an “Irish papist.” She complains that Brigid is afraid of the machines, unable to handle the simplest of tasks, and most importantly, slows Lyddie down.

Talk of the ten-hour petition resurfaces and Betsy signs. Her cough doesn’t get better. She transfers to a less-demanding job in the mill but she soon stops working altogether. Mrs. Bedlow sends her to the hospital where she stays until her family comes to bring her back to Maine. Betsy promises she’ll be back, but Lyddie knows Betsy will never work in the mills again. Lyddie thinks about signing the petition, not for herself, but for girls like Betsy.

One day, Lyddie finds Luke Stevens waiting for her at lunchtime. He brings her a small package, tells her that Charlie is fine, and leaves for Boston. When Lyddie opens the package, she finds a letter from Ezekial Freeman telling her that he made it to Montreal, and now has his family with him. He includes a bank note for fifty dollars. The next day Lyddie deposits the money in the bank. She sends another letter to her mother to ask how much the family’s debts are. She is hopeful that she finally has enough saved.

Fact Check: Lung Disease

Did many mill workers develop lung diseases?

What do we know?

During the cloth-making process, little bits of dust or lint would break free from the cotton and pollute the air. Workers breathed in the cotton particles as they labored in closed factory rooms. Gradual cotton buildup in their lungs led to devastating problems for some workers. The “cotton cough,” or brown-lung disease, was incurable. It was not until the 1930s that scientists began to research the disease. Their work added the weight of scientific understanding to workers’ calls for protection from what we now understand to be the health hazards of cloth production.

What is the evidence?

Primary Source:

“New streets were opened, houses and stores were put up, churches were erected, canals were dug, manufacturing operations were extended, and within the ten years (1831-1841) the population of the town was multiplied six-fold. The increase was without parallel in any place, in any country…”

Miles, Henry Adophus, Lowell As It Was, and As It Is. Carlisle, MA: Applewood Books, Originally Published in 1845.

Primary Source:

“…You surely cannot blame me for leaving the factory so long as I realized that it was killing me to work in it. I went to the factory because I expected to earn more than I can at housework. To be sure I might if I had my health. Could you have seen me at the time or a week before I came away you would advised me as many others did to leave immediately. I realize that if I lose my health which is all I possess on earth or have any reason to expect to possess that I shall be in a sad condition.”

Rice, Sally. “Dear Father.” September 14, 1845. Vermont Historical Society Hazelton Rice Papers, available from Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell Libraries

Secondary Source:

“Byssinosis—or ‘brown lung,’…is a disease of cotton mill workers. It is caused by the inhalation of cotton dust. The symptoms are chest tightness, shortness of breath, coughing and wheezing…
[Ultimately] these symptoms do not abate [lessen] even when the worker is no longer exposed to cotton dust; in retirement, the condition of the worker only continues to worsen.”

Levenstein, Charles, Gregory F. DeLaurier and Mary Lee Dunn, The Cotton Dust Papers. Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing, 2002.

Secondary Source:

“However, because there was no defined, named disease attributable to cotton-dust inhalation and because the physical symptoms were similar to those of the prevalent respiratory diseases of the time—bronchitis, pneumonia, and tuberculosis—physicians, workers, and social reformers could only allude to causation. They could not prove it. … The multiple scientific, medical, political, and social understandings of dust and disease causation, along with the similar symptoms of several respiratory illnesses, contributed to a delay in both the identification of, and workers’ knowledge about, the industrial hazard.”

Greenlees, Janet. When the Air Became Important: A Social History of the New England and Lancashire Textile Industries. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2019.

See it yourself

History of the Acre
https://www.nps.gov/lowe/learn/historyculture/the-acre.htm

Learn about 19th century diseases at the Public Health Museum in Tewksbury, Massachusetts

https://www.publichealthmuseum.org/

Writing Prompts

Opinion

Lyddie is frustrated that she has to teach Brigid how to operate a loom, forgetting that just a few months before someone else took the time to teach her the job. Compare and contrast Diana’s style of teaching a new employee and Lyddie’s style. Which of the two would you rather learn from and why? Use concrete examples and sensory details from the text.

Informative/explanatory

Read the Voices from the Field to gather information about Irish immigration to Lowell. Write a paragraph explaining why Irish people are moving to Lowell and what their lives are like once they arrive. Include information and examples related to the topic.