Part of a series of articles titled Lyddie - Books to Parks.
Article • Lyddie - Books to Parks
Lyddie: Chapter 03 - Cutler's Tavern
“Women 1848, Plate 031.” Image. Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1848. https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15324coll12/id/4016/
When she arrives at the tavern, Lyddie stands outside and thinks about the direction her life has taken. Her thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of a stagecoach. Passengers, including a well-dressed white man and woman, exit the coach. Their clothing is expensive and Lyddie assumes that they come from wealthy families.
The owner of the tavern, Mistress Cutler, sees Lyddie standing idly by, scolds her and sends her inside to the kitchen. Lyddie meets the cook, Triphena, who is busy preparing a meal for the guests. Lyddie is told to sit on a stool in the corner and she takes the opportunity to look around the room. The kitchen is bigger than her entire house, with a large cooking fireplace in the middle of the room. Though the staff are busy going about their work, Lyddie decides she is determined to work hard and earn her keep
Lyddie is ashamed of her poor first impression and her worn homespun dress. Mistress Cutler supplies her with a new dress and new boots, but Lyddie is not treated fairly despite her best efforts. As summer passes, Lyddie gets used to her new life. In September, Lyddie sees the same well-dressed woman from her first day at the tavern. The woman tells Lyddie of the good pay she receives working at a mill in Lowell, Massachusetts. Lyddie does not believe her at first—no one could earn two dollars in just a week’s time! Later, Lyddie wonders if the woman is right: might there be a better life for her?
Fact Check: Taverns in New England
Would mill workers travel by stagecoach to taverns in the mid-1800s? What role did taverns play both in their communities and beyond?
What do we know?
Stagecoaches had long served as the primary way that people traveled long distances. Taverns acted as waystations, and were frequently found on stagecoach routes throughout New England and around the country. Travelers would arrive by stage and pay the tavern keepers for meals and a place to sleep, before departing again the next morning. Taverns also served as places for local social gatherings and sharing news. Eventually, railroad travel replaced stagecoaches, which were pulled by draft animals.
What is the evidence?
SecondarySource:
“The [center] of stagecoach travel in each [New England] town was the local tavern, usually run by a man of some standing in the community. Tavern stops were typically 12 to 18 miles apart… where passengers were to stop for food or to spend the night. Drivers often announced the arrival of their coach by blowing on an English-style trumpet and usually ate their meals with passengers…. “
DeLuca, Richard. “Stagecoach Sustained Commerce and Communication in 1800s.” Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project - Stories about the people, traditions, innovations, and events that make up Connecticut’s rich history., May 3, 2021. https://connecticuthistory.org/stagecoach-travel-sustained-commerce-and-communication-in-1800s/.
Fact Check: Mill workers in fancy clothes
When Lyddie sees the well-dressed woman on her first day at the tavern she assumes she came from a wealthy family, and is later surprised to find she works in the mills of Lowell.
Did mill workers make enough money to buy fancy clothes?
What do we know?
What we know: Mill workers often bought new clothes when coming to Lowell. They would exchange homespun clothing for factory-made outfits. Many could not afford this right away and had to earn a paycheck or two before buying clothes that fit their new city lifestyle. The ready-made clothing was expensive given the fact that they didn’t make a lot of money. Most working women would never accumulate large fortunes or valuable possessions, so clothing was one way for them to show off their growing independence. What would have been seen as fancy clothing in a rural town became everyday wear for mill workers.
What is the evidence?
Primary Source:
In less than a month, this mill girl bought new mi[t]ts for her hands, a calico dress, and a new shawl.
July 1843
10 - Persis and I went a shopping –
bought mits & calico dress….August 1843
7 - Pamela Kent and I went out. Bought
Highland Shawl…
Blewett, Mary ed. Caught Between Two Worlds: The Diary of a Lowell Mill Girl, Susan Brown of Epsom, New Hampshire, Lowell: Lowell Museum, 1984. Based on Susan Brown’s diary, written when she was a Lowell mill worker, 1843.
Primary Source:
“There were ten of us girl friends…who one summer had each a purple satin cape for streetwear. These were trimmed with black lace; and this, with a small-figured Merrimack print (or calico), constituted our walking costume…I am sure that it never occurred to one of us that we were not as well-dressed as any lady we met.”
Letter from Elizabeth Turner Sawyer to her friend Harriet Hanson Robinson
Robinson, Harriet Hanson, Loom & Spindle, Kailua: Press Pacifica, 1898.
Secondary Source:
“In 1846, the militant [radical] newspaper the Voice of Industry accused New England mill recruiters of luring young women with promises that they would ‘dress in silks and spend half their time in reading.’ During the previous two centuries, fashionable dress and literary pursuits … had been central to … the changing aspirations [goals] of … women of both Europe and North America. Now…factory workers, women who lived in crowded boardinghouses, labored long hours over dangerous and deafening machines, … paid for their new acquisitions and accomplishments with their own hard-earned wages … .”
Cook, Sylvia Jenkins. “‘Oh Dear! How the Factory Girls Do Rig Up!’: Lowell’s Self-Fashioning Workingwomen.” The New England Quarterly 83, no. 2 (2010): 219–49.
Voices from the Field
"Taverns in the 1840s" by Dr. Marla Miller, Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts and Distinguished Professor of History at UMass Amherst and author of Entangled Lives: Labor, Livelihood, and Landscapes of Change in Rural Massachusetts.
Voices from the Field
"Homespun Dress" by Dr. Kassie Baron, an independent scholar specializing in nineteenth century American literature with particular interest in the literary representations of working-class women’s bodies and the ideologies projected onto them by writers during the first US industrial revolution.
Photos & Multimedia
Association for Rollinsford Culture and History
Video:
Home Textile Production 1830s. Life on a New England Farm with an interpreter from Old Sturbridge Village.
See it yourself
Learn about life in a Vermont village at the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne Vermont
https://shelburnemuseum.org
Writing Prompts
Opinion
The “pink silk lady” tells Lyddie about life and work in the mills of Lowell. From her point of view, why is working in Lowell’s mills so much better than working in a tavern? Provide reasons that are supported by facts and details.
Informative/explanatory
Describe what it was like for Lyddie to work for the Culters at the tavern? Include concrete details.
Explain how Lyddie and Charlie made it through the winter without their mother. Include concrete details.
Narrative
How would you feel if you were Lyddie and had to go from being your own boss, as she puts it “being queen of the cabin,” to working for someone else who was “calling the tune”? Use concrete words and sensory details to convey your thoughts precisely.
Reading
According to the Hutchinson Family Journal from 1842, a new dress, depending on how fancy, could cost anywhere between $2.75 and $6.00. A new pair of shoes cost about a dollar, and a new bonnet and shawl could cost over $7.00. After paying $1.25 a week for their room and board at the boardinghouse, the average take-home pay of women workers in 1845 was $1.75 per week. How many weeks would a new mill worker have to work before she could afford a new outfit?
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Last updated: December 7, 2024