Lyddie: Voices from the Field - Chapter 19 Sarah Bagley

Was Sarah Bagley a real person?

In chapter 9, Diana Goss introduces herself to Lyddie as “a friend of Sarah Bagley’s.” When Lyddie doesn’t recognize the name, Diana continues: “Amelia Sargeant? Mary Emerson? Huldah Stone? No? Well, you’ll hear those names soon enough. Our crime has been to speak out for better working conditions.”

The four women named by the fictional Diana were actual workers in the Lowell mills in the 1840s, and they were active in the era’s labor movement. At a time when many factory workers toiled for upward of twelve hours a day, they called for a ten-hour day. (Later in the nineteenth century, labor activists would advocate for an eight-hour workday. Eight hours—sometimes “9 to 5”—is still a common work schedule today.)

In 1844, women workers in Lowell—including those Diana mentions by name—formed the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association (LFLRA), which allied with men’s and women’s labor organizations from other towns in Massachusetts as part of the New England Workingmen’s Association (NEWA). Huldah Stone and Sarah Bagley wrote extensively for the NEWA’s newspaper, The Voice of Industry. One of their most common arguments was that the ten-hour day was necessary to give workers more time for education and self-improvement outside of working hours.

In 1845 and 1846, the LFLRA and NEWA led a series of petition campaigns demanding that the state legislature prohibit factories from requiring workers to be on the job more than ten hours a day. It is likely one of these petitions that Lyddie hesitates to sign when she begins working at the mill. Following their 1845 petition, Sarah Bagley and five other women factory workers testified before a committee of the state House of Representatives, at a time when it was very unusual for women to speak in public. The next year, the Lowell petition garnered more than four thousand signatures in favor of the ten-hour day! Still the state legislature did not agree to the labor activists’ demand. It was only in 1874 that Massachusetts passed a ten-hour law, and this legislation limited the workday only for women and children working in the textile industry.

Of the four women Diana mentions, Sarah Bagley is the best known to historians. Originally from a farming family in New Hampshire, Bagley started working in Lowell to contribute to her family’s finances. Even as Sarah Bagley played a prominent role in the Lowell labor movement, including serving as president of the LFLRA, she was active in other social and political causes. She was outspoken on behalf of women’s rights and gender equality. She visited prisons and asylums (hospitals) for people with mental illnesses to consider how people living in these places might be treated more humanely. Bagley’s political interests extended well beyond her local community. In 1846, she led dozens of other Lowell women in signing a petition to Congress encouraging the formation of a Congress of Nations (similar to the United Nations that exists today). In so doing, Bagley and her colleagues were engaging in one of the most significant antiwar initiatives of the 1840s.

Despite their long days in the mills, working women in Lowell, like the fictional Lyddie and Diana, engaged with the political and social movements of their day. While they lived at a time when women could not vote or run for office, these women nevertheless made their voices heard by forming societies, testifying before the legislature, publishing their views in newspapers, and petitioning political leaders. These activist working women truly proved themselves to be, as a secretary of the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association put it, “sisters in the cause of human improvement and human rights.”

About the Author

Dr. Margot Minardi is Professor of History and Humanities at Reed College.
She thanks Reed student Jordan Kappler for helping with research on the Lowell mill women.