The World of Barilla Taylor: Bringing History to Life through Primary Sources

Liza Stearns

Integral to Lowell’s early industrial success was a labor force comprised mostly of young women from rural New England. These women challenged prescribed gender roles, called into question previously held assumptions about women’s role and status in American society, and paved the way for women’s ongoing participation in the paid labor force. Women’s experiences in early Lowell mark a significant turning point in the history of women in America (1).

Hiring women as industrial workers was not new. Men, women and children had worked in English textile mills for years. However, Lowell’s investors believed that U.S. workers would not tolerate the degraded status of their English counterparts. Instead of emulating the English, they hired corporate recruiters to enlist young women from rural New England to work in the mills. They reasoned that women would leave the factories to become wives and mothers after one or two years, thus preventing the establishment of a permanent working class. In addition, women were less expensive and considered more malleable than men. 

In Lowell, women could earn money and take advantage of the city’s cultural offerings. Many women lived in company-owned boardinghouses, which, though crowded, created an atmosphere that allowed women to share experiences and forge bonds of solidarity. Even as factory life offered new opportunities, women’s lives were carefully controlled. The ringing of bells replaced the sun and seasons as signals for daily tasks. Company rules regulated workers’ lives both at work and after hours: curfew was at 10 p.m., church attendance was mandatory, and any sign of improper behavior was grounds for dismissal. Women were expected to maintain a standard of behavior dictated by popular literature and religion. Peer pressure aided in keeping women mindful of written and unwritten rules.

Though Lowell remained attractive to young rural women, by 1840, Lowell’s “golden era” was all but over. Lowell’s early success spawned competition and textile prices fell. To keep dividends high, mill owners cut labor costs, requiring workers to tend more machines at a faster pace. Exhausted by rigorous work schedules and disenchanted with management’s seeming indifference toward their well being, many operatives organized to improve working conditions, creating the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association in 1844. These women proclaimed themselves “daughters of freemen,” and fought for improved working conditions using revolutionary rhetoric similar to that used by their grandparents less than a century earlier. 

Though the ground for protest was fertile, women lacked the rights, recognition, and experience needed to organize effectively. More importantly, women were socialized to believe that their proper place was in the home. It was not their place to question industrial capitalism, but to tame its destructive power as wives and mothers in the privacy of their own homes. Discouraged by management’s failure to increase wages and improve working conditions, many left the factories for new occupations, returned to the farm, moved west, or married. Other women remained in factories where, in time, they became a recognized force of workers. Lowell’s early factory operatives were in a unique environment in which to recognize both life’s possibilities, and the social, economic and political forces that defined and shaped their existence. 

To make this history accessible to middle and high school students, Lowell National Historical Park and the Tsongas Industrial History Center created a primary source-based curriculum kit focusing on the life of one young woman who left home for work in Lowell’s mills in 1843 (2). The World of Barilla Taylor engages students in interpreting history by providing them with primary sources and questions that take them on a journey into the 19th century world of fifteen-year-old Barilla Taylor. Using facsimile documents, including letters, city directories, maps and hospital records, students are prompted to imagine the experiences of people who lived and worked in Lowell’s textile mills in the 1840s—a time of revolutionary social and economic change. The following pages offer insight into the world of Barilla Taylor and offer one approach to broadening the traditional canon used to teach American history (3).

The World of Barilla Taylor includes five document sets and a teacher’s guide. Each document set focuses on one aspect of Barilla Taylor’s life and includes at least fifteen documents and a question book that guides student inquiry. Students work in small groups to explore issues related to a particular document set, then share their findings with classmates. Class discussion heightens awareness of contradictions found in different primary source materials, and facilitates a greater understanding of the context and consequences of Barilla’s choices and life experiences. 

From the outset, all students are told that Barilla was born into a large farming family in Roxbury, Maine on June 29, 1828, and that she left home in October, 1843 for work in Lowell’s Hamilton Mills. The rest of Barilla Taylor’s story is theirs to discover through the following document sets:

Farm and Family Life. Documents in this set include maps, photographs, letters, receipts, excerpts from the Farmers Almanac, the 1850 Industrial Agricultural, and Social Census, and city records.

City Life.  Documents in this set include cloth labels, newspaper articles, excerpts from the Farmers Almanac and New England Gazetteer, letters, advertisements, popular lithographs and vital statistics.

Mill Life. Documents in this set include city street maps, lithographs, company regulations and a time table, letters, excerpts from the Lowell City Directory, payroll records, hospital records, and vital statistics.

Boardinghouse Life. Documents include Lowell city street map, lithograph of the Hamilton Mills, boardinghouse regulations, letters, newspaper articles, excerpts from the Lowell City Directory, advertisements, receipts and vital statistics.

Personal Life. Documents in this set include poems, lithographs, advertisements, company regulations, a Lowell City Map, excerpts from the Lowell City Directory, letters, vital statistics, receipts, and an epitaph.

Farm and Family Life
Barilla Adaline Taylor came from Roxbury, Maine, a small town in the western central part of the state. She was the fourth of twelve children born to Stephen Burleigh and Melinda A. Taylor. The Taylor family farmed land that Barilla’s grandfather had acquired in 1813 through a Revolutionary War land grant. Barilla’s grandparents lived with the family until their deaths in 1840 and 1841. According to maps, deeds, and family accounts, the Taylor farm sat on land surrounded by wooded hills between the Swift River and Noisy Brook.

Farming was not an easy occupation in Maine: rocky soil, uneven terrain, and a short growing season posed formidable challenges. These challenges may have influenced the family’s decision to allow Barilla to take up work in a city miles from home. The Maine Board of Agriculture Secretary’s Report for the Year 1857 reported,

“The last week of August 1842, there occurred a frost which did considerable injury, especially to the crops of such settlers as had been engaged in spring, driving timber, and so deferred their seed to a period too late for safety. June 4th, 1844, ice made thick as a window glass. In 1845, the last spring frost occurred on the 31st of May” (4).

As industrialization took hold, many questioned the wisdom of moving away from the land. Those who remained in agriculture, like Stephen Burleigh Taylor, concentrated on livestock or cash crops that could be sold to national markets. According to the 1850 Industrial, Agricultural and Social Census (5), the Taylors owned 100 acres of improved and 300 acres of unimproved land valued at $100.00. Their livestock included three horses, five milk cows, four working oxen, twelve other cattle, two swine, and twenty-one sheep. Compared to his neighbors, Stephen Burleigh Taylor appears to have done quite well.

City Life
Even though the farm prospered, Barilla was not the first child to leave home. In 1841, her older brother, Joseph (J.C.), wrote from Stoughton, Massachusetts where he was working for the railroad making a considerable wage of $3.00 a day. The tone of his letter implies his preference of city life, a point conceivably not lost on his siblings. 

In addition to letters from J.C., Barilla may have heard about Lowell from others who had left Roxbury for mill work, mill recruiters, or from articles in the Farmers Almanac or New England Gazetteer. The Maine edition of the 1843 Farmer’s Almanac describes Lowell as a bustling textile production center. The 1843 New England Gazetteer features a lengthy and attractive description of Lowell that includes information on wages, climate, services, and cultural events; the same issue includes six lines describing Roxbury’s rocky terrain (6).

While Barilla’s precise motivations for going to Lowell are not clear, the letters, receipts, poems and other belongings found in her family Bible and passed through generations of the Taylor family offer clues.

Mill Life
According to family lore, Barilla traveled to Lowell by wagon (7). The 1843 Lowell City Directory records that stages stopped at Washington House and American House, both within walking distance of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company where Barilla worked. 

On October 9, 1843, her first day of work at the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, Barilla signed printed Regulations (8), sealing a one-year contract. A mill time table suggests that Barilla worked 12-14 hour days, a schedule that took its toll on many workers. The city Bill of Mortality shows that the average age of those who died in Lowell in 1845 was 20.68 years. The most common causes of death were consumption, cholera and typhoid fever. Most deaths occurred in August, when disease spread quickly through hot and humid mills (9).

Barilla’s July, 1844 letter to her parents evinces pride in her work and relative independence. However, she describes her overseer, Augustus Lord, as “not terribly clever” (10). She also tells of Ann Graham who, “...has got her hand tore off” in the carding room. Hospital records indicate that Lucy Ann Graham, a carder for the Massachusetts Mills, was admitted for a “wound” and released “cured” after an expensive six week stay (11). One can only imagine what became of Ann Graham.

Boardinghouse Life
Barilla’s letter to her parents offers a vivid image of boardinghouse life in Lowell. Like other women who came to Lowell, she first lived in a company boardinghouse with close to thirty other boarders. She left this boardinghouse when her friend Else had trouble with two other women. The second boardinghouse keeper was, 

“...cross, lazy, and nasty. She would build up a fire just before she went to bed, put on her coffee and let it steep all night. In the morning she would get up, build up a fire and go to bed again... When we came out for dinner we would have what coffee was left from the morning...”

After a few months, she and Else moved to a private boardinghouse run by Mr. and Mrs. Elston on Central Street. Described in her letter as “first rate folks,” the Elstons had only three boarders, and gave Barilla “as much as I want and just when I want it.” The 1844 Lowell City Directory, lists William as a boot and shoe maker, keeping his shop and home on Central Street, just around the corner from the Hamilton Company (12). According to the Lowell Vital Records (13), William and Abigail married several months before taking in Barilla as a boarder; the newlywed atmosphere of the house may have stood in stark contrast to living “on the corporation.”

Personal Life
Although an independent worker, Barilla was also the teenage daughter of a family that kept a close eye on her. Several letters from home offer advice on whether she should stay in Lowell or return. In June, 1844, George Dana Austin, a friend and distant relative, writes,

“Barilla, don’t you think of going home at all this fall because you must pass it through your head hat there is just nobody there nor will be until we go back” (14).

Barilla’s older sister Florena offers this advice,

“Mother says you did not come home last fall as you agreed and you must be sure and come next spring and stay with her next summer and make some woolen clothes, get rested, and go again if you want to next fall...” (15).

Florena adds that she has heard of girls spending all their money in fancy clothes that go out of fashion, and says that it is best to “put your money out to interest.”

According to receipts that Barilla saved, she did not always heed Florena’s advice. A receipt dated October, 1844 shows that Barilla purchased $10.75 worth of gold beads, earrings, and a ring from George Tebbets’ Fancy Goods (16). Tebbets’ advertisement in the 1844 Lowell City Directory lists an array of watches, jewelry, and fancy goods available at his store. The Hamilton Manufacturing company payroll records show that Barilla made $14.85 in October, 1844 - her highest earnings ever (17). Perhaps her purchase that month was a reward for such a good month’s work, or maybe she was celebrating the end of her first year “on the corporation.” 

Barilla appears to have had plans beyond either farm or factory life. On July 14, 1844, she writes to her parents,

“Though if I stay till spring I think it a doubt if you ever see me again if my health is as good as it is now for I think of joining the Association and going to the west next spring.”

The above statement prompts a quick response from Barilla’s mother. In a brief letter dated August 1, 1844, Melinda Taylor writes,

“I wish next time you write you would tell me what you mean by joining the Association, what Association...” (18).

The Association to which Barilla refers is unclear, though it could have been anything from a land reform association to a female teacher’s association. Given the context in which the statement was made, it seems unlikely that Barilla was referring to the newly formed Lowell Factory Girls Association whose goal was to reform working conditions. While Barilla may have been dissatisfied with mill life, it seems more likely that her solution to the dilemma was to escape, rather than reform factory life. 

Barilla never made the trip west. The Hamilton Company Payroll Records for July, 1845 show that she only worked fifteen days that month and someone else signed for her wages. This was Barilla’s the last payroll entry. The Lowell Vital Records to 1850 record that Barilla died on August 22, 1845. The cause of death is not listed. She was 17 years old.

A bittersweet end to the tale of Barilla Taylor is found in the Lowell Vital Records to 1850. Listed under Lowell Births are William and Abigail Elston who bore a daughter on September 11, 1845. They named their daughter Barilla A. 

Sample Lesson Plan

Overview: This activity engages students in analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data to gain insight into Barilla’s experiences, personality, and motivations. Students read a letter from Barilla to her parents to uncover information on her experiences, earnings, motivations, and interests. They then explore Barilla’s work habits and earnings by looking at the Hamilton Payroll Records. By looking at the two documents together, students discover that Barilla did not disclose her precise earnings to her parents. This may prompt them to wonder why Barilla is misrepresenting her earnings, and get them thinking about the dynamics of being a teenager away from home for the first time.

When the Payroll Records are placed next to Barilla’s receipt for jewelry from George Tebbets’ Fancy Goods, it becomes clear that the month Barilla purchased the jewelry was also the month that she earned the most money to date. By looking carefully at the Payroll Records, students can also see that Barilla’s purchase coincides with the one year anniversary of her start on the corporation. 

When viewed independently, each document conveys a slice of Barilla’s story. When viewed together, the complexity of her experience begins to emerge. When interpreted by different students, diverse reasons, motivations and characteristics surface, reflecting the worldviews and perspectives of the interpreters. Ultimately, students gain insight into one woman’s responses to industrialization, and develop an awareness of the nature and complexity of historical discourse. 
 

Objectives:

After discussing background information provided in this lesson plan, and completing the document analysis and writing assignment, students will be able to:
• describe some of the factors that appear to have influenced Barilla’s choices;
• cite at least one example that illustrates the value of consulting more than one source when conducting historical research; 
• explain one way in which their own worldview influences their interpretation of documents, and discuss the implications of this phenomenon for the study of History. 
Suggested Time: 30 minutes for document analysis; 45 minutes for writing assignment

Materials:
for every student:
• copy of the original Barilla Taylor letter; to engage students in the art of historical research, have each student transcribe a portion of the original letter for homework. Before doing the document analysis activity, have students share their transcriptions. (optional)
for each group of three students:
• abridged letter from Barilla Taylor to parents (July 14, 1844) (page 43)
• excerpt from Hamilton Company Payroll Records (p. 44)
• advertisement and copy of Barilla’s receipt from George Tebbets’ Fancy Goods (p.45, p. 44 respectively)
for the teacher:
• a copy of student materials
• background information included in this lesson plan

Preparation
• review the background material included in this lesson plan; be prepared to introduce this information to students
• determine student groupings
• photocopy materials

Procedure
1. Make sure students have a general understanding of women’s changing role and status in mid-19th century America, focusing specifically on women’s experiences in Lowell’s early textile industry. Use background information included in this lesson plan, and any other relevant material, as the basis for classroom discussion.

2. Before distributing the documents, provide students with basic biographical information on Barilla Taylor, including where she was from, the size of her family, the year she was born, and the year she went to Lowell. 

3. Divide students into small groups; give each group a copy of the abridged letter from Barilla Taylor to parents (July 14, 1844), excerpts from Hamilton Company Payroll Records, and the advertisement and copy of Barilla’s receipt from George Tebbets’ Fancy Goods.

4. Ask students to carefully read the abridged letter from Barilla to her parents. Answer these questions:
• What does Barilla tell her parents she is earning each month?
• What is Barilla doing with her earnings? Cite evidence from the letter.
• Do you think she is spending her earnings wisely? Why or why not?
• How would you have spent the money?

5. Have students review information from the Hamilton Manufacturing Company Payroll Records. Answer these questions.
• On what date does Barilla begin work at the Hamilton Manufacturing Company?
• How much does Barilla earn during the month of June, 1844? 
• Review Barilla’s letter to her parents. What does she tell them she earns during the month of June, 1844? What do you think accounts for the discrepancy? Be prepared to justify your answer.
• Review Barilla’s wages from the time she begins working until December 1844. In what month does she make the highest wage? How much does she earn? How much does she retain after paying board?

6. Look at the advertisement and receipt from George Tebbets’ Fancy Goods. Answer these questions.
• What kinds of things does George Tebbets sell? Given what you know about Lowell, MA, do you think his business was successful? Why or why not?
• What did Barilla purchase from him? What did the items cost? What is the purchase date? 
• Carefully review the Hamilton Company Payroll Records and Barilla’s letter to her parents. What do you think motivated Barilla to make this purchase?

Writing Assignment
A. Have students write a letter from Barilla responding to a young woman in Roxbury, ME who is contemplating taking up work in the Lowell Mills. The young woman is particularly interested in working conditions, wages, social opportunities, and city life. Make sure students craft a response that uses information gleaned from Barilla’s letter home, the Hamilton Manufacturing Company Payroll Records, and the receipt and advertisement from George Tebbets. 

Or
B. Have students write a character profile of Barilla Taylor based on what they have learned from her letter to her parents, the Hamilton Manufacturing Company Payroll Records, and the receipt and advertisement from George Tebbets. The character profile should be put in the larger context of social, political, and economic issues of relevance to young women in mid-19th century America.

Dublin, Thomas. Farm to Factory: Women’s Letters, 1830-1860, 2nd edition. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1993.

Foner, Philip. The Factory Girls. Urbana,: University of Illinois Press, 1977.

National Park Service. Lowell: The Story of an Industrial History. Harpers Ferry, WV: Government Printing Office, 1993.

1. Historians noted for their work on women in Lowell include, Thomas Dublin (Women at Work, 1979; Farm to Factory, 1993; Transforming Women’s Work, 1994) and Mary Blewett (Surviving Hard Times, 1982; The Last Generation, 1989).
2. Development and production of The World of Barilla Taylor was funded through a grant from the National Park Foundation “Parks as Classrooms” program. To learn more about using The World of Barilla Taylor in your classroom, contact Tsongas Industrial History Center at (508) 970-5080.
3. Descendent Virginia Taylor introduced Barilla Taylor to staff at Lowell National Historical Park in 1991. The Taylor letters associated with Barilla’s experience in Lowell, Massachusetts are retained by Virginia Taylor. The balance of the Stephen Burleigh Taylor collection is at the Maine State Historical Society.
4. Maine State Archives. 
5. Maine State Archives.
6. Maine Edition of the Farmers Almanac (1843 and 1844), Maine State Historical Society. The New England Gazetteer (1843), courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library.
7. Oral history interviews with Virginia Taylor conducted June-July, 1991.
8. Virginia Taylor collection. According to Hamilton Manufacturing Payroll Records, UWC is Upper Weave Room C.
9. 1846 Bill of Mortality for the City, Lowell Historical Society.
10. Virginia Taylor collection.
11. Corporate Hospital Records from Saints Memorial Medical Center, St. Joseph’s West Campus, Lowell, MA. 
12. Corporate Hospital Records from Saints Memorial Medical Center, St. Joseph’s West Campus, Lowell, MA. 
13. Lowell National Historical Park. 
14. Virginia Taylor collection.
15. Letter from Florena Taylor Austin to Barilla Taylor, dated January 27, 1845. Virginia Taylor collection.
16. Virginia Taylor collection.
17. Baker Library, Harvard Business College. 
18. Virginia Taylor collection.

Letter From Barilla Taylor to her parents

It is with pleasure that I seat myself this morning to write to you to let you know of my health which is very good at present. Having few leisure hours, I improve them in writing and I have a chance to send it by Mrs. Walker. I don’t know as I can write half a letter as my mind is not upon it, but I will write what I can.

....I like in the mill, but my overseer is not the best, or I might say, the cleverest. I do not make much. I did not make only six and a quarter last month beside my board. I pay five dollars for my board a month. I don’t know but you will think strange that I have changed my boarding place again. But I will tell you a few of the reasons why I changed so much. The first place I went to was on the Corporation. It was a very good place indeed. They kept about thirty boarders all the time. They kept six in one room. Else had some trouble with two girls she roomed with and she would not stay. We went to the second place. Our boarding woman was done very well for about three weeks. If I may say it, she was cross, lazy and nasty. She would build up a fire just before she went to bed, put on her coffee and let it steep all night. In the morning she would get up, build up a fire and go to bed again. We would get up get our breakfast and go into the mill... When we came out for dinner we would have what coffee was left from the morning for dinner. We would have a little dry bread, a cracker or two a piece and that was our dinner. We would have a piece of pie once a week and that was our living for about three months. I was sick there and I don’t wonder, do you? I left there in about a week after I got able to work. I now board with Mr. and Mrs. Elston on Central Street. They are first rate folks. Judith, Else, and I are all the boarders they keep. I have as much as I want and just when I want it. That is all I have to say about my boarding places....

Ann Graham, if you know her, has got her hand tore off. It was done in the card room. I heard she has got to have it taken off above the elbow. We don’t know but she will lose her life by it... I have received two letters from you since I left home. The first I got about two months after it was written, the second in about ten days. Write to me as soon as you can....If mother would like to have me buy her something and send her, I will. Or I will buy her something and fetch her when I come. I think likely I shall have more then. I should like to have her write what she would like to have me get her. Though if I stay till spring I think it a doubt if you ever see me again if my health is as good as it is now for I think of joining the Association and going to the west next spring. I have got me three dresses within two months. Two of them cost me three dollars a piece. Six yards and 1/2 in the black, double width. Ten in the other, single width. I have a large cape like them both. I sent you a small piece of them and apiece of my cloak. The stripe is like my dress, the plain like my cloak.

I hope these lines will find you well. I should like to see all of you very much....If I cannot see you, I hope I shall hear from you....I want you to write as much as I have. Fill up your letters full. I bid you all farewell as I don’t know as I shall see any of you again.

I have a small bill to pay to the doctor in the course of two or three weeks.

From your absent daughter,

Barilla A. Taylor