May 17th, Thursday – Surprise, Surprise!

Surprise, Surprise!  Yes, I was pleasantly surprised today.  Barbara had found a place to visit but she was sworn to secrecy.  Not a word would she mention as to where we were going.  Suffice to say when we got there I was absolutely thrilled.  Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait till tomorrow to find out what it was. Today we’re going to finish our journey to Lowell by looking at what we discovered regarding the typical mill factory and the mill girls who often worked the looms in the weave room.

Before we get to that, though, a bit about today.  We needed to get a legal document notarized, so our first stop was the Hermon Town Hall.  One, two, three and that task was taken care of.

Next, we needed to go to the post office to mail what we had just had notarized.  Take a look, but you say this is a market, ok, but this is also the post office in the town of Hermon, Maine.  Just a bit different from what I’m used to finding.

Suffice to say things are a bit different in this part of the country.  For instance, they don’t have round a bout up here, no, they have a rotary 

And as we shared with you the other day there are no signs that say watch for deer but there are plenty of signs that warn one to watch for moose.   

Enough of that, let’s get back to Lowell.  To discover what a typical mill was like and what life was like for the mill girls who worked on the weave room floor, we first visited a second national historical site, The Boott Cotton Mill Museum.

 

Down the walkway, through the arch and we were at the front door to the museum.

The Boott Cotton Mill was by no means the only mill in Lowell at that town, so why was it chosen by the Park Service as a National Historical Sight?

 

Today the museum has a floor dedicated to the looms that were commonly found on the floor of the weave room in a typical mill.

When they say, “hear the noise and feel the vibration” of the machinery, they aren’t kidding.  With just 100 looms in the room and only a fraction of them operating to produce cloth, we can vouch for the fact, personally, that it is very loud, it is hot, it is humid and the floor shakes beneath your feet.  Below is a recreation of the mill room floor filled with working looms.

This is an actual loom in operation, too fast to see, but trust me it is working.

This is a picture of a sample of the cloth the loom produces which is for sale in the gift shop.

I can only imagine what it was like when all the looms were in operation.

It took a crew of many, each with a specified role to make the weave room run.

The conditions in the mill, in particular, the weave room was not a pleasant experience.

Following are some recovered letters from those who actually worked in the mill weave room

We later watched a video of an interview with an actual early mill girl now in her later years.  She shared the horrific story of one young girl who refused to put her long hair up when she came to work.  One day her hair got caught in the belts that drove the looms and she was literally yanked off her feet in to the air.  Though they were able to get her down and quickly got her to the hospital she later died from her injuries that day.

From the Boott Cotton Mill Museum, we moved on to a re-creation of a typical boarding house for the mill girls who early on worked in the mills.

This was the entrance way to the boarding house exhibit

Each boarding house was in many ways home away from home for the girls.

Regarding the girls themselves.

This is the typical room that they occupied, yes, two girls to a bed!

Each house also had a keeper

This is a re-creation of the typical dining room where they all gathered for their meals.

As I left both the Boott Cotton Mill Museum and the boarding house that day, I came away with a new-found appreciation of the toll it took on people’s lives to bring this country into the industrial age.  I will never be able to again look on a manufactured good of any kind without a new and deeper appreciation for the lives of those that make those goods.  Granted, conditions, today, are nowhere near as appalling as they were back in the 19^th century but so many things I buy today are brought to me courtesy of the labor of someone, somewhere I will never meet. Hey, if not for laborers in general I would not be driving a motor home and enjoying this great country of ours.  Thanks to them Barbara and I can do what we are doing today.

Ok, as for today, just a hint as to where we went today, think transportation.  So once again we’ve had a great day spent together.  We did some sight-seeing, some shopping – we needed a new coffee pot, I mean perish the thought that we might have no coffee in the morning!  The day is now done, TV is on, we’re just relaxing and enjoying life.  We hope you had an enjoyable day as well.  Perhaps you had a chance to do something you’ve wanted to for a long time.  If not there is always tomorrow.  In closing, I will leave you with this thought:

So that’s it for now.  As always,  if you are coming to the end of your day with concerns and worries let me suggest that you turn them over to God.  After all, He is going to be up all night so why not let him handle them for you.

Time now for our evening prayers and some shut-eye.  Till tomorrow.  Thanks again for sharing our day with us.

These are the voyages of  Graybeard and it’s occupants, four paws and two humans.  Our continuing mission: to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have not been before