Note: Sarah George Bagley was a mill worker and a major labor leader in Lowell during the 1840s. She came from New Hampshire and moved to Lowell in 1837 to work as a weaver. As conditions in the mills grew worse, Bagley became upset about long hours, low pay, and unhealthy air in the crowded rooms. She helped create the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association in 1844 and served as its president. She and other women led large petition campaigns for a ten-hour workday and spoke before the Massachusetts Legislature. Bagley also wrote stories such as “Tales of Factory Life” and “The Orphan Sisters,” which showed the daily experiences of mill girls. She traveled and organized meetings. Also, she worked with labor groups all over New England. She helped edit the reformist newspaper, The Voice of Industry.
During this period, Bagley also wrote letters to Angelique Martin. Martin was a reformer who supported factory women and encouraged them to think about fairness in both work and society. Bagley wrote to her because Martin took an interest in the struggles of mill women and often offered advice and support. In her first letter, Bagley contacted Martin, whom she trusted. This started a conversation that shaped her ideas about change and equality.
Excerpt:
It is hardly possible for you to imagine the encouragement and hope with which your kind letter has inspired us, it is like an oasis in the desert of a weary journey. It is but one year since we commenced our association when five of our number met in "Anti-Slavery Hall" and made a beginning, and pledge our mutual assistance to each other, and though our beginning was very small - by perseverance and united effort, we now number six hundred. It may not be uninteresting to you; to learn the secret of our success. We labored long and hard to procure a press through which to spread our proposed remedies, for the ills, which society have forced upon us. Thanks Heaven! We have at length succeeded, and the laborers of New England have taken hold of the subject and our paper promises to meet the expense of publication. But the "Factory Tracts" it is for those to decide whether they shall be published, who are not willing to see our sex, made into living machines to do the bidding of incorporated aristocrats and reduced to a sum for their services hardly sufficient to keep soul and body together.
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