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A Boardinghouse Keeper Describes “Toil and Fatigue” in the California Gold Rush (with text supports)
Mary Ballou and her husband ran a boarding house in a California gold mining town. Ballou’s letter to her son, written in 1852, evokes the rough housing, violence, and high prices (from which the Ballous profited) in California during the gold [...]
Miners Describe Life and Business in the California Gold Rush
Unlike earlier generations of Americans, many of the ‘49ers could read and write. Not surprisingly, thousands recorded their observations and experiences in letters and journals. Miners often reflected on changes in mining that made it [...]
A Mill Girl Explains Why She Is Leaving Factory Life (with text supports)
Born on a Vermont farm, Sarah Rice left home at age 17 to make it on her own. Eventually she journeyed to Masonville, Connecticut to work in textile mills much like those of Lowell. Rice's first letter was written after she had been weaving in the [...]
Young Women Ask Permission to Work in Lowell
Starting in the 1820s, a group of business owners built textile mills in New England, where for the first time, people could use machines to weave cotton into cloth. The first factories recruited women from rural New England as their labor force. [...]
Young Women Ask Permission to Work in Lowell (with text supports)
Starting in the 1820s, a group of business owners built textile mills in New England, where for the first time, people could use machines to weave cotton into cloth. The first factories recruited women from rural New England as their labor force. [...]
Angelina Grimke Argues for Women's Political Rights
In this letter Angelina Grimke, abolitionist and women's rights advocate, argues for the right of propertied women to participate in government through petitions despite their lack of enfranchisement. This letter was a part of a series of essays [...]