Secondary Source Annotated Bibliography

Ashton, T.S.  The Industrial Revolution 1760-1830.  Oxford, New York:  Oxford University   Press, 1968.

The main idea that the author is trying to get across is the cause and impact of the industrial revolution in both England and America.  Basically, the revolution or change in society started from the ideas of innovation by men who were looking into the future.  These inventions had an especially large effect on the people living in England and America around the time of the eighteenth century because all new ways of doing things were created to simplify the means of living.  Also, the large factories found in industrial cities led to a rapid population growth.  The author, T.S. Ashton was a Professor of Economic History in the University of London from 1944 to 1954, and Emeritus Professor until his death in 1968.  His best known work is this book.  This was written by an expert to inform the general reader about the time period pertaining to the industrial revolution.  Although not alive at the time, he was able to analyze what occurred and why it did.  Overall, he had a fairly positive take on the benefits of the areas during this era.  This source helps to explain what was going on during the time the power loom was invented and how the power look actually was invented.  This source gives a good background of what led up to the innovation of the power loom.

 
Baltzell, Digby. Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadephia, Transaction Publishers, 1996. 

The author’s main idea in this book is that the Puritan ethic strongly laid the ground work for class authority in Boston. Two examples that show this are when the author talks about how Boston was formed off of religious ideas. Also while including a lot of background and religious information about pioneers in the Industrial Revolution, such as Francis Cabot Lowell. The author of this book is Digby Baltzell. He was an American sociologist, writer and academic that graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1940. He earned his doctorate degree from Colombia University. The author’s point of view in this source is that the Puritans shaped the final outcome of Boston and lead to its rising, especially during the time period of the Industrial Revolution. This source was used in the project to provide us with a background on Francis Cabot Lowell and his coming to recreate the power loom in America. This source helped with the understanding of the power loom and the mill girls by showing how much the stabilization of Boston provided a perfect place to allow the mills blossom to their full potential. 


Blewett, Mary H., Peter H. Blewett, Fidelia O. Brown, J. Frederic Burtt, Charles F. Carroll,        Harry C. Dinmore, Robert Ougan, Arthur L. Eno, Jr., John A. Goodwin, Joseph W.             Lipchitz, and Nancy Zaroulis.  Cotton Was King: A History of Lowell, Massachusetts.            New Hampshire Publishing Company in collaboration with the Lowell Historical       Society, 1976.

The main idea of this book was to trace the history of the development of the city of Lowell, during the time of the Industrial Revolution.  Once men, such as Francis Cabot Lowell, invented machines or recreated a previous innovation in America, the manufacturing industry took off.  The power loom turned out to be a big success in America.  As a result, working in the mills attacked thousands of French Canadians and young women to Lowell cause the population to increase greatly.  Although multiple authors, the two biggest contributors to this work were Mary H. Blewett and Arthur L. Eno, Jr.  Mary earned her PhD degree at the University of Missouri.  Also, she was a professor of History at the University of Lowell and the president of the Lowell Historical Society.  Arthur is a native of Lowell, a practicing lawyer and former president of the Lowell Historical Society.  This document was written from the point of view of historians that analyzed the benefits of the industrial revolution in Lowell.  This source was used to show how the city of Lowell was impacted by Francis Cabot Lowell’s power loom.  It helped to understand how he was able to complete such a difficult task and how it was such a life changing invention.


Clarke, John D. Living History: Industrial Revolution. Great Britain, 1993.

The author’s main idea in this source is to give a detailed background of the industrial revolution in England. Two supporting details to show this are when he talks about how other mechanical inventions were created during the revolution. Another is his in depth talk of the lives of the people working in the mills during that specific time period. The author of this book is John D. Clarke. There are no biases in this source. The author is simply stating the facts about the industrial revolution in England. This source was used in the section about Edmund Cartwright and the creation of the power loom as well as the many injuries that occurred with the girls working within the mills. This source helped with the understanding of the topic by showing the many similarities and differences with the mills in America and England. 

 
Dalzell, Robert F. Enterprising Elite: The Boston Associates and the World They Made [book online], 1987, accessed 13 November 2009; available from http://books.google.com/books?id=dI8exipcrNUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PR4#v=onepage&q=&f=false; Internet.

The author’s main idea in this book was to connect the achievements and work of the Boston associates to revolutionizing transportation, politics and banking. An example of this is when Dalzell is talking about the invention of the power loom and how the inventor, Parliament gave Edmund Cartwright received a 100,000 euro bonus. Another example of the author’s main thesis is when he talks about how Francis Cabot Lowell and that his affairs must have been in a good order for him to be able to travel in Europe for two years.  Robert Dalzell is Ephraim Williams Professor of American History at Williams College. Some of his other works include, George Washington’s Mount Vernon: At Home in Revolutionary America and The House the Rockefeller’s Built: A Tale of Money, Taste and Power in Twentieth Century America. These things make Robert F. Dalzell qualified to write this topic. The key biases that are found in this source are that the author toughly questions Lowell’s decisions and actions. For example he talks about what the motivation would be for Francis Cabot Lowell to go to Britain in the first place. Dalzell also brings up the question of why he got involved with the contributors that he did. The author says that the other people that Lowell worked with were more successful than Francis Cabot Lowell with his recreation of the power loom. This source will be used to explain how the invention of the power loom, that was originally invented in England, was brought over to the United States. This source helped with the understanding of our topic of how the power loom effected the Merrimack Valley Mill Girls. This book explained how Francis Cabot Lowell went England to copy the power loom that was invented by Edmund Cartwright and then how he recreated it in America. This book gave a clear understanding of those events.


Dublin, Thomas.  Women at Work:  The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826-1860.  New York: Columbia University Press, 1979.

The author’s main idea revolves around the fact that the rise of the cotton textile industry in New England radically altered women’s working and living patterns.  For example, thousands of young, single women left their farms to work in growing mill towns while staying in boardinghouses.  As a result, close-knit communities of women workers began to develop because they were all experiencing factory life for the first time.  The author, Thomas Dublin, was the assistant professor of history at the University of California, San Diego.  Today, he’s professor of history at the State University of New York at Binghamton. He’s a U.S. Social Historian who focused on both the industrial revolution in nineteenth-century New England and deindustrialization in the Middle Atlantic region in the twentieth century.  He’s also received a Ph.D. from Columbia University in U.S. labor and social history.  This document was written from the point of view of a historian that analyzed the relations between the early mills and boardinghouse communities.  This source was used to describe how the lives of the girls in the mills were affected.  In addition, this source explains how the power loom was created and what differentiated it from previous inventions.  This source helped to grasp everything that was occurring around the time that the power loom was introduced.


Dunwell, Steve. The Run of the Mill. David R. Godine, 1978.

The author’s main idea in this pictography is that the cotton mills in Massachusetts became the basis for all mills and that the mills were a key example of power and progress into a new way of life during the Industrial Revolution. An example of this is when the author says that the process of bringing the power loom over to America from England and the mechanization of inventions to create textiles set the pace for the American Revolution. Another example that supports this is when the author says that the original results from the industrial revolution were amazing and then ended with their tragic decline. Steve Dunwell is a photographer that became interested in photography during his college years while he was studying at Yale University. His photographs, photo-essays and stories have been published in various magazines including National Geographic and Time. Some other famous pieces of his work are Massachusetts: A Scenic Discovery and Rhode Island: A Scenic Discovery. The author does not have a bias in this pictography. This book covers from before the invention of the power loom and when people were just using the hand loom to weave cloth until the decline of the mills in the early 1970’s. This source will be used to cover a wide range of topics in the project, because this source covers such a wide time period surrounding the American Industrial Revolution. This source helped with the understanding of the topic of the power loom and its effect on the Merrimack Valley Mill Girls by providing in-depth information on the lives of the mill girls and an in-depth look at the power loom as well as the hand loom. 


Hareven, Tamara K., and Langenbach, Randolph. Amoskeag: Life and Work in an American Factory-City, Pantheon Books, 1978.

The authors of the book are Tamara K. Hareven and Randolph Langenbach, although the book is primarily composed stories from the people that worked in the Amoskeag Mills.  It was published in 1978 as a book. The intended audience was anyone that wanted to learn about what life was like inside of the Amoskeag Mills. The authors’ main idea of this book is to provide a look at the lives of people that worked in the mills directly from the people who worked in them. In this specific book all of the people worked in the same mill, Amoskeag, that is in Manchester, New Hampshire. Two examples that show this is when the author refers to the mill as being dark and satanic for the people that worked there.  Another example of this is when the author says that the work that they did everyday became even more than a daily routine. Because this book is composed of different stories from all different people that worked in the mills, they all have a bias in some way or another. Some people enjoyed the work in the mills and others couldn’t wait until the day when they could leave and go home. This source will be used in the project to help convey the lives of the mill workers and their feelings and views on the mills. This source helped with the understanding of the lives of the people that worked in the mills at Amoskeag. They provided an inside look at what life was like in the mills.

 
Josephson, Hannah.  The Golden Threads:  New England’s Mill Girls and Magnates.  New York:  Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1949.

The main idea the author got across was what an impact the Industrial Revolution had on New England mill girls.  The reason girls were attracted to work in Lowell was due to the high pay and pleasant working conditions.  However, once the girls arrived there, things appeared to be different than as they had heard.  The factories were overcrowded and the air quality was poor.  Hannah Josephson was a librarian of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and an author.  This was written from the point of view of a historian who didn’t experience any of the things she wrote about, therefore basing her knowledge off of primary sources such as “The Lowell Offering” and she seems bias because she points out both the advantages and disadvantages that the innovation of the power loom had on the population.  This was used to explain how Francis Cabot Lowell recreated the power-loom in America and the affects it had on everyone.  It helped to understand how difficult a task Francis Lowell took upon himself to recreate the power loom and how much his accomplishments bettered and worsened the lives of the people that relied on his invention.


Mantoux, Paul, The Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century [book online], accessed 20 December 2009, available at http://books.google.com/books?id=VIkRpyE4u80C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=&f=false; Internet.

The author’s main idea in this source is to give the outline of the beginnings of the modern factory systems in England. Two examples that show this are when the author talks about power loom weaving shops in France and how they quickly disappeared. The source also talks in depth about the life of Edmund Cartwright. The author of this source is Paul Mantoux, who was an historian and co-founder of the Graduate Institute of International Studies. The author does not have a bias in this source. He is simply stating the facts about the Industrial Revolution in England. This source is used in the project in the section about Edmund Cartwright and how his early life led him to create the first power loom in England. This source helped with the understanding of our topic by providing a lot of information about Edmund Cartwright’s early life. 

 
Masur, Louis. Lecture Transcript One: The Lowell Experiment. 2001, accessed 16 December 2009; available from http://www.learner.org/workshops/primary sources/lowell/transcript01.html; Internet.

His main idea in this lecture is that the girls that came to work in the mills are essentially the heart of the story. They came from the middling ranks of society- not the poorest classes, in terms of wealth; not the wealthiest. They were paid about two dollars to $3.25 per week, based on what job they did.  This is big because men were paid twice as much for what they did, so basically hiring women meant that the factories would benefit more because they had the ability to pay their workers less.  The author, Louis Masur is a Professor in American Institutions and Values, received his Ph.D. from Princeton Univ. (1985), M.A., Princeton Univ. (1982), and B.A. from the State Univ. New York, Buffalo (1978).  This is written from the point of view of a historian that thinks everything about the mills gills working in Lowell was a brilliant idea.  He completely overlooks the fact that the girls themselves may not have liked what they were doing at all even though they were significantly helping out the manufacturing economy.  This source was used to talk about the background of the mill girls and helps to explain why they made such an impact on America by working in factories.


McCormick, Anita L. The Industrial Revolution: In American History. New Jersey, 1998.

The author’s main idea or thesis in this book is to trace the development of the American industry from its starts in the eighteenth-century to its decline. Two examples that show this is when she talks about how the Industrial Revolution completely changed the world as well as people’s daily lives in less than two hundred years. Another example of this is when she mentions that the new technological discoveries during this time led to new ways for transportation and communication. The author of this source is Anita Louise McCormick is a freelance writer and editor since 1987. She currently has many books out about various subjects. Some of her other works include, The Invention of the Telegraph and Telephone in American History, Native Americans and the Reservation and The Vietnam Antiwar Movement .There are not any biases clearly shown in this source. The author is simply stating the facts and providing the reader with a basis of knowledge of the Industrial Revolution and how it greatly affected the lives of the people that were living through it. She also talks a lot about how the Industrial Revolution created new inventions that affected the rest of the population. This source is going to be used to convey the lives of the people that spun textiles in cottage industries before the invention of the power loom. This source helped with the understanding our topic of the power loom but providing information what the lives were like of the people that worked in the cottage industries before the invention of the power loom.

 
Moran, William. The Belles of New England: The Women of the Textile Mills and the Families Whose Wealth They Wove [book online], Thomas Dunne Books, 2002, accessed 2 November 2009; available from http://books.google.com/books?id=X8AdiN1iP4wC&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=&f=false; Internet.

The author’s main idea in this book is to give a detailed look inside the life the mill girls. Two examples that show this are when he talks about how the girls came to work in the mills. He also mentions how girls came from different countries to work in the Lowell Mills. The author of this book is William Moran. He was a writer, editor and producer for CBS News and graduated from Boston University with a major in journalism. He was also a writer for the Associated Press. The author’s point of view in this book is that although the mills provided work for the girls working within them, the mills also caused many other pitfalls. There is a lot of information about strikes and wage cuts for the mill girls in this book as well. This source is used in our project by giving an inside look at the lives of the mill girls and the struggles that they faced during their time working in them.  This source helped us understand our topic better by giving a different view of the lives of the textile mill girls. 


Ogg, Frederic Austin, Economic Development of Modern Europe [book online], 1917, accessed 17 December 2009, available at http://books.google.com/books?id=61wpAAAAYAAJ&orintsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=&f=false; Internet.

The author’s main idea in this source is to describe the economic changes and achievements throughout the years in England. Two examples that show this is when the author talks about how no one person could ever lose touch with the past and that England’s social economy was changing and causing a lasting effect. The author of this book is Frederic Austin Ogg, a professor, political historian, author and historian that graduated from DePauw University with a Ph.D. The author’s point of view in this source is that the economic struggles in England at the time period lead to the growth of the Industrial Revolution. This source was used in the section about Edmund Cartwright. This source helped with the understanding of how Edmund Cartwright invented his first power loom. 
 

Traill, Henry Duff, Social England: 1714-1815 [book online], accessed 29 October 2009, available at http://books.google.com/booksid?=ifwwAAAAYAA&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=&f=false; Internet. 

The author’s main idea in this source is to give a detailed overview of England between the years 1714 and 1815. Two examples that show this are when the author is talking about how Cartwright’s first attempts at the power loom were clumsy and big, let alone work properly. Another example is when the author goes into depth about the various processes that the power loom performs from combing to weaving. Henry Duff Trail went to St. John’s College in Oxford, England. Although he originally went for medicine, in 1865 he took a degree in natural sciences. He became a lead writer and journalist for many different newspapers including the Pall Mall Gazette and the Saturday Review.  There is no point of view in this source. The author is stating the facts surrounding the creation of Edmund Cartwrights’ power loom. This source is used for many dates involving other inventions that helped create the first power loom as well as a lot of Edmund Cartwright’s background. This source helped with the understanding of our topic by providing more of an inside look at the life of Edmund Cartwright before he invented the power loom.


Walton, Perry, The Story of Textiles [book online], 1936, accessed 3 January 2010, available from http://books.google.com/bookid?=b1q1AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=&f=false; Internet.

The author’s main idea in this book is to fill in the gaps from the time period when textiles first starting being produced to their manufacture with the use of mechanical innovations, such as the power loom. Two details from the source that show this is when the author talks about how clothing has always been apart of the lives of humans and that it has always been essential which is the justification for how the  textile industry has grown so much throughout the years. The author of this book is Perry Walton.  There is no key bias in this source. The author is simply stating the facts. This source is used in the project by giving us background information and context of the point of time in history that is the focus of the project. This source helped with the understanding of the topic of the power loom and its effects on the Lowell Mill Girls, by providing context and the story of the textile industry.


Winsor, Justin. The Memorial History of Boston [book online], 1880, accessed 3 November 2009, available at http://google.books.com/booksid?=e0goAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=&f=false; Internet.

The author’s main idea in this book is to provide the reader with the history of Boston and how much it has changed throughout time. Two examples of this is when the author talks about how Boston was headed to a new point in history continuing as it always had until the city’s charter swept away and changed their pathway. Another example is when the author talks about how the introduction of the mills changed many different things, including the economy. This book was written by Justin Winsor who studied at Harvard and then in Paris and Heidelberg. He was a founding member of the American Historical Association. There are no biases in this source. The author is simply stating the facts and information about the history of Boston. This source was used in the section about Francis Cabot Lowell and the creation of his mill, called the Waltham. This source helped with the understanding of the topic by giving a background on Lowell’s first mill in Waltham, Massachusetts. 

 
Worst, Edward F., Foot-Power Loom Weaving [book online], 1918, accessed 30 December 2009, available from http://books.google.com/books?id=csTVAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=&f=false; Internet.

The author’s main idea in this source is to provide the reader with the understanding on how to use a hand loom and how to weave by hand. Two details that support this is when the author talks about how the models shown in the book give the reader a better understanding on the topic than other more technical sources. Another example is when the author talks about how advanced weaving should be able to be produced with the hand loom instead of the newer modernized technologies. The author of this book is Edward Worst. He attended the Lowell Textile School in Lowell, Massachusetts and taught classes in weaving. He was an educator in Chicago as well as being a pioneer in manual education.  The point of view in this document is that the hand loom is much better than any other new mechanical weaving technologies. Many times the author puts down mechanized means of weaving. This source is used in the project to give details on how hand looms work. This source helped with the understanding that not all people were in favor of the mechanization of the hand weavers’ work.