A "Voices from the Field" essay for chapter 8 of Katherine Paterson's novel Lyddie*, from Lowell National Historical Park's Books to Parks series.*
The mill corporations built boardinghouses for their workers and recruited local women to run them. The keeper is often pictured as a kindly, motherly figure who looked after the house as her own home and treated the mill girls as daughters. She was also a businesswoman, who had to keep accurate accounts as well as cook and clean.
"Merrimack Mills and Boarding-Houses", an engraving by O. Pelton, printed by W. T. Goddard. American Antiquarian Society, Mill Girls in Nineteenth-Century Print.
Furnishing the house
The keeper had to supply everything the house needed: tables, chairs, beds, linens, cookware and more. Many Lowell businesses rented or sold furnishings to keepers. She might already own some things, but a household of up to thirty people needed much more.
Cooking and cleaning
These took most of her time.
- Meals: three a day, served family style. Work on the next meal began while the last one was still being eaten.
- Housework: sweeping and cleaning, washing dishes and filling lamps, every day.
- Laundry: she had to do the "usual washing" — work clothes and bed linen. If she found the time, she could earn extra by washing fancy items, mending or pressing pleats.
Keeping order
The keeper also made sure the girls in her house were up and ready for work on time, went to Sunday services, kept a good moral character and obeyed the corporation's rules. Breaking those rules could cost either the keeper or the worker her place.
Keeping the books
Her most important job was probably keeping accurate records of money in and out. The corporation paid her for each boarder:
| When | Per boarder |
|---|---|
| At first | $1.25 taken from the mill worker's wages, plus $.25 from the corporation |
| By the mid-1840s | $1.50 from wages, plus the same $.25 |
Out of this she bought everything the house needed, food included, and whatever was left was her profit. She was always balancing two pressures: serving good, wholesome meals to keep the house full, and spending less than the corporation paid her. Her accounts were inspected regularly, and a keeper whose records were incomplete or wrong could be let go.
Ahead of her time
In many ways the keeper's job ran against the ideals of the day, which gave women few openings in business and fewer still in management. Yet in 1841 the writer Catherine Beecher held up the keeper as a model for other women, for her professional way of managing a household and keeping accurate records. Kindly stand-in mother and professional businesswoman, the keeper was both.
Sources
- Tess Shatzer, Supervisory Park Ranger, "Lyddie: Voices from the Field - Chapter 08 Boardinghouse Keepers", Lowell National Historical Park, National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/lyddie-voices-keepers.htm
- The engraving is shown in the park's companion article for chapter 7 of Lyddie. The source page's portrait of the author is not reproduced.
- Rewritten in hubnx's own words.
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