Lyddie: Chapter 17 - Doffer

Young spinner looks out a window

Hine, L. W., photographer. (1908) Rhodes Mfg. Co., Lincolnton, N.C. Spinner, 1908. November. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2018673673/.

Two weeks later, the doctor still won’t allow Lyddie to work. She is left with a lot of time to think, and she wonders why she hasn’t heard from Charlie . Lyddie writes again, thinking her previous letter must be lost. When Diana visits, Lyddie, worried about losing her job, asks if Mr. Marsden mentioned her. Diana laughs when she hears what Lyddie did, but assures Lyddie she still has a job.

Lyddie doesn’t hear back from her brother, but she does receive a letter from Quaker Stevens. He assures her that he will ask Judah directly about the sale of the farm. When Rachel tells Lyddie that she wants to work as a doffer, Lyddie goes to Mrs. Bedlow, asking if she can help Rachel get work. Though the mill is skeptical of Rachel's claimed age, she lands a job, which legitimizes her stay at the boardinghouse. Lyddie fights exhaustion her first few days back at the looms but is feeling better by the end of the week. She and Rachel are entertained when a phrenologist comes to the boardinghouse, offering to read people’s heads. Rachel wants the phrenologist to read her, but Lyddie sees it as a silly waste of money.

Lyddie wakes up to the sound of the horrible cough. She first thinks that it is Betsy again, but then realizes it is coming from Rachel. Horrified, she knows she can’t keep Rachel with her in Lowell. Lyddie runs through her options. They can’t go to the farm because there is no food. Can she send Rachel to Mistress Cutler at the tavern? No, she could never do that to her sweet sister. Her life changes again when she gets another surprise visitor at the boardinghouse.

Fact Check: Children in the Mills

Did young children work in the mills?

What do we know?

Most mill workers were at least 15 years old and considered adults. But some jobs, like doffing, were held by younger children, who were paid less. Doffers helped the operatives working on the spinning frames by taking full bobbins of yarn off the machine and replacing them with empty bobbins. They generally worked 15 minutes out of every hour, and could play in the corner in between working.

What is the evidence?

Primary Source:

“I was about ten years of age, when my mother…allowed me, at my urgent request (for I wanted to earn money like the other little girls), to go to work in the mill. I worked first in the spinning-room as a “doffer.” The doffers were the very youngest girls, whose work was to doff, or take off, the full bobbins, and replace them with the empty ones.
I can see myself now, racing down the ally, between the spinning-frames, carrying in front of me a bobbin-box bigger than I was. These mites had to be very swift in their movements so as not to keep the spinning-frames stopped long, and they worked only about fifteen minutes in every hour.”

Robinson, Harriet Hanson, Loom & Spindle, Kailua: Press Pacifica, 1898.

Primary Source:

“So I went to my first day’s work in the mill with a light heart. The novelty of it made it seem easy, and it really was not hard, just to change the bobbins on the spinning-frames every three quarters of an hour or so, with half a dozen other little girls who were doing the same thing…”

“There were compensations for being shut into daily toil so early. The mill itself had its lessons for us. But it was not, and could not be, the right sort of life for a child, and we were happy in the knowledge that, at the longest, our employment was only to be temporary.”

“[at first] was just play, but when you do the same thing twenty times – a hundred times a day – it is so dull.”

Larcom, Lucy, A New England Girlhood, New England: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1889.

Secondary Source:

“In contrast to adults, children worked under intense pressure for short periods broken by intervals of rest…Although children remained in the mills a full twelve-hour day, their work was less monotonous than that of regular operatives. Their schedule of intermittent hard effort and relaxation enabled them to ‘get away’ from their work, a privilege not shared by adults in the mills.”

Dublin, Thomas, Women at Work, New York: Columbia University Press, 1986

Photos & Multimedia

Prenology Chart. Phrenologist were people who claimed they could predict your personality traits by feeling the bumps on your head. People like this frequently visited boardinghouses, trying to get the mill girls to spend their money. Lowell National Historical Park

See it yourself

See spinning-frames at Slater Mill, Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park
https://www.nps.gov/blrv/learn/historyculture/slaterMill.htm

Writing Prompts

Opinion

How do you and your classmates help each other? If you were in charge of the rules for your classroom, what rules would you put in place to be sure everyone helped each other out? Include reasons that are supported with facts and details.

Informative/explanatory

Rachel begs Lyddie to let her work as a doffer. What are Lyddie’s reasons for not wanting Rachel to work? Cite evidence from the story.

Narrative

Imagine you are Rachel and write a letter to your brother Charlie describing your first day of work as a doffer on the Concord Corporation. Use concrete words and sensory details to convey the experience and event precisely.