| The Mill Workers |
The 1810 Federal census reported a population of roughly 300 people for Fall River. The original mill workers were drawn from the local inhabitants. Sallie Winters, Mary Healy and Hannah Borden, all 14 years of age, operated the first power looms in the Fall River Manufactory in 1817. Hannah Borden later reminisced about the early mills in a newspaper article. She described the long hours, the primitive equipment, being paid at the Company store (and being cheated out of part of her pay). She was related to the mill owners however and was able to redress her grievances with David Anthony, the mill treasurer. Owners and workers were related in extended families so that there were only individual grievances and no organized labor/management disputes.
As the mill owners started expanding in the 1830s, they bought spinning machines and other mill machinery in England. Operating the mule fiber spinning machines required skill and strength. It was only natural that the mill owners hired English mule spinners. The mill owners soon realized that they had a pig in a poke. Manchester in Lancastashire had a history of labor agitation. The mill workers had developed sophisticated techniques in battling for their rights. The owners had responded with the lockout and the Blacklist. In many cases, spinners who were blacklisted in Manchester packed their bags and emigrated to Fall River. The mill owners had satisfied their need for skilled spinners, but had introduced mill workers who were aware of their rights and willing to fight for them. Second generation Irish, such as Robert Howard were included in this cohort. The guttural Lancashire accent was now heard in the mills competing with the nasal Yankee accent.
The founding dates of the churches serve as a guide to the emigration of all the subsequent nationalities Irish - Irish came mainly from the Beara Peninsula in County Cork. Many lived in Corky Row, east of "below the hill." Original Irish may have migrated from the coal mines in Portsmouth, RI or after the fire of 1843 or the construction of the mills. Started in the mills after the 1843 fire when the wages were reduced. The first Roman Catholic church service was held in 1829. St John's, a wooden church, was built in 1837. The next church on the same site, St. Mary's, was made of granite built in 1852. Two more parishes, Sacred Heart and St Patrick, opened in 1873. As a consequence of the Penal Laws in Ireland, the Irish had no infrastructure except for the clergy. The priests became the leaders by default.
French Canadians started moving in after the Civil War. The Fall River French Canadians migrated mainly from the Yamaska Valley in Quebec on the northern border with Vermont. First services were in 1869. Their first church was Ste. Anne's in 1872 which served the "below the hill" area. Later, Migrate back and fourth to Canada. Later as they grew older and the children who grew up in Fall River, the French Canadians tended to remain in the city. Notre Dame built in the Flint 1874. The"Flint Affair" occurred at Notre Dame parish in the Flint section of Fall River. The French Canadian parishes built big with hospitals, orphanages, high schools. Their form of Catholicism differed from that of the Irish. Brought a complete, infrastructure (doctors, lawyers, newspapers, storekeepers)
Portuguese came from the Azores Islands. First church, Santo Cristo, started when a Portuguese priest from New Bedford opened a mission in 1891. Santo Cristo was located below the hill and showed that the Portuguese were following the path trod by earlier national groups.
"The Portuguese community at Fall River has been the second largest in the United states since the beginning of this century (although rivaled at times in this position by Oakland, California, if we include the immediate surroundings of that city). The Portuguese did not begin to settle in Fall River in any appreciable numbers until about 1890, when they responded to the labor demand of a rapidly expanding cotton industry. The Fall River mills aimed direct recruiting efforts at the most populous Azorean island, Sao Miguel, in the eastern part of the archipelago. As a result, Fall River' Portuguese assumed a predominately Sao Miguelian or "Micaelense" character, as distinguishable from the western Azorean type as from the Maderiran or Continental in dialect, local traditions and other traits. By 1920 the Portuguese constituted about one-fifth of the city's total population of 120,000, with Columbia Street (soon known as "Portuguese Street") serving as their main thoroughfare."
extracted from Leo Pap, "Portuguese-Americans," 1981
Polish - What area of Poland did the Polish workers come from? St. Stanislaus, Globe founded in 1898 and Holy Cross, Maplewood founded in 1917.
Plymouth Avenue was the boundary between the two parishes.
Holy Rosary opened in 1903 in the Flint near the Beattie granite quarry. Many of the Italians did not like mill work preferring instead to work as quarry men or operate a small business. The Fall River Italians came mainly from the Provinces of Calabria, Molise and Campania in the south of Italy. A smaller group of Northern Italians from Tuscany settled in the Globe and Maplewood sections of Fall River. [This material was abstracted from the thesis, "Fall River's First Italians, 1872-1914" submitted by John J. Conforti in March 1975 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of the Master of Arts to the Graduate School of Bridgewater State.]Return to Top
What area of Russia do they come from? Founded first synagogue "below the hill" in 1891 (Jewish Chapel on Union Street near Hope Street). Many Russians in Fall River entered retail trade in preference to working in the mills.
Greek Orthodox church (St. Demetrius, Cherry Street near North Main Street) founded in 1931.
Syrians/Lebanese - St. Anthony of the Desert. Church established in the Flint in 1911. Father Eid was an inspiring leader
There is a pecking order based on the skill required, the wages paid and the strength needed to perform in the mill occupations. The mule spinners were at the top of the heap. In any strike, the mule spinners were the one occupation that the mill owners could not replace. Then the machinists, the weavers, the doffers, the slashers, the speeder tenders, the openers and finally the sweepers.
Return to TopMule Spinners - The elite of the mill workers. Required years of training to become proficient. Walked 25 miles during a shift. Worked, in many cases, stripped to the waist and bare footed.
Ring Spinners - Ring spinning required less physical strength and less training. Women could operate the equipment. As ring spinning machines improved, they became competitive with mules in producing yarn strong enough to be as warp yarn in weaving cloth.
Machinists - In the early years, mills manufactured much of their machinery or purchased them locally. As the machines became standardized, more machines were bought from national machine suppliers.
Weavers - Wove cloth on the power looms from spun yarn. The weaver's skills were incorporated into the machinery over time; so that the loom operator's skills become less necessary.
Stokers/Firemen - Fed coal into the maw of the steam boilers. My grandfather was a stoker. He died on his way to work at age 75 in 1923. Social Security didn't come in until 1935.
Doffers - removed full bobbins from spindles during spinning.
Slashers - applied starch solutions to spun yarns to strengthen the yarns during the power loom weaving stage.
Speeder tenders - My aunt became a speedo tender in 1892 at age 13. She had to stand on a box to reach her working surface.
Openers - Opened the cotton bales and loosened the cotton fibers prior to cleaning and straightening (lap, roving) steps.
Sweepers - Sweeping, removing debris from mill rooms.