Photographic Records of Ludlow Mills
By: Kendra G., Dylan C., Dolores F., Chris D.
What do you think life was like working in the Ludlow Mills
100 years ago?
Could you tell what kind of people worked there?
How safe do you think the machinery was?
Large mill room
Ludlow Manufacturing Associates
For our
primary sources, we had a photo album titled Ludlow Manufacturing Associates,
Photographic Records of Mills and Village: Individual Machines Vol. IV and
some other loose photos.
From our observations we learned that the pictures were taken in the early 1900’s. The pictures ranged from 1901-1915. In one of the photographs we saw children, from about fifteen to nineteen years old, and also many men and women. Most of the workers were middle aged, and because we know that there were many Polish people in Ludlow in the early 1900’s, we believe the workers were mostly Polish. Then, more towards 1915, we know that more Portuguese people moved to Ludlow, and there was a surge of Portuguese workers in the mills.
Women at work
The working atmosphere in the mills also didn’t seem very good. There were jute fibers everywhere. They were on the ground in piles, in the air, and there was even a layer on the lights and pipes near the ceiling. There were some fans in the buildings, but they probably didn’t do much to diminish the amount of jute in the air. There were also many windows in the mills, but they looked like they were kept closed. Not only that, but the machines they operated were very dangerous. The machines were opened up, and had many exposed, moving parts. There were also exposed leather belts coming from the ceiling to power the machines. They moved quickly and were covered with little metal caps. The wiring they had was not very good. There was a recorded accident concerning exposed wires that had caught fire after shorting out. The bad wiring may have caused a constant threat of fire.
Men working with raw jute
The worked
they performed looked boring, repetitive, and hard. There wasn’t
a single smiling face in any of the photographs we observed. We feel that
maybe they didn’t find their job enjoyable.
With just a quick look at some of these pictures, you can learn a little history of the Ludlow Mill workers.