A boardinghouse block built in 1837 for Boott Cotton Mills workers was one of eight owned and managed by the Boott Corporation and part of dozens of company-owned boardinghouses that housed thousands of young, single women known as Lowell's mill girls. Conditions were crowded and rules were strict, with a 10 p.m. curfew, mandatory church attendance, and prohibitions on improper behavior. Even so, the boardinghouse fostered shared experience and solidarity among workers. As working conditions worsened, Yankee women resisted through strikes and petition drives, and when their protests were ignored, they began to leave the mills. Immigrants later came to Lowell for mill work as well, but they usually chose ethnic neighborhoods rather than corporation boardinghouses.

Photo: William Fischer, Jr.

Photo: William Fischer, Jr.