American Labor Movement

The next step involves the manufacture of textiles, mainly in the South, which experienced significant changes. First, the material processed changed from linen and wool to cotton. The way cotton was grown and prepared changed with the invention of the cotton engine and the reinvention of the plantation. New technology was introduced in agriculture. The scarcity of labor and the growth of markets for agricultural products encouraged the introduction of machinery to the farms. Machinery increased productivity so that fewer hands could produce more food per acre. New plows, seed drills, cultivators, mowers, and threshers, as well as the reaper, all appeared by 1860. After that, better harvesters and binding machines came into use, as did the harvester-threshers known as combines. Farmers also used limited steam power in the late 19th century, and by about 1905 they began using gasoline-powered tractors. The introduction of this new technology brought many advantages to the United States. It sped up manufacturing, made it possible to exploit natural resources of any kind, improved the transportation system, and offered the opportunity to perform different duties in an easier and shorter way. However, not everybody saw industrialization in a good light, for it deeply affected those who had a stake in the traditional economy.
             One of the industries that experienced those changes the most was the business of shoemaking in Lynn. Previous to the introduction of the original sewing machines, which are now universally used for binding and stitching, little or no improvement or even change had been made in the manufacture of shoes. The awl, the bristle, the hammer, and the lapstone were, as they had been for years, the main appliances of the shoemakers. Nevertheless, as technology improved, women's fingers were found inadequate to the demand, and sewing machines soon transformed the old-fashioned shoe-binder into a new and more expensive class of "machine girls" whose capacity for labor was only limited by the capabilities of the machines over which they presided.