FACTORY GIRL BOARDING HOUSE BEDROOM OPENS OCTOBER 30!

On October 30, 2009, the Saco Museum will unveil a new permanent exhibit, "Making Her Way: Mill Girls of Saco and Biddeford." To celebrate the opening, Dr. Elizabeth A. DeWolfe, author of The Murder of Mary Bean and Other Stories, will present a lecture in the Deering Room about the dangers of life in New England factories. The Factory Girl Bedchamber is a preview of the Saco Museum’s new, upcoming permanent exhibition, Making History: Art and Industry in the Saco River Valley, which opens May 29, 2010.

The introduction of textile mills to New England changed the appearance of New England towns and the gender of the typical worker from men to women. These women were not only factory workers but also active consumers in the changing world of the mid 19th century. The first factory girls, primarily farmers’ daughters from New England, traveled great distances from their homes to work in the factories such as the York Manufacturing Company in Saco and Pepperrell Manufacturing Company in Biddeford. Mill girls were required to live in company-provided boarding houses, paying around $1.50 per week for room and board.

The Factory Girl Bedchamber will provide a glimpse into the lives of the early 19th- century factory girls with artifacts ranging from period furniture, textiles, and loom shuttles to letters, photographs, and sensational fiction. The Bedchamber will also feature a dress-up trunk, allowing visitors to experience the factory girl fashion of the 1840s and 1850s.

Photo credits: Winslow Homer (1836-1910), "The Clanking Shuttle," wood engraving, from The Song of the Sower by William Cullen Bryant, published by D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1871. Gift of Peter Morelli, 2004.


FALL LECTURE SERIES

Professor DeWolfe’s lecture on October 30 is part of a larger fall lecture series exploring topics and artifacts in the Saco Museum’s major exhibition for 2009, A Treasured Ten: A Decade of Collecting at the Saco Museum. Lectures will take place Fridays in October, beginning October 9, at 6 p.m. in the Deering Room of the Dyer Library. Lectures are free and open to the public. See our events page for more information.

A Treasured Ten: A Decade of Collecting at the Saco Museum was made possible by a grant from Saco & Biddeford Savings Institution.

Making History: Art and Industry in the Saco River Valley is funded by a Preserve America grant administered by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior, and by the Maine Humanities Council.