‘The Factory’s Deaf’ning Sound’: Class, Technology, and the Sonic Environment in Lowell, Massachusetts”

• In Event: Sound, Labor and Environmental History

Abstract

The iconic case of early factory work in antebellum Lowell, Massachusetts, initially performed largely by young female operatives in a model city that attracted international publicity, has long been a staple of US history textbooks and surveys. In addition to the social historians, who have long examined Lowell for its fascinating elements ranging from the literary output of some the operatives to significant labor conflicts, it has also received some attention from environmental historians, particularly the roles of control and management of waterpower and the contrast in the operatives’ environmental perception in moving from countryside to city. However, the role of the sonic environment in early factory work has not been centered in previous scholarship. This paper applies a sensory history approach focused on the role of sound to better understand the environment of the early textile factory. In working long days at indoor labor in rooms with heavy machinery, Lowell’s textile workers were exposed to a newly harmful and damaging sonic environment, which deserves the same scrutiny that environmental historians have applied to other industrial exposures affecting the health of workers. By using the writings of early textile workers in Lowell, who commented on the various aspects of their sonic environment – not just on the loud machinery, which often left their ears ringing long afterward, but also about their keen awareness of the role of factory bells and other sounds in their new industrial lives – in conjunction with scientific evidence about the effects of industrial environments on hearing, this paper argues that environmental historians should pay more attention to sound as a part of environmental history. In addition to bringing together sensory and environmental history, this paper also integrates other key subfields such as histories of disability, class/capitalism, health/medicine, and technology.

Author

• Jeremy Vetter, University of Arizona