were generally long in the factories. As a rule only the skilled artisan
had achieved the ten-hour day, and then only in isolated instances.
Woman's labor was the poorest paid, and her condition was the most
neglected. A visitor to Lowell in 1846 thus describes the conditions in
an average factory of that town:

"In Lowell live between seven and eight thousand young women, who are
generally daughters of farmers of the different States of New England.
Some of them are members of families that were rich the generation
before.... The operatives work thirteen hours a day in the summer
time, and from daylight to dark in the winter. At half-past four in
the morning the factory bell rings and at five the girls must be in the
mills. A clerk, placed as a watch, observes those who are a few
minutes behind the time, and effectual means are taken to stimulate
punctuality.... At seven the girls are allowed thirty minutes for
breakfast, and at noon thirty minutes more for dinner, except during
the first quarter of the year, when the time is extended to forty-five
minutes. But within this time they must hurry to their boarding-houses
and return to the factory.... At seven o'clock in the evening the
factory bell sounds the close of the day's work."

It was under these conditions that the cooperative movement had its
brief day of experiment. As early as 1828 the workmen of Philadelphia
and Cincinnati had begun cooperative stores. The Philadelphia group were
"fully persuaded," according to their constitution, "that nothing short
of an entire change in the present regulation of trade and commerce will
ever be permanently beneficial to the productive part of the community."
But their little shop survived competition for only a few months. The
Cincinnati "Cooperative Magazine" was a sort of combination of store and
shop, where various trades were taught, but it also soon disappeared.

In 1845 the New England Workingmen's Association organized a protective
union for the purpose of obtaining for its members "steady and
profitable employment" and of saving the retailer's profit for the
purchaser. This movement had a high moral flavor. "The dollar was to
us of minor importance; humanitary and not mercenary were our motives,"
reported their committee on organization of industry. "We must proceed
from combined stores to combined shops, from combined shops to combined
homes, to joint ownership in God's earth, the foundation that our
edifice mu