April twenty-third, 1833:
Into the morning dew stepped Katie Halbery.
With a hug a suitcase heavy with home,
footprints trailed to women’s unknown.

She was an explorer—a pioneer
helping to widen the women’s sphere.
But employed life in the mill would not let it grow,
as once hopeful women soon came to know.

Yearning for independence, Katie traveled to the Lowell mill,
but after eight years of labor, she had not received it still.
These factories sought employees like Katie—
young women not bound to school or to babies.

What mill owners liked most—though they tried to pretend—
was that women would work for half the wages of men.
And to further control and oppress,
employees were kept under surveillance.

Each worker had to return to the boarding house by ten o’clock
and those who did not obey were fired on the spot.
Complaints about working conditions were forbidden
for fear that too much power would be gained by these women.

Each employee had to act with “temperance” and “virtue,”
and to keep faith, they were each required to purchase a church pew.
Honesty, cleanliness, and frugality were heavily stressed:
Between working and “self-improvement,” they could never rest.

Many women still clung to the illusory dream,
but factory life was not what it once seemed.
Conditions were poor and hours were many;
each hour earning little more than a penny.

And to keep employees under control,
the Lowell Offering was offered to Lowell.
“This publication is your voice,” Lowell mill girls were told,
but the contents of its pages were strictly controlled.

The theme of self-improvement filled pages and pages
with no mention of factory conditions or wages.
Promoting learning and culture was that publication’s mission
to preoccupy workers from working conditions.

Soon it was clear: the Offering did not offer fact.
So employees published their own “Factory Tracts.”
In these publications, the truth was confessed,
marking the beginning of the American labor press.

Though workers were told they had no say
in matters of working hours or pay,
the “Factory Tracts” gave workers the choice
to publish their writing; to echo their voice.

Men heard the call, but did not lend a hand
to help their counterparts; their fellow working women.
Mill girls were a cause all their own:
barred from men’s unions; they struggled alone.

Katie remained a mill employee
until the day she was to marry.
But this union too gave no freedom to her;
the fire of change left to flame on the back burner.

Is this what Katie hoped to be?
Do her footprints lead to a place that’s free?
Sisters, how long must we fight?
Even today, our flame burns bright.