Sarah G. Bagley
Sarah George Bagley was a notable figure in early labor reform, born in the early 1800s in Candia, New Hampshire. She was the third of five children in a family that faced financial hardships due to her father's property disputes. Bagley began her working life in cotton mills, eventually moving to Lowell, Massachusetts, in search of employment. Her experience in the mills, combined with her education and teaching background, positioned her as a leader among her peers. In 1844, she founded the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association, making her the first female labor leader in the United States. Through this organization, she advocated for improved working conditions, a ten-hour workday, and legislative investigations into labor practices, although her efforts faced significant challenges. A decline in her health led her to leave the mill industry, but she remained active in labor reform, contributing to various organizations and publications. Despite her impactful work, little is known about her later life, and it is speculated that she may have died around 1848 after caring for her ailing father. Bagley’s legacy is a testament to early female activism in labor rights, highlighting the struggles and contributions of women in industrial America.
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Subject Terms
Sarah G. Bagley
Labor Leader
- Born: April 29, 1806
- Birthplace: Candia, New Hampshire
- Died: c. 1848
- Place of death: United States
Biography
Sarah George Bagley was born in Candia, New Hampshire, in the early 1800’s. She was the third of five children of Nathan and Rhoda Witham Bagley. Her father was a prosperous farmer, while her mother came from a less affluent family. The family moved from Candia to Gilford, New Hampshire, in 1814, and finally settled in the town of Meredith Bridge (now Laconia), New Hampshire, in 1827.
Little is known of Bagley’s youth. It is believed that she worked in cotton mills in New Hampshire before her September, 1837, arrival in search of factory work at the Hamilton Company of Lowell, Massachusetts. Sarah pursued work in this area likely because of family financial problems that were caused by her father’s involvement in a property dispute during the 1820’s; it was not unusual for young farmwomen to work in the mills for several years to save money for their future marriages. It is likely that Sarah possessed at least a rudimentary formal education, as she testified that she often taught night classes to her coworkers after long days of work at the mill. She was older and more experienced and had more education than the average “factory girl.”
During the 1840’s, however, conditions in the mill industry deteriorated, due in part to the influx of poor Irish immigrants providing inexpensive labor. Mill owners then proceeded to decrease wages, increase hours, and increase housing rates charged to all workers. Subsequently, unrest in the ranks of the women mill workers arose due to these conditions. Sadly, many workers were economically trapped due to limited work options elsewhere. Long, arduous days also left women unable to improve their minds or participate in civic duties as contributing citizens.
This situation prompted Sarah Bagley to organize the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association in December 1844, serving as its first president, and as the first female labor leader in the United States. The union called for improved working conditions and a ten-hour day, and demanded an investigation of Lowell mill working conditions by a committee of the Massachusetts legislature. Despite petitions, pamphlets, and other pressures extending over a period of a year, the legislature declined to take any action on behalf of the female mill workers. However, Bagley successfully spearheaded the petition drive that forced Massachusetts’s legislators to investigate conditions in the mills, the first state investigation into labor conditions.
By early 1845, Sarah Bagley had left her mill job, exacerbated by an unnamed illness she had contracted from working conditions in the mill. She continued as a labor leader and organizer, organizing branches of the Female Labor Reform Association in Waltham and Fall River in Massachusetts and Manchester, Nashua, and Dover in New Hampshire.
Her experience in Lowell showed her that laborers of both genders would need to cooperate to effect positive change in labor law; she joined the New England Workingmen’s Association and was appointed corresponding secretary of the organization in 1845. She was a contributing editor to the organization’s journal Voice of Industry. She used her writing skills to further her activity in labor and industrial reform pursuits through symposia, pamphlets on labor topics, and the successful demise of the Lowell Offering, a pro-management journal that ceased publication at the end of 1845.
The ten-hour movement largely disintegrated in 1846 following the Massachusetts’s legislature refusal to act. Sarah Bagley, her health declining, became superintendent of the Lowell telegraph office and is believed to have been the nation’s first female telegraph operator. She continued contributions to the Voice of Industry until October, 1846; she completed her tenure as president of the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association in February, 1847. In April, 1848, she briefly returned to work at the Hamilton Company, working there for only five months before returning to New Hampshire to care for her elderly father who soon died of typhoid fever at the end of September, 1848.
Researchers have been trying to discover what happened to Sarah Bagley after this date. It is possible that she died in 1848 not long after her father, as she had an unnamed chronic disease contracted from the mill, and was physically and mentally exhausted from her efforts on behalf of the union. It is theoretically possible that she married and moved away; however, this is only remotely plausible for a woman of her era, as she was middle-aged and without wealth.