This highly optimistic picture, written by a sanguine observer
from the land of greatest agrarian oppression, must be shaded by
contrasting details. The truck system of payment, prevalent in
mining regions and many factory towns, reduced the actual wage by
almost one-half. In the cities, unskilled immigrants had so
overcrowded the common labor market that competition had reduced
them to a pitiable state. Hours of labor 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."