<P> Slater drew on his British village experience to create a factory system called the "Rhode Island System," based on the customary patterns of family life in New England villages . Children aged 7 to 12 were the first employees of the mill; Slater personally supervised them closely . The first child workers were hired in 1790 . It is highly unlikely that Slater resorted to physical punishment, relying on a system of fines . Slater first tried to staff his mill with women and children from afar, but that fell through due to the close - knit framework of the New England family . He then brought in whole families, creating entire towns . He provided company - owned housing nearby, along with company stores; he sponsored a Sunday School where college students taught the children reading and writing . </P> <P> The Waltham - Lowell system pioneered the use of a vertically integrated system . Here there was complete control over all aspects of production . Spinning, weaving, dying, and cutting were now completed in a single plant . This large amount of control made it so that no other company could interfere with production . The Waltham mill also pioneered the process of mass production . This greatly increased the scale of manufacturing . Water powered line shafts and belts now connected hundreds of power lines . The increase in manufacturing occurred so rapidly that there was no localized labor supply in the early 19th century that could have sufficed . Lowell solved this problem by hiring young women . </P> <P> After the successes of Samuel Slater, a group of investors now called The Boston Associates and led by Newburyport, Massachusetts merchant Francis Cabot Lowell devised a new textile operation on the Charles River in Waltham, Massachusetts, west of Boston . This new firm, the first in the nation to place cotton - to - cloth production under one roof, was incorporated as the Boston Manufacturing Company in 1814 . </P> <P> The Boston Associates tried to create a controlled system of labor unlike the harsh conditions they observed while in Lancashire, England . The owners recruited young New England farm girls from the surrounding area to work the machines at Waltham . The mill girls lived in company boarding houses and were subject to strict codes of conduct and supervised by older women . They worked about 80 hours per week . Six days per week, they woke to the factory bell at 4: 40am and reported to work at 5am and had a half - hour breakfast break at 7am They worked until a lunch break of 30 to 45 minutes around noon . The workers returned to their company houses at 7pm when the factory closed . This system became known as the Waltham System . </P>

Conditions in towns that used the waltham system included which of the following