<P> The Lowell Mill Girls were young female workers who came to work in industrial corporations in Lowell, Massachusetts, during the Industrial Revolution in the United States . The workers initially recruited by the corporations were daughters of propertied New England farmers, typically between the ages of 15 and 35 . By 1840, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, the textile mills had recruited over 8,000 women, who came to make up nearly three - quarters of the mill workforce . </P> <P> During the early period, women came to the mills of their own accord, for various reasons: to help a brother pay for college, for the educational opportunities offered in Lowell, or to earn supplementary income . While their wages were only half of what men were paid, many were able to attain economic independence for the first time, free from controlling fathers and husbands . As a result, while factory life would soon come to be experienced as oppressive, it enabled these women to challenge gender stereotypes . </P>

Who did lowell hire to work in his factory