Dickens, the Mill Girls, and the Making of A Christmas Carol

Natalie McKnight, Boston University

Dickens, the Mill Girls, and

the Making ofA Christmas Carol

Diana Archibald, U. Mass, Lowell, for conceiving of and coordinating the Dickens in America conference in 2002 and the Dickens in Massachusetts exhibit at the Lowell National Historic Park in 2012 and for organizing the lecture series that ran in conjunction with the exhibit.

Chelsea Bray, BU 2013, currently M.A. student at B.C., for the undergraduate research she did on this project.

Acknowledgements:

Portrait of Dickens by Francis Alexander, 1842

Boott Cotton Mill, Lowellwhich Dickens visited Feb., 1842

Lowell Mill Girls (who “thronged” Dickens on the stairs):

“These girls . . . were all well dressed: and that phrase necessarily includes extreme cleanliness. . . . They were healthy in appearance, many of the remarkably so, and had the manners and deportment of young women: not of degraded brutes of burden. If I had seen in one of those mills (but I did not, though I looked for something of this kind with a sharp eye), the most lisping, mincing, affected and ridiculous young creature that my imagination could suggest, I should have thought of the careless, moping, slatternly, degraded, dull reverse (I have seen that), and should have been still well pleased to look upon her.”

Dickens comments on the mill girls:

Young child mill worker in England:

Dickens comments in 1838 on factory conditions in England:“I went, some weeks ago, to Manchester, and saw

the worst cotton mill. And then I saw the best. . . .There was no great difference between them. . . . [what I saw] has disgusted and astonished me beyond all measure. I mean to strike the heaviest blow in my power for these unfortunate creatures, but whether I shall do so in the “Nickleby,” or wait some other opportunity, I have not yet determined” (Letter to E. M. Fitzgerald, 29 December 1838).

He ended up striking “the blow” in A Christmas Carol 5 years later in 1843; the year before, 1842, he visited Lowell.

Matthew Crabtree—started in factory at age 8 working 14 hour days, 16 hours when business was brisk

Lived 2 miles from mill, adding over an hour in commuting to his work day

When late for work, “I was most commonly beaten”Or Elizabeth Bentley, started in flax mill at 6 years

old, worked 13 hour days, 16 when busyLived too far to go home for mid-day meal so ate in

the mill, with her food covered in dust and was “strapped” when she didn’t work quickly enough

(from Sadler Committee Report, Parliamentary Papers)

Child labor practices in UK in 1830s:

Compare this to Lowell mill workers:

12 hour daysChildren got 3 months off per year

Workers lived in pleasant boarding houses right by the mill

Lowell mill house dining room:

Cover of the Lowell Offering:

“Of the merits of the Lowell Offering as a literary production, I will only observe, putting entirely out of sight the fact of the articles having been written by these girls after the arduous labours of the day, that it will compare advantageously with a great many English Annuals. It is pleasant to find that many of its Tales are of the Mills and of those who work in them; that they inculcate habits of self-denial and contentment, and teach good doctrines of enlarged benevolence. A strong feeling for the beauties of nature . . . breathes through its pages like wholesome village air . . .”

“I brought away four hundred good solid pages, which I have read from beginning to end” (American Notes, chapter 4)

Dickens comments on Lowell Offering:

“The Blessings of Memory,” by “Dorothea” (October 1840)Theme: We need to appreciate the

benefits of memory since it sustains us even more than hope

Phrasings: “we allow ourselves so little time for sober retrospection. Unreal phantoms too often supplant the joys of memory. The Hero of yesterday is forgotten, while the Idol of to-day engrosses our attention! To-morrow is destined to become the sepulcher of To-day.”

The importance of keeping memory alive is a key theme in the Carol and other Christmas books and in many L.O pieces. Scrooge’s conversion begins when the Ghost of Christmas Past makes him relive memories and reconnect to past joys and sorrows so he can feel again.

Imagery: phantoms, the spirit-world, sepulcherStructure: Yesterday-Today-TomorrowLanguage: similar to the phrasing used by

Scrooge’s fiancé when breaking their engagement:“Another idol has displaced me. . . . The

master- passion, Gain, engrosses you” (2.65)

Similarities to Christmas Carol:

“Blessings” vs. “Carol”“the Idol of to-day

engrosses our attention!

To-morrow is destined to become the sepulcher of To-day”Yesterday-Today-

Tomorrow structureMemory vs death

(sepulchre)phantoms

“Another idol has displaced me. . . . The master-passion Gain, engrosses you.”

Past-Present-Future structure

Memory vs. death (sepulchre)

phantoms

Other dominant themes shared by L.O and C.C.:Happiness is not to be found in riches or other

material gains:“Who would ask for the wealth of a Croesus, if to

obtain it, he must sacrifice ‘the soul’s calm sunshine, and the heart-felt joy.’” (“Beauty and Wealth,” October 1840)

“there is no connecting link between riches and happiness, nor between misery and poverty. . . . Happiness is not the offspring of wealth” (“Contentment,” December 1840)

“with how much more ardor does [Man]pursue the things which are merely worldly. . . Than the rich treasures . . . Which know no decay” (“The Nature of Man,” 1840

Continued: “virtue alone is happiness. . . .

Whether it be found in the obscurity of the cottage, or amidst the dazzle and grandeur of a lordly potentate” (“Reflections at Home,” by “Dorothea,” February 1841)

Obviously this is not a new theme, but it’s preponderance in L.O. is noteworthy, particularly considering that the next two works that Dickens pens, Martin Chuzzlewit and A Christmas Carol, focus on this theme and make it a major structural device

Spirits and dream visions in L.O.:“The Sea of Genius”“A Marvelous

Incident”“A Visit from Hope”“Happiness”“A Vision of Truth”“Memory and Hope”All from 1841 (Feb.,

Apr.,May and Aug. issues)

Other similarities in theme & image:

Spirits and dream visions in C.C.:

Opens with a spirit visitation: “’Past twelve!’ said a sweet, musical voice, as I was seated by the expiring embers of a wood fire. I turned hastily to see who had thus intruded on my presence, when, lo! I beheld an old man. His thin white locks were parted on his forehead, his form was bent, and as he extended his thin, bony hand toward me, it shook like an aspen leaf” (“A Visit from Hope,” 39-40)

The spirit appears to the speaker much as Marley appears to Scrooge late at night as he leans over “a very low fire indeed” (Christmas Carol, 1.43), cont. . .

E.g.: “A Visit from Hope,” (April 1841)

Spirit of Hope:Starts old but grows

youngerWhite hairedTakes protagonist to

visit scenes from her youth

She will “endeavor to profit by the advice he [the spirit] gave me”

Looks both old and young, “like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man”

White hairedTakes Scrooge to view

scenes from his youth“I will not shut out the

lessons that they [the spirits] teach”

Similarities btw “Hope” and “Ghost of Christmas Past”

Ghost of Christmas Past:

“Memory and Hope”Protagonist approached by

2 spiritsOne spirit is “slender and

fairy-like”The other “fair but with the

reflection of age”“I shall profit by the advice

of Memory” (177)Title would be good sub-

title for the Carol (as would “ A Visit from Hope”)

Protagonist approached by 3 spirits

Similar to Christmas PastSimilar to Christmas Present

(1,800+ years old and gets older-looking by the end of the stave)

“I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach” (4.110).

Another example: similarities between “Memory and Hope”and the Carol:

A Christmas Carol

Ignorance and Want in A Christmas Carol (dark doubles of Memory and Hope?)

Another example: “Christmas,” by TabithaExtols Christmas as

best time of yearFinds happiness in

the humbleEnds with a vow to

live a better life

Like Fred’s speech in CC: “I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time . . . As a good time: a kind, forgiving charitable, pleasant time”Finds happiness in

humble scenesEnds with vow to live a

better life

Other known influences on A Christmas Carol:Dickens’s own “The

Goblins Who Stole a Sexton,” an interpolated tale from Pickwick Papers

But the goblins are silly, cartoonish characters, unlike the C.C. spirits

And the Sexton, Gabriel Grub, does not translate his encounter into positive actions

Devastating report on child labor practices in England which Dickens read 7 months before composing the Carol

He wrote to Dr. Southwood Smith, the health reformer who sent him the report, “I am so perfectly stricken down by the blue book you have sent me, that I think . . . Of writing . . . a very cheap pamphlet, called “An appeal to the People of England on behalf of the Poor Man’s Child”

He never wrote the pamphlet, but later wrote Smith that he would see “a Sledge hammer has come down with twenty times the force—twenty thousand times the force I could exert by following out my first idea.”

Another influence: Second Report of the Children’s Employment Commission

What was the “Sledge hammer” blow?Pilgrim edition of

Dickens’s letters suggest that it was A Christmas Carol, that came out at the end of the year

Particularly the portraits of Ignorance and Want

These portraits might also be the “blow” he promised E. M. Fitzgerald back in 1838 after visiting Manchester factories

But how do they relate to factory children???

Lowell offered the best possible response to the Second Report of the Childrens’ Employment Commission, and to

Dickens’s visit to Manchester factories, because

Lowell offered more than an attack— it offered a solution

Industry conducted humanely, manufacturing and the arts in harmony, healthy and attractive living accommodations for the workers.

Lowell would be in his mind as he worked to strike his “blow,” so naturally words, images, and themes from The Lowell Offering would be resonating with him as he wrote.

Is Lowell the missing link?

More active and interesting female characters (Compare Rose Maylie, Kate Nickleby, Little Nell to their post-Lowell counterparts: Sarah Gamp, Edith Dombey, Lady Dedlock, Estella, Miss Havisham)

Combines art and industry in his writing process more consciously after 1842 (more well-planned works of fiction from then on—using working notes and central themes to unify the narratives as can be seen in Martin Chuzzlewit and even more so in A Christmas Carol.

Paul Schlicke, ed. of Oxford Reader’s Companion to Dickens, refers to the Carol as “the most perfect work Dickens ever wrote” . . .

Lowell also influenced his fiction from 1843 onward:

And the Lowell mill girls deserve some credit for its perfection!