The
first president of the Association was the brilliant and able Sarah
G. Bagley. She and other delegates went before the Massachusetts
legislative committee in 1845, and gave evidence as to the conditions
in the textile mills. This, the first American governmental
investigation, was brought about almost solely in response to the
petitions of the working-women, who had already secured thousands of
signatures of factory operatives to a petition asking for a ten-hour
law.
The Lowell Association had their correspondent to the _Voice of
Industry_, and also a press committee to take note of and contradict
false statements appearing in the papers concerning factory
operatives. They had most modern ideas on the value of publicity,
and neglected no opportunity of keeping, the workers' cause well in
evidence, whether through "factory tracts," letters to the papers,
speeches or personal correspondence. They boldly attacked legislators
who were false to their trust, and in one case, at least, succeeded
in influencing an election, helping to secure the defeat of William
Schouler, chairman of that legislative committee before which the
women delegates had appeared, which they charged with dishonesty in
withholding from the legislature all the most important facts brought
forward by the trade-union witnesses.
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