After WWI, when the country was still dealing with the Spanish Flu, the employment landscape in the Merrimack Valley and in Lowell, in particular, was one of community belt-tightening and making due with less to stay above water, figuratively. But, here and there, the spirit of free enterprise still showed a promise for a better tomorrow for some, at least.
True that my grandfather, Pépère Charbonneau, had successfully become a recent, new entrepreneur in the milk delivery business to the point of purchasing a large and attractive house and barn on Hildreth Street to help manage his affairs.
However, the expected return of a vibrant textile capitalism had not, as yet, opened up new employment avenues for the skilled but, mostly unskilled immigrant workers, the so-called operatives, from the remaining mills. Yet, this was a period of new inventions and technologies, which would ultimately alter the economic realities of daily life for everyone, even the poor and almost destitute. The investment Yea-Sayers on Wall Street were shouting their glorious praises to human progress.
But, yet, there was no immediate joy in Mudville where the average wage-earner toiled, usually, from early morn to sundown without health insurance, disability pay, annual vacation days, retirement benefits, or even safe working conditions in the factories. Yet, these workers were expected to toil 50 to 60 hours a week (there often was no overtime rates) for very little salary. Some chose to use alcohol as a self-administered drug, and quite effectively, it seems.
Advances in electrical power generation, Tesla’s alternating technology in competition with Edison’s direct current approach, early attempts at the creation of aero-planes and their avionic systems plus the advent of the telephone and telegraph all promised the arrival of a brave new world of technological ease and well being.
But, how could Lowell’s many, low-skilled mill workers – some from the textile industry and, also, many others from the factories producing leather goods such as shoes, boots, etc. – even maintain a modest lifestyle if the upcoming, industrial skills of the day required workers that were well-trained in the use of electro-mechanical systems like lathes, power hammers, electric motors, band saws, fans, conveyor belts, compressors, pneumatic pumps, milling machines plus other machine tools, etc.?
Where could a former mill worker in the city – a family man or a single mother – pick up the needed new skills to actively compete in the bumpy, industrial marketplace of the 20th century? Also, were there attractive career opportunities in neighboring towns like Wilmington, Concord, Lexington or even Ayer (Fort Devens location) to merit a long daily ride on a bus to reach the work location?
Recall that intra-city bus transportation was still in the development stage in the 1920s and 1930s. Without job training in the new electro-mechanical skills, the eager job-seeker checking out a technician’s position at GE, Westington or Avco needed to expect many job rejections on his/her way to a decent career in these new industries. There were few places open for the former operatives of Lowell’s former textile powerhouses.