ABSTRACT
When a textile mill was built in an early New England or Lancashire community, it was frequently the first large-scale employer in the area and the manufacturer was competing with neighbouring employers for the best workers. Consequently, in order to obtain and retain workers, mill managers rapidly learned management techniques for their male and female, adult and child, workers. At certain firms the management strategies used enabled large-scale operations.1 However, these techniques did not necessarily imply efficiency ratios or technological advancement. Nor should they imply employees’ passive acceptance of management decisions. Instead, local idiosyncrasies create a more complex picture of employment patterns in the cotton industry than historians have previously ascribed. However, this local model must be juxtaposed within the regional models that have emphasized gender divisions of labour based on technology and the corresponding skills these machines required, both of which held gender associations.
