Literature / The Factory Witches of Lowell

Unbound, we come// to bind ourselves.
By hair of head,// we make a vow.
We form this now:
Fact'ry Girls// Union of Lowell.
No work we'll do,// in mill, at loom,
until our demands// are heard and met,
and sisters agree// our strike's at end.

— The Mill Girls' Spell

A Historical Fantasy novella C. S. Malerich first published in 2020, The Factory Witches of Lowell follows the women working in a Massachusetts textile factory of the early 1800's who (with the aid of a little magic) go on strike for fair wages and safer working conditions, and the love story that blooms between a union girl and a reluctant witch.

For the young women of Lowell, Massachusetts, freedom means fair wages for fair work, decent room and board, and a chance to escape the cotton mills before the lint and cotton dust stops up their lungs. So when the mill owners off in Boston aim to increase profits by raising the workers’ rent, the girls retaliate by going on strike. Their ringleader is Judith Whittier, a newcomer to Lowell but not to class warfare — Judith has already seen one strike fold and she doesn’t intend to let Lowell's workers suffer the same fate. A Union and a picket line are good starts, but they aren't enough to get the mill girls what they want. Fortunately, Judith has an ace up her sleeve in the form of Hannah Pickering, another mill girl with a gift for the dying art of witchcraft.

With Hannah's craft to bind the Factory Girls Union together, the mill girls present their demands and begin recruiting other workers to their cause. They'll have to deal with a host of perils to keep up their united front, including an agent quick to jump on the suspicion of witchcraft in their ranks; the threat of strikebreakers shipped in from Boston; families back home who depend on the girls and their income to survive; and the looming specter of lung disease that slowly but surely chokes the life out of the girls who work the looms for too long. It's in the midst of this turmoil that Hannah and Judith find their friendship growing into something else magical.

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Tropes Found in The Factory Witches of Lowell:

• Based on a True Story: Lowell is a real town in Massachusetts, and it was hugely important in the East Coast textile industry of the 1800's. The industry did employ hundreds of young women in its factories, and they did work under deplorable conditions. The real life "Mill Girls" of Lowell went on strike, both in 1834 and 1836. In both cases the strikes were broken without any concessions granted to the workers, who continued to press for better working conditions through political action for the next decade. The book differs in that it presents a version of events where the mill girls' strike succeeds with the assistance of a sickly witch and a pugnacious labor organizer, kicking off the American labor movement a few decades early.
• Blood Magic: Downplayed and Zig-Zagged — Blood can be used as a medium for magic, but the novella only features spells cast with hair and saliva. Hannah and Judith have a discussion about those mediums while they brainstorm ways to get the looms to join their strike. Blood, saliva, hair, bone, and even shadow are all mentioned. Judith later summarizes the talk for fellow mill worker Lydia:
  "Hair is the perfect vessel for oaths of friendship and camaraderie. Blood for family. But spit... is for the passions."
• Dangerous Workplace: The mills are noisy, cramped, dark, poorly ventilated, and literally making the workers sick. The girls work thirteen hours a day, six days a week, for as long as the river isn't frozen over and turns the waterwheel that powers the looms. They're continuously breathing in cotton lint (which causes lung diseases like Byssinosis) or at risk of injuring themselves with the dangerous belt-driven machinery. When there's no sunlight, the floors are lit by lamps that burn smoky, smelly whale oil (and with the lack of ventilation, the workers end up breathing the smoke for hours a day). Girls start work at 5:00 am and work until 6:00 pm or later, since there are no clocks in the building and they're forced to rely on the tyrannical overseers to know when they're free to go. One of the conditions of the strike is that the mill's owners renovate the buildings to introduce adequate lighting and ventilation to make the floor safer for workers. Another is that the workday be capped at ten hours, from 8 am to 6 pm, with clocks posted throughout the factory so that they aren't exploited.
• De-power: By the end of the story, Hannah has either lost or exhausted all her magic and doesn't believe she'll ever be able to cast any more spells or act as a Seer. Rather than being upset, she's glad to have a chance at a normal life.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: The magic system imagined by author Malerich centers on the idea of "ownership" or "dominion" — even if one has the gift for witchcraft, they must hold sway over the subject of their spell in order to do magic. This law of magic is bound to manmade property law, since those who are enslaved aren't able to perform magic as they are legally considered property (and therefore disallowed dominion over themselves). Hannah even goes so far as to compare enslaved people to animal chattel, noting that her powers allow her to see "demons" or "succubae" that feed on the souls of the subjugated; she was traumatized by a slave auction she witnessed as a young girl where one such demon manifested, and later by seeing the same creatures haunting the farm animals her parents kept. The dehumanizing way in which enslaved people are referred to throughout the novella may reflect period-accurate attitudes, but contemporary readers (the novella was written in 2020) may take issue with the idea that slavery literally reduces a person's soul or sense of self to that of an animal. This is compounded by the fact that inanimate objects are textually given more agency than human slaves. Judith and Hannah are able to "convince" the looms to remain faithful to the operators rather than the men who legally own them specifically because the looms were built with stolen intellectual property. The notion that slaves are stolen people is not addressed.
• The Dragon: For Kirk Boott, the agent of the Merrimack Mill and main antagonist of the story, his nominal second-in-command would be his overseer Curtis. He calls the man "a blunt instrument" for enacting discipline, and is quick to call on Curtis when he needs a show of force.
• Dying Declaration of Love: Downplayed — Hannah is sick with lung disease caused by years spent in the mills inhaling cotton lint, and her condition has taken a turn for the worse during the strike. While casting the spell to stop the looms from operating smoothly for the strikebreakers, she tells Judith they'll need to kiss in order to kickstart the magic. This also serves as a love confession between the two. Turns out to be a Not-So-Final Confession, as Judith is able to revive Hannah with an impromptu spell of her own.
  "I'm dying," she said, between coughs, "so I need you to kiss me quickly."
• Feminist Fantasy: The story features the recently-unionized girl workers of a textile factory who stand up to the overseers, agents, and factory owners (who all happen to be male) to bargain for fair wages and safer working conditions. The "fantasy" elements are restricted to the use of witchcraft that the mill girls rely on to keep their picket line from being crossed, but throughout the story their opponents double down on the need for women to be docile and biddable, to limit their aspirations to the domestic sphere and submit to the leadership of their male bosses and husbands.
• Historical Fantasy: The work takes place in the early 1800's (likely the 1830's, based on the timeline of the original Lowell Mill strikes) and includes a smidgen of witchcraft.
• Locked into Strangeness: Abigail tries to break the strike, only for the magic of Hannah's spell on the mill girls to manifest in all her hair falling out the moment she goes to Mr. Boott.
• Magic A Is Magic A: In order to cast a spell on a person or an item, the caster must "have dominion" over the the target of their spell — the subject either has to be a willing participant or the legal property of the caster:
  • Hannah and Judith need to use Mrs. Hanson's spinning wheel for their spell to bind the other mill girls together, but Hannah protests that they can't "borrow" or use it without permission because they would interfere with the magic. Part of the reason they bring Mrs. Hanson in on their plans to strike is because they needed to ask her if they can use her spinning wheel.
  • Hannah's powers give her the ability to see "succubae" or "demons" that feed on the souls of "subjugated creatures" — that includes animal chattel and human slaves. As a little girl she witnessed a slave auction in the south and was traumatized when she saw a demon appear to devour the soul of man who was sold to a plantation owner. Judith asks why the slaves who pick the cotton they spin at the factories aren't able to curse the product of their labor, and Hannah tells her it's because those who are subjugated or "property" themselves cannot own property, ergo they can't cast magic.
  • When Judith and Hannah come up with the idea to cast a spell on the looms, they need to figure out a way to claim dominion over the machinery that is ostensibly the property of the mill owners. After Judith relays the story of how Mr. Lowell spied and stole the plans and patents for the looms from the original inventor in England, they exploit a magical loophole that allows the mill girls who operate the machinery to claim dominion over the looms.
• Magic Contract Comes With A Kiss: Zig-Zagged — In order to keep the looms from running smoothly when strikebreakers are brought in, Hannah casts a spell to keep the machines "faithful" to the strikers who have operated them for so long. She used hair as a spellcasting medium to bind the striking workers together, but there's no way to get either the girls or their hair into the mills to cast the spell while the strike is ongoing. They come up with the idea to use their saliva instead, since the girls have all "kissed" the machines by using their breath to thread the shuttles. The closest they can get is spitting in the river that turns the waterwheel powering the mill's looms. Hannah then tells Judith that the looms need "an example" of fidelity set for them, and the two kiss to seal the spell. Their kiss successfully kickstarts the magic, with the mill's machinery rejecting the strikebreakers — threads start to tangle and the power belts snap, driving the scabs and the the mill overseers away.
• Magical Incantation: The spell Hannah and Judith cast to bind the mill girls together and keep anyone from crossing the picket line is read aloud like poetry:
  Unbound, we come
  to bind ourselves.
  By hair of head,
  we make a vow.
  We form this now:
  Fact'ry Girls
  Union of Lowell.
  No work we'll do,
  in mill, at loom,
  until our demands
  are heard and met,
  and sisters agree
  our strike's at end.
• Muggle with a Degree in Magic: That would be Mrs. Hanson, who runs the boarding house where Judith and Hannah and several of the other mill girls live. Her great-grandmother was reported to display some magical abilities. Though Mrs. Hanson has no innate magical talent of her own she memorized her great-grandmother's recipes for various potions, alongside and the medicinal/magical properties of all the ingredients that go into them. When Mrs. Hanson realized that Hannah had the gift for witchcraft, she took the girl under her wing and taught her everything she knew.
  "You too can See the genius in things?" she asked, when Mrs. Hanson nudged her to get on with the washing.
  "No," replied the matron. "I learned by rote. My great-granddam could, or so the family lore tells me. But that was a hundred years ago, on a different shore."
• Not-So-Final Confession: Hannah is very sick and possibly dying from lung disease as the strike reaches its climax — she casts a spell to keep the machines faithful to their operators and confesses her feelings for Judith right before collapsing in Mr. Boott's office, feverish and barely breathing. But Judith manages to save Hannah with an impromptu spell by demanding that Hannah's looms return the breath and vitality they've stolen from her over the years. The looms oblige, Hannah expectorates a massive bloody ball of lint from her lungs, and her condition starts improving immediately. As the book ends, a slowly recovering Hannah stands by her earlier confession and admits she'd like to spend her future with Judith.
• The Oath-Breaker: Abigail tries to cross the picket line and get back to work, but the spell on the Mill Girls' union causes all her hair to fall out the moment she goes to Mr. Boott. She returns to the boarding house and apologizes for her transgression, but still faces calls from the other girls in the union to have her thrown out.
• Office Romance: Judith and Hannah fall in love after meeting at the textile mill and living in the same boarding house.
• Our Witches Are Different: "Witches" in this case are women with rare supernatural abilities — the only ones mentioned are Hannah Pickering, who can sense the "genius" (i.e. life force, soul, potential, etc...) of people and objects, see auras, and cast spells; and Mrs. Hanson's great-grandmother.
• Prophecies Rhyme All the Time: Lampshaded, the mill girls are a little disappointed that the Magical Incantation Hannah has written up doesn't sound more lofty.
  "Is that all?" Sarah Payne whispered to Mrs. Hanson. "It's not very... mystical."
  "It doesn't rhyme," remarked Lucy.
  "It will do," the Matron replied. "Action and intention matter more than poetry."
• Running Gag: There are multiple mill girls named "Sarah," and whenever one is brought up there's confusion about who's being referred to until their last name or another identifying characteristic is pointed out.
  "Emelie and Sarah have already left—"
  "I'm here," protested Sarah Payne, from among the press of operatives.
  "So am I," called Sarah Hemmingway.
  "Sarah Adams and Emelie have already left—"
• Speculative Fiction LGBT: Historical Fantasy LGBT, technically.
• Strike Episode: The books follows the mill workers as they go on strike. The first chapter takes place the night before they deliver their demands to the agent, and the last chapter takes place after they've won their demands and returned to work.
• Truth Serums: Judith and Hannah test out Hannah's ability to craft magic by casting a spell that prevents them from telling lies to each other, using rings made from braids of their hair. They're still testing the limits of the spell in the first first chapter by asking each other personal questions. While it would seem they can't tell deliberate lies in response to a direct question, they can word their answers carefully or refuse to answer.
• The Witch Hunter: Downplayed — Agent Mr. Boott believes the strike is the result of the mill girls being possessed or otherwise influenced by occult forces, rather than the natural outcome of his bosses raising the girls' rent without a commensurate raise in pay. He suspects there's a witch within their ranks, even going so far as to call Hannah the "queen of their coven."
  Mr. Boott crossed himself, then thought better of it. Witchcraft? No, there hadn't been a witch in New England for two hundred years. Besides, what worker would go that far? This wasn't Lancashire; this was Massachusetts. And yet...
  These girls were so very defiant.
  Mr. Boott crossed himself again.

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