Weeds, Women's Work, and Mourning

In “Weeds, Women’s Work, and Mourning,” Lauren Kimball will examine the coterie of female factory operatives writing for the Lowell Offering literary magazine (1840-5). These women knew the cultural associations of... [ view full abstract ]

In “Weeds, Women’s Work, and Mourning,” Lauren Kimball will examine the coterie of female factory operatives writing for the Lowell Offering literary magazine (1840-5). These women knew the cultural associations of flowers with virtuous femininity and weeds with failed self-culture. But as laborers with plenty of gardening experience, their relationship to weeds was intimate and complicated. Weeds, she argues, are objects of sympathy within a literature about reconciling oneself to the great personal, social, and cultural changes that attended the Lowell experiment in industrial wage-work for women.