Background Information on The Factory Girl:
The following author description and synopsis of Sarah Savage and her book, The Factory Girl (1814), are taken from Judith A. Ranta’s book, Women and Children of the Mills.
“AUTHOR: Sarah Savage (1784-1838), a teacher and writer of Salem, Massachusetts, wrote primarily for children and young adults.
SYNOPSIS: The Factory Girl is the first known American novel with an industrial laborer as the protagonist. Mary Burnam, the eighteen-year-old orphaned heroine, lives with her pious grandmother and irascible Aunt Holden in a cottage in Hampton (perhaps in Connecticut). To support herself and her grandmother, Mary goes to work in a cotton-spinning factory: ‘She was summoned to her occupation the following Monday morning by the factory bell. Her employment, which was reeling cotton, was neither difficult nor laborious, and Mary thought if she had not been a stranger, she should have felt quite happy’ (Savage 10-11). She distinguishes herself from most of the other workers, who are not “good and serious” people, by her cheerfulness, seriousness, piety, diligence at work, and Bible study. When she refuses to join the other workers at a dance, she suffers their scorn and ridicule. She objects to the expense, explaining to them that people who have little money should give whatever extra they have to the poor.
William Raymond, a frivolous young factory worker, becomes attracted to Mary, and after a while Mary returns his interest and they are betrothed. Mary is happy to become instructress at a Sunday school for twenty factory children. After nursing her friend Mrs. Danforth through a fatal illness, Mary falls ill with a fever and its confined to home for four months. In the meantime, William becomes engaged to another factory woman, Lucy Newcome, a thoughtless coquette. Mary returns to factory work, and soon after William marries Lucy and leaves the mill. When Mary’s grandmother dies, she quits the factory to devote herself to caring for Aunt Holden and her four grandchildren. She works briefly as a teacher, struggling to support her relatives. George Holden, the children’s widowed father, returns after a long absence and assumes their care. Mary marries Mr. Danforth and becomes a devoted second mother to his children. The novel ends with the children giving Mary a gift of a writing desk and Bible.
The novel is important for its early treatment of working women. Savage is careful to show that the capitalists are benevolent and that the working class tend to create their own problems through their moral failings” (Ranta 25-26).
Artifact Inventory:
Q: When, where, and by whom was your text first printed?
A: Savage, Sarah. The factory girl. By a lady. Boston: Munroe, Francis & Parker, 1814.
Q: What information do you have about the publishing company?
A: According to the Dictionary of Literary Biography (Volume 49), Munroe and Francis operated out of Boston from 1802 until 1853. Parker was with the company from 1808-1810 and 1814-1816. They published the weekly newspaper the Boston Spectator from 1814-1815, but mostly published religious and educational works. The company was also an outlet for the American Unitarian Association. They also published Savage’s book Trial and Self-Discipline in 1835. The company is remembered for their 1827 reprint of Mother Goose rhymes and for an edition of Shakespeare’s Works (1810-1812), the first version available in New England. Savage’s The Factory Girl must have fit in well with their moral and religious standards if they printed two editions.
Q: How often was your text reprinted?
A: There are only two editions of The Factory Girl, the 1814 and the 1824 editions.
Savage, Sarah. The factory girl. By the author of “Filial affection,” “James Talbot,” etc. 2nd ed. Boston: Munroe and Francis, 1824.
The various microform versions available are taken from the 1814 edition. The 1824 edition does not seem to be available on microform, and it is unknown to me (so far) how many books were printed in the second edition (nor how many for the first edition). The 1824 edition is available in special collections at the following libraries: Yale University, Wichita State University, American Antiquarian Society and University of Virginia.
Q: What was the actual size of your novel in inches or centimeters? (That is, consider it as a material object.) What information can you find about its physical presence? Do you think it was expensive or inexpensive?
A: The National Union Catalog listed the book as 15 cm and 96 pages in the first listing (1814 edition), and as 22 cm and 112 pages for the second listing, also printed in 1814. Some of the online catalogs for other libraries that hold the 1814 edition list the book as 14.5 cm and 112 pages. The University of Virginia’s copy is described as “original printed wrapper pasted over wooden boards.”
The second edition, 1824, was 15 cm (some list it as 16 cm) and 105 pages. It included one page of publishing advertisements at the end of the book and an illustration. The copy owned by the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) is described as “in marbled boards with leather spine” and states that the illustration is actually in the publisher’s catalog, which is from pages 107-108.
A modern paperback book is about 16 to 17 cm in length, so the 1814 edition was not that much smaller than what I’m used to reading. The size of the book did not seem to change significantly between editions, though it seems the materials used might have improved to a nicer leather spine. As for price, I’m going to guess that it wasn’t too expensive because the publisher seemed to specialize in religious and educational works that would only take effect if people could purchase the book for a reasonable price (whether it was being sold to individuals or to purchasing / lending libraries). Also, the first edition did not include any illustrations, which I am assuming would cost more money to print and therefore drive up the cost of the book.
Q: How long is your novel? Is it broken into volumes and chapters or is it one big chunk? How many volumes and/or chapters? Is the print large and easy to read or dense, with many words on each page and lines close together.
A: The 1814 edition is 112 pages long. There are seven chapters, with an average of 16 pages per chapter. Each chapter is introduced with a quote and these vary widely: Burns, Mrs. Steele, Mrs. Chapone, Dr. [Samuel] Johnson, [Alexander] Pope, [William] Cowper and the last chapter quote with no author attributed (perhaps a popular phrase of the time). The chapters themselves are simply numbered with roman numerals. The font is quite large, perhaps between 14 and 16 point font if you were using Word to retype it. The words are spaced out nicely instead of being scrunched up on the page.
I’m not actually sure who three of the people are that Savage uses for her chapter quotes: Burns, Mrs. Steele and Mrs. Chapone. I’m not sure if it’s safe to assume that Savage herself was an avid reader if she’s quoting from Alexander Pope, William Cowper and Dr. Samuel Johnson, or if she came into contact with their works by listening to others read them aloud.
Works Cited:
“Munroe and Francis.” Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol. 49. Ed. Peter Dzwonkoski. Ann Arbor, MI: Gale Research Co., 1986. 320.
Ranta, Judith A. Women and Children of the Mills: An Annotated Guide to Nineteenth-century American Textile Factory Literature. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999.
“Savage, Sarah.” The National Union Catalog: Pre-1956 Imprints. Vol. 522. London: Mansell, 19??. 226.
