Parked at Home | #7: Music & Protest in the Blackstone River Valley

Yesterday, on Thursday, April 13, at 7:00 p.m., I watched the final installment of the 2023 season of Parked at Home by the Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park (BRVNHP). Park rangers Mark Mello and Allison Horrocks spoke about the connection between music, factory work, and protests during the Industrial Revolution. Horrocks began the presentation by reviewing the themes of Parked at Home 2023, which focused on labor and work in company towns or on the frontier. She reminded the audience of the parks they had virtually visited over the seven weeks:

The soundscape of each site is unique and inescapable. Horrocks explained that while we have eyelids and can shut out the visual impact of an area, we do not have “earlids”. Even people with hearing impairments can experience the feeling of loud sounds. The rangers at BRVNHP recently explored the sound of Slater Mill the a collaboration with a local dance troop. While Mello and Horrocks cannot sing or dance, they did provide primary sources and create foley or sound effects for the music video. The dancers found inspiration in the women who led the first industrial wage worker strike at Slater Mill in 1824. The women learned to communicate over the roar of machinery, a sound now illegal to replicate due to improved workplace safety laws, but also worked together in silence when planning the strike after realizing their meeting was infiltrated by a spy for the mill owner.

The women even learned to sing over the sound of machinery. When Samuel Slater, owner of Slater Mill, toured a different factory that he owned in Massachusetts, he described an incident where “the machinery suddenly stopped and a strain of music arose simultaneously from every part of the room”. Horrocks learned more about this phenomenon from a sound engineer. The human voice occurs in a different register than the sound of machines, so with some training, a person’s brain will adjust to distinguishing the sounds of voices over the sounds of machines. This allowed them to sing in unison and speak to each other without mill owners being able to hear them. (As someone with auditory processing issues even in quiet conditions, I am incredibly impressed by this ability.)

The talk moved to discussing specific songs about work, including pop favorites like “A Hard Day’s Night” by the Beatles, “9 to 5” by Dolly Parton, and “Money” by Pink Floyd. In the 19^th and early 20^th century, factory workers, whalers, merchant mariners, and people on the frontier had their own songs, such as “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”, “The Factory Girl’s Song”, and “Paddy on the Canal”. (My personal favorite it the Erie Canal Song, although this was not mentioned during the talk.) When Mello worked at New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, he researched sea shanties sung by the ships’ crews and the working class in port cities. These songs were used by sailors to describe their own experiences or repeat heroic tales. In mill villages, workers were required to attend the local church each Sunday, and many came from religious backgrounds. Women protestors changed the lyrics from religious tunes to fit their demands for better wages and working conditions. Also popular during the early 19^th century were songs by canal workers or by enslaved people working on plantations.

By the mid to late 19^th century, a rise in print culture brought on by increased ease in reproducing documents meant songs originally belonging to one group of laborers were mass produced and widely distributed by someone other than the original creators. Organizations such as the Industrial Workers of the World created English-language parody songs about J.D. Rockefeller based on the tune of “America (My Country ’Tis of Thee)”, and French songs like “L’International” and “Chantée Far Mademoiselle Rachel”, both based on the French national anthem, "La Marseillaise". These ballads were frequently rewritten to contain offensive language about the group that had originally sung them. Members of the oral culture learned the song by ear rather than reading sheet music, and these versions are more accurate to the original. Mill owners and town officials policed oral culture by banning song. During the 1913 Strike against the Draper Corporation in Hopedale, MA, town officials prohibited public performance of song. While this was a clear violation of free speech, at the same time, people were singing at all hours, and the spontaneous music was becoming an annoyance.

Besides machines, music, and transportation, the tolling of bells acted as a major source of sound. Bells acted like an alarm, informing workers when arrive and leave work, or if an emergency had occurred. Both mill owners and workers tried to manipulate the bells to add or subtract minutes from the work day. During some strikes, as once happened at a mill complex in Whitinsville, MA (now Cotton Mill Apartments across the bridge from Open Sky Community Services and near Northbridge Town Hall), mill workers cut ropes connecting to the bells.

Next, Mello and Horrocks discussed how the mass production of instruments, recording, and playback technology has lead to a steep rise in the availability of music. Today, we can listen to recordings from the 1913 Strike in Hopedale sung in multiple languages, including Italian and French, by searching the internet on our phones. Just as textile mills improved the process of turning cotton into thread, factories sped up the production of instruments. In the late 19^th century, many small instrument makers were bought out by larger manufacturers. In Worcester, MA, bugle, flugelhorn, and cornet maker Isaac Fiske sold his business to C.G. Conn Manufacturing. (Named after Charles Gerard Conn from Elkhart, Indiana, the business has since been sold multiple times and is currently part of national conglomerate Conn-Selmer, Inc.)

Mechanical music instruments, like player pianos, became popular and affordable. Theodore Parker Brown in Worcester, regarded by some (like the Pianola Institute) as the inventor of the indoor player piano, patented multiple standardized components to the machine and sold the Simplex Piano Player. Similar to some textile looms and early computers, the piano worked on a punch card system with a roll of paper threaded into the machine. A fellow viewer mentioned that modern copyright law that cleared player piano manufacturers from paying royalties to the composers (White-Smith Music Publishing Company v. Apollo Company) is still used today for other other devices.

At the end of this final talk, Horrocks and Mello discussed memorable experiences as park rangers at Slater Mill. Horrocks gave a tour to a descendent of Samuel Slater’s sister who remained in England. During their two-hour conversation, Horrocks dispelled negative rumors that workers were physically mistreated at the mill. Meanwhile, Mello spoke with a family who had first met him at New Bedford Whaling NHS (just like me!). The oldest brother in the family had become a park ranger thanks in part to feeling inspired by Mello’s tour.

This concluded another year of fun and educational webinars covering the history of the United States through the National Parks. All talks were recorded and are available to watch for free on the BRVNHP YouTube Channel. I’m looking forward to the reopening of Slater Mill and the many events planned for this season!

Search Abby Epplett, Historian

Abby Epplett, Historian

Parked at Home | #7: Music & Protest in the Blackstone River Valley