Connecticut Water Trails Association
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Connecticut Water Trails Association |
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Connecticut Water Trails Program History Of Connecticut's Water Trails History of Mills In Connecticut
Norwich Mills Taftville
Ponemah Mills, about 1918The
Taftville Cotton Mill, a cotton textile factory built on the
Shetucket River
where a large dam could be built to provide power. The large mill
building (Building No. 1) was purported to be the largest weave-shed
under one roof at that time. The original workers were predominantly
Irish immigrants, and they were hard hit by the depression of the 1870s
that began with the Panic of 1873. Unemployment rose and wages dropped
appreciably from 1873 to 1875, causing bitter relations between workers
and management in many places.
In April 1875, the 1,200 workers went on strike. The
mill owners had raised rents in company-owned housing as well as prices
at the company-owned store. Wages at the time were under $10 for a
67-hour work week. In one often-cited anecdote, a workingman said he and
his daughter had worked full time for more than three months but only
had four dollars between them to show for it. The immediate cause of the
strike was a pay cut of 12 percent in an attempt to stop unionization.
Workers were told half of the pay cut would be restored to anyone who
had not participated in trying to form a union at the company.
The company replaced the workers with French Canadians, who would come to number more than 70 percent of the population. Workers were evicted from company-owned housing, and the Connecticut General Assembly passed a strict "tramp law" aimed at workers (such as those from Taftville) who became drifters after their strikes were broken.
Ponemah Mills operated for about 100 years.
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