I'm afraid the overseer is watching me, so I can't talk to you right now. Later on, I want to tell you about the petition I’m holding. We’re asking the Massachusetts legislature to limit the workday to ten hours and to give us more time for breakfast and lunch. You know we only get half an hour for meals, and by the time we run to the boardinghouse, we only have time to stuff food in our mouths before we have to run back!

You probably wonder whether this is a good thing for women to be doing - back home, politics is men's work, but here in Lowell, there are five times as many women as men, so if we don't look out for ourselves who will?