Francis Cabot Lowell
Francis Cabot Lowell was an early American industrialist who set up his first textile mill in Waltham, but is better known for his mill in Lowell, Massachusetts. There, he attempted to change the way factories worked in hte day. In New England, industrialists followed the Fall River System, where workers were paid very low wages, women children and men were hired, and workers were given no housing arrangements. Lowell tried to change this by deploying his own factory system in Lowell. There, he hired mostly women, trying to attract those who have lost their husbands or who are waiting to start a family. They, at least at first, would be paid decent wages, only be expected to work for a few years, be given meals, and would be required to live in apartments regulated by the Factory. And possibly most important, Lowell also was one of the first to have all of the pruduction processes in his mills under one roof. Lowell was and is still a very well known industrialist, and although his "Lowell System" didn't catch on, he did give many new opportunities to the women who came to work in his mills, known as the Lowell Mill Girls.
("U.S.History, Pre-Columbian to the New Millennium" )