 The social position of the factory girls had been degraded considerably in France and England . In her autobiography , Harriet Hanson Robinson ( who worked in the Lowell mills from 1834 – 1848 ) suggests that " It was to overcome this prejudice that such high wages had been offered to women that they might be induced to become mill girls , in spite of the opprobrium that still clung to this degrading occupation . … " 
