And one of the first questions which the partners considered was whether the change from farm to factory life would effect for the worse the character of these girls.

This, says Appleton, "was a matter of deep interest.

The operatives in the manufacturing cities of Europe were notoriously of the lowest character for intelligence and morals.

The question therefore arose, and was deeply considered, whether this degradation was the result of the peculiar occupation or of other and distinct causes.

We could not perceive why this peculiar description of labor should vary in its effects upon character from all other occupations." And so we find the partners voting money, not only for factory buildings and machinery, but for comfortable boardinghouses for the girls, and planning that these boardinghouses should have "the most efficient guards," that they should be in "charge of respectable women, with every provision for religious worship." They voted nine thousand dollars for a church building and further sums later for a library and a hospital.
The wheels of the first mill were started in September, 1823.