THEATRE

With music and lyrics by Creighton Irons and Sean Mahoney and book by Maggie-Kate Coleman, Factory Girls is the story of best friends Sarah Bagley and Harriet Farley, factory operatives in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1844. The opportunity to earn high wages and improve their family’s lives draws Yankee farm girls to the “City of Spindles” by the thousands. Even after laboring for up to 14 hours a day, the girls write and publish their own company-sponsored publication, The Lowell Offering, which becomes a worldwide literary phenomenon. When working conditions deteriorate due to competition and economic hardship, Sarah speaks out against the corporation; Harriet, as editor of the Offering, refuses to sacrifice the gains the women have made. The resulting battle rips their friendship apart and alters the course of the American worker.