Petition to Massachusetts Legislature,
January 15, 1845

We the undersigned peaceable, industrious and hardworking men and women of Lowell, in view of our condition --the evils already com upon us, by toilig from 13 to 14 hours per day, confined in unhealthy apartments, exposed to the poisonous contagion of air, vegetable, animal and minseral properties, debarred from proper Physical Exercise, Mental disipline, and Mastication cruelly limited, and thereby hastening us on through pain, disease and privation, down to a premature grave, pray teh legislature to institute a ten-hour working day in all of the factories of the state.

Signed

John uincy Adams Thayer
Sarah G. Bagley
James Carle
And 2,000 others, mostly women