doffer

A doffer is someone who removes ("doffs") bobbins, pirns or spindles holding spun fiber such as cotton or wool from a spinning frame and replaces them with empty ones. Historically, spinners, doffers, and sweepers each had separate tasks that were required in the manufacture of spun textiles. From the early days of the industrial revolution, this work, which requires speed and dexterity rather than strength, was often done by children. After World War I, the practice of employing children declined, ending in the United States in 1933. In modern textile mills, doffing machines have now replaced humans.

The 19th century

The Industrial Revolution created growing demand for child labor in the mills and factories, since children were easier to supervise than adults and good at monotonous, repetitive tasks that often required little physical strength,
but where small bodies and nimble fingers were an advantage.

Children were employed in the mills as spinners, sweepers and doffers, with girls usually starting as spinners and boys as doffers and sweepers. When the bobbins on the spinning frames were full, the machinery stopped. The doffers would swarm into the mill and, as quickly as possible, change all the bobbins, after which the machinery would be restarted and the doffers were free to amuse themselves until the next change-over. On the newer and taller frames, the doffers often had to climb to reach the bobbins.

Great Britain

In Lancashire the doffing boys were free to do what they liked once they had completed a doffing, as long as they stayed within earshot of the "throstle jobber," who would whistle when they were next needed. They were motivated to do the work as fast as possible, since this gave them as long as possible to play. Between ten and twelve boys could handle a factory with about ten thousand throstle spindles, depending on the amount of yarn being spun.
The doffers were usually the sons of poor people, and were small and skinny. They were sometimes called "The Devil's Own" for the tricks that they would get up to. As a rule they would go barefoot except at the coldest times of year.

At Quarry Bank Mill in Styal, England, near Manchester, a doffer earned 1s/6d a day in 1790, and by 1831 was earning from 2s. to 3s. a day. An overlooker's wage in the same period rose from 15s. to 17s. In Leeds in the 1830s a doffer could earn 4s. to 5s. In the textile industry in Britain, wages for children continued to rise steadily compared to those for adults during the period from 1830 to 1860, indicating that demand was outstripping supply. In Belfast linen factories in 1890 girls were employed as doffers, earning the equivalent of US $1.43 daily (about 6s. at the time.)

North America

In the United States in the first part of the 19th century, although the day was long, the doffers only worked for about four hours each day. Memoirs from writers such as Lucy Larcom and Harriet Hanson Robinson describe the long hours, but also the leisurely pace of work and the opportunities for social interactions. In Massachusetts in 1830 a doffer boy earned 25 cents a day. An overseer of rooms would make $1.25 a day, and the superintendent of a mill earned $2.00 a day, considered an excellent wage at the time. In the southern cotton mills it was customary to employ only whites for most jobs in the mill, although blacks had outside jobs and some inside jobs such as firing the boilers. This persisted well into the 20th century.

During the later part of the 19th century, working conditions in the U.S. textile industry deteriorated. Immigrant textile workers coming from Yorkshire and Lancashire to New England found the mills poorly run, with the managers cheating on measurements of cuts of cloth and time worked, and arbitrarily cutting wages without warning. These workers were often skilled, accustomed to being well-treated in their home country, and accustomed to taking industrial action if they were not. There were a series of strikes from the 1870s onward.

An 1889 Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Relations of Capital and Labor in Canada recorded a statement by the assistant superintendent of St. Croix Cotton Mills in St. Stephen, New Brunswick. He said the mill employed some young boys around fifteen years old as doffers, but the average doffer was aged thirty. Wages were from 65 to 80 cents a day. In the summer hours were from 6:30 am to 6 pm, with a half day on Saturday. Winter hours were slightly longer.
An employee who had worked in both countries reported that wages were better than in the United States and working conditions better, although the hours were about the same.

Doffers in 1887 in a large mill in Cabarrus County, North Carolina