Chapter Nine: The Transformation of American Society, 1815-1840, pg 251-279 Chapter Lead-in, pg 251 ?Mill girls? Harriett Jane Hanson Robinson ? so many changes in American Society between 1820 and the Civil War. She was on the front lines of the industrial revolution in a textile mill in Lowell, Massachusetts, warm poor she began work at the age of 10. At age 11 she led her coworkers in a strike to protest reduction in wages. Married (1848) to William Stevens Robinson, editor of an anti slavery newspaper in Lowell, Massachusetts, bringing her to middle class standing. She was involved in the anti slavery movement, supported the new Whig party, and eventually embraced women?s suffrage.