Happy Women’s History Month.

Female weavers played a huge part in the successful operation of the Bates Mills, working to create bedspreads, sheets, and other beautiful textile pieces.

This month, we are highlighting a photograph circa 1910 of three female employees. Seated is Marie A. Royer Lemieux, and standing behind her are her sisters, Alphonsine Royer Cote (left) and Emma Royer Cote (right). They married a pair of brothers. It is likely that the Royer Sisters immigrated from Quebec to Maine, as a large French-Canadian population emerged in Lewiston in the decades after the civil war.

The donor of the photograph is the granddaughter of Lemieux.