The Hedy West, from Hedy West vol 2, Vanguard, c1965. She learned it while preparing a Lomax MS at the L of C. Collected by Susie Carr Young from Mrs. Mary E. Hindle of Bangor, ME (The source for the above Lomaz cite). I usually sing her tune/chorus ("Sing dum dee wicker-dee dum dee way") with Jim Douglas' text. It's the only song I do not purely a cappella - I clap my thigh throughout (plus a few extra beats at the end) to try to give some sense of the mind-dullingness of the mill work. Seems to go over.

I did some reading on the Mill town & conditions but didn't take extensive notes. Here's what I have:

Lewiston, Maine was first settled in 1770 as a plantation. It became the 94th Maine town on 2/18/1795. In 1819 Michael Little established a small carding and fulling woolen mill. By the Civil War it was a major US textile center, a total "company town" & effectively controlled by one consortium. The Lewiston Bagging Mill announced its 13-hour day (45 minutes off at noon.) It may have been considered liberal…they had Sundays off.

It took in regional farm girls, often non-English speaking immigrants and worked them under near-slave conditions. Often, this was better than the conditions at home where no cash was available at all and they would return to the farm with needed cash (you know for luxury items like nails, pans, shoes, etc.)