I am trying to work out what exactly I want my thesis question to be. My topic is the Lowell Mill Girls, and I simply have never been good at presenting an argument.
At the moment I want to write about the growing dissatisfaction and how they reacted to the deteriorating conditions but in many of my sources, this has been discussed. Granted I have considered arguing the real impact versus the perceived impact.
Any suggestions to aid me in brainstorming as I write would be very welcome.
Keep reading. I like to switch between primary and secondary sources, letting each new article or read of a primary text sort of direct my next choice of secondary work or the next thing I look for in the primary.
Eventually you'll find something in scholarship that you disagree with, or some angle that interests you that hasn't been explored. So something like--say you read several analyses of the role that gender, and their experiences/socialization as female, played in the way they respond and act. You say, "Aha, but what about other factors in their background?" (religious denomination, specific church membership, family situation, etc--I'm quite certain that all of those will have been analyzed at least once already; this is just an example).
The key part there is "that interests you"--if someone tells you what to study, it won't work out. For a long-term project like a BA or MA thesis, you've gotta pick something your heart is at least mostly in.