Lowell, Mass

Sometimes he is allowed a good idea. Today was one of those days. Instead of another wonderful art museum, which sadly gets a bit redundant, we headed to Lowell and the center of 19th century textile manufacturing. But first there was lunch as recommended by a volunteer at the visitor’s center. We had a sampler plate of Greek food that was so big it was also dinner when we got home, with a little baklava to top it off.

The food represented Lowell, a town that has many ethnic communities and boasts of their uniqueness. It has the second largest Cambodian community in the US, Irish, Italian, Lithuanian, African, Middle Eastern and, of course, Greek neighborhoods.

It is this diversity that caused the US Park Service to establish the old mill corporation buildings as Lowell National Historic Park.

Our education of early to middle 1800s textile labor included a ranger narrated ride on an old trolley car where we learned why Lowell became the textile center for the US and, maybe, the world. It was the water, water power that turned the belts that powered the machines that wove the fabrics. A complex system of locks and canals diverted water from the Merrimack River to the textiles plants.

In the plants toiled, first, young women off the farms seeking to earn their own money, and, later, immigrant women mostly from eastern and southern Europe, seeking a better life. The women worked twelve-hour days, with everything managed by the clock. Many wanted to return home but others found they enjoyed the “freer” life in the town. The mills were owned by corporations, based primarily in Boston. Eventually, labor conditions led to work stoppages and the intervention of emerging labor organizations.

The last mills closed in the 1950s. Today they have been transformed into apartments and condos, in addition to the Boote Cotton Mill Museum.