Lowell: a town designed around a waterfall

By Ines Keane

The falls came first. The people who chose Lowell were not looking for a place to live. They were looking for a drop in a river.

According to HistoryNet, the founders of a textile company visited the Merrimack River northwest of Boston in late 1821 to see whether its falls could drive machinery reliably. They bought the land. The first machinery began turning raw cotton into cloth in 1823, and the settlement was incorporated as Lowell in 1826, named for Francis Cabot Lowell, a company co-founder who had died by then. The magazine calls it the first planned company town in the United States.

What the river offered

Wikipedia puts Lowell about 25 miles (40 km) northwest of Boston. Its article describes the Pawtucket Falls as a mile-long set of rapids with a total drop of 32 feet, and says a dam at the top turned the upper river into a millpond, with water sent through a system of canals. The same article says the area had been the farming community of East Chelmsford.

A canal network also let boats bypass the falls, according to HistoryNet, carrying supplies in and finished cloth out. Wikipedia says Irish immigrants made up much of the labor that built the canals and factories.

Walls, bells and boardinghouses

By 1850, HistoryNet says, red brick boardinghouses and factory buildings of five and six stories lined the river for nearly a mile. The workforce exceeded 10,000, and Lowell was the country’s top textile manufacturing location.

Most of the workers were single women. HistoryNet gives their ages as 15 to 30. Wikipedia’s article on the Lowell Mill Girls says 15 to 35, with an average around 24, and notes that girls as young as ten came with mothers or older sisters. We show both and do not choose. The magazine describes factory bells calling workers in at 4:30 a.m. and a 10 p.m. curfew, with shifts of 12 to 14 hours. The Wikipedia article gives a working day of 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., an average of 73 hours a week.

The company built boardinghouses. Wikipedia says about 26 women lived in each house, with up to six sharing a bedroom, and that men were generally not allowed in.

In October 1840, the same article says, a monthly magazine called the Lowell Offering began, with poems, essays and fiction by mill workers. It also records two strikes, called turn-outs. In February 1834 women withdrew their savings and caused a run on two local banks, and the protest failed. In October 1836 more than 1,500 workers took part in a second turn-out, which lasted several weeks, and the directors rescinded a proposed rent increase.

The looms that still run

HistoryNet says the Boott Cotton Mill’s 88 water-powered looms still run as they did originally. Wikipedia’s article on the park calls the Boott the most fully restored manufacturing site in the district, with a walk-through museum and authentic looms. It adds that the park’s Suffolk Mill exhibit shows how water, through a Francis turbine, ran the textile factories.

The park

Wikipedia says Lowell National Historical Park was established on June 5, 1978, covers 141 acres, and includes a 5.6-mile system of power canals around Pawtucket Falls. It lists the Swamp Locks, Lower Locks and Guard Locks, the Pawtucket Dam and Gatehouse, a boardinghouse for mill girls and immigrants, and canal boat tours of some gatehouses and locks. The National Park Service’s own page confirms the 1978 date.

In the fall the town has a literary side. Wikipedia says Jack Kerouac’s birthplace is in the Centralville neighborhood, that he is buried in Edson Cemetery, and that the city holds a Kerouac festival each October. The same article says the Whistler House Museum of Art stands in the birthplace of James McNeill Whistler.

Dates in order

Late 1821: founders inspect the falls, according to HistoryNet.
1823: first machinery processes raw cotton, according to HistoryNet.
1826: incorporated as Lowell, according to HistoryNet.
1834 and 1836: the two turn-outs, according to Wikipedia.
1840: the Lowell Offering begins, according to Wikipedia.
1850: workforce above 10,000, according to HistoryNet.
1978: the national historical park is established, according to Wikipedia and the National Park Service.

Side by side

Incorporation: Wikipedia’s Lowell article gives 1826 in one place and 1823 in another, which is its own inconsistency. HistoryNet says 1826. Park founding: the Lowell article says “late 1970s”; the park article says June 5, 1978. Our reading: these agree, and the first is only less exact.

What kind of sources these are

Three Wikipedia articles, which anyone can edit. A magazine article on the history of the town. A National Park Service page that gave only a few facts. No museum or park publication was read in full.

What we left out

Wages, rents, admission, hours and visitor counts. The city’s later history of immigration. Cotton supply and everything about where it was grown. Church rules in the boardinghouses.

Quick answers

Who was Lowell named after? According to HistoryNet, Francis Cabot Lowell, a co-founder of the textile company, who had died by 1826.

How long are Lowell’s canals? Wikipedia gives 5.6 miles of power canals around Pawtucket Falls, which has a 32-foot drop.

When did the national park open? Wikipedia says Lowell National Historical Park was established on June 5, 1978, and the National Park Service page gives the same year.

Roam first. Shop later.

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