Industrialists built this canal town as a home for textile factories, and for those who worked in them.
By Anna Lee Braunstein, F351629
June 2016
Towns get started for many reasons. For Lowell, Massachusetts, it was the rapidly moving Merrimack River. This waterway supplied the power that turned the belts that powered the machines that wove the fabrics. Textile company owners devised a complex system of locks and canals that diverted water from the Merrimack to the factories along its banks. By the mid-1800s, Lowell had become the heart of America’s Industrial Revolution.
Today the belts are still, the looms silent, the air free of lint. Instead of a bustling enterprise, the mills are now part of Lowell National Historical Park.
A tour of The Boott Cotton Mills Museum gives visitors an understanding of the hard work and changing lives of the mill workers. Visitors enter the cavernous 1920s weave room and gaze at rows upon rows of silent machines. With the flip of a switch, there’s a hum and then a clamor as looms begin their rhythmic drone.
Lowell, located 30 miles northwest of Boston, is a worthy stop on any Massachusetts itinerary. Motorhomers who plan to attend FMCA’s 94th Family Reunion & Motorhome Showcase in West Springfield this August will want to look deeper into this important piece of American history.
The Mill Girls
Six days a week, the cacophony of looms grinding and pounding filled the weave room as hundreds of “mill girls” — generally 15 to 30 years old — stood for 14 hours each day, producing the fabrics that were made into clothes for Americans. The air was hot and dusty, the work body-aching, but for so many of the young women who worked in the mills, this job meant opportunity. They had left farm life and parental control to toil in the mills and gain financial and social independence.
Starting in 1823, the mill girls lived in company-controlled boardinghouses. Lowell’s streets were lined with rows of two- and three-story low-cost communal homes. The unvarying design of the buildings mirrored Boott Corporation’s philosophy of orderliness and discipline. Each building housed 20 to 40 young women. Some became friends, others adversaries. Each girl earned about $3 per week, from which $1.25 to $1.50 was deducted for a room shared with three to five other girls, three daily meals, and some laundry service. Many of the young ladies also sent money home to help their families.The corporation employed boardinghouse keepers to make sure the girls practiced proper moral behavior. Curfews, temperance, and observance of the Sabbath were expected.
In the 1900s the mill girls were joined by families emigrating from Europe. With the influx of these families, men now lived in the boardinghouses and filled some mill jobs. Also at this time, the mill girls gained more freedom. They developed a social life that might include a Saturday night movie, a stroll with a fella, or gossip with girlfriends; for many of them, none of this was possible back home.
By the 1930s, with the decline of the mills, many of the boardinghouses were demolished. Today, through the auspices of Lowell National Historical Park, a Mill Girls & Immigrants Exhibit is housed in the Patrick J. Mogan Cultural Center in Lowell.
The exhibit at the cultural center is free, but a small fee is charged to see the Boott Cotton Mills Museum. A self-guided tour there gives visitors a look at what life was like for mill workers in the days when the mills thrived. The tour includes interactive exhibits and videos. You will see the working 1920s-era weave room, too.
The visitors center for Lowell National Historical Park is located at Market Mills, previously the site of the Bigelow Carpet Company, one of the earliest mills. A video, Lowell, The Industrial Revolution, tells the story of the American textile industry and of the mill towns. Ranger-guided tours leave from the visitors center, and special lectures and presentations take place there as well.
To gain a better understanding of the importance of the waterways to Lowell, board a canal boat or riverboat. Various tours led by park rangers travel through historic neighborhoods or explore the locks and gatehouses. At Wannalancit Mills, visitors learn about how the Merrimack River’s power drove the turbines and water raceways. On an evening tour, the boats float along the canals, providing views of wildlife and city lights. For those tours, it is best to bring your own bag supper. Boat tours range from 90 minutes to 3 hours and require reservations.
The visitors center for the national historical park has a gated parking lot, which is free. Have your ticket validated. Other parking areas also are located in town.
The park offers yet more things to see and do, such as the Lowell Summer Music Series, with evening concerts for all ages at Boarding House Park. For further information about all the events at Lowell National Historical Park, plus canal boat tour information, visit www.nps.gov/lowe or call (978) 970-5000.
More Museums And Monuments
While in Lowell, you’ll be able to ride a century-old trolley. It travels to various sites in the park and throughout the town. An exhibit on the history of trolleys is located in the Mack Building across from the park, at the National Streetcar Museum.
It makes sense that a town built on the textile industry would be home to a quilt museum. The New England Quilt Museum, the only one of its kind in the Northeast, features more than 400 antique and contemporary quilts as well as exhibits of the tools used to create them. The museum is in the 1845 building constructed to house the Lowell Institute for Savings, one of the first personal savings banks in the United States.
This amazing collection has regular and changing exhibits; the latter can range from miniature quilts to religious quilts to those made in other countries. Check the museum website at www.nequiltmuseum.org for dates for all exhibits and to view two brief films about quilting. For more information, you can also call the museum at (978) 452-4207.
The American Textile History Museum is temporarily closed but continues to offer weaving and spinning classes, and educational tours for groups by reservation. For information, go to www.athm.org.
Jack Kerouac, “the father of the Beat Generation,” was born in Lowell. He began his writing career while attending Lowell High School. His autobiographical novel, The Town and the City, tells of growing up in Lowell. Although his childhood home is a private residence, visitors can see many of the places he frequented and featured in his novels. A map of Lowell sites mentioned in his books is available from the park’s visitors center.
Kerouac’s personal artifacts, including his typewriter, are displayed at the Mill Girl & Immigrants Exhibit in the Patrick J. Mogan Cultural Center. The author is also honored with eight granite columns at Kerouac Park in downtown Lowell. Quotations from his books are carved into the columns. Benches welcome visitors to sit and read or relax. The writer is buried in nearby Edson Cemetery.
Another famous Lowell native was James Abbott McNeill Whistler, whose birthplace home is now an art museum. Etchings by Whistler are featured on the second floor of the Whistler House Museum of Art. The museum’s main collection presents paintings primarily by other New England artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Whether it’s history, art, literature, music, or just for the fun of it, Lowell is an enjoyable destination for RV travelers.
When You Go
Lowell’s streets are small and, therefore, the town is not very motorhome-accessible. It is best to leave the RV at the campground and arrive in a towed vehicle.
For detailed information about things to see and do in Lowell, contact:
Greater Merrimack Valley Convention & Visitors Bureau
61 Market St., Unit 1-C
Lowell, MA 01852
(978) 459-6150
Email: info@merrimackvalley.org
Area Campgrounds
The following may not be a complete list, so check your campground directory or the RV Marketplace, published in the January issue of FMC and online at FMCA.com, for additional listings.
Berry’s Grove Campground
35 Davis St.
Tyngsboro, MA 01879-1603
(978) 649-3141
Boston Minuteman Campground
264 Ayer Road
Littleton, MA 01460
(978) 772-0042
Lorraine Park Campground
133 Jenkins Road
Andover, MA 01810
(978) 475-7972
Massachusetts Sales Tax Info
Massachusetts has a 6.25 percent sales tax.
However, there is NO sales tax on:
- Food (exception: restaurant meals).
- Prescriptions and many health-related items.
- Clothing and shoes. The sales tax begins on the amount over $175 per item.
- Magazines, newspapers.
- Tickets to sporting and amusement events.
Tip: Many Massachusetts residents travel to neighboring New Hampshire for tax-free shopping on even more items.
When In Massachusetts …
By Christopher Dougherty
You may hear some unfamiliar words and phrases while visiting the Bay State for FMCA’s 94th Family Reunion & Motorhome Showcase. Here are some translations.
Bubbler: drinking fountain (term also used in parts of Oregon and Wisconsin)
Frappe: milkshake
Dunks: Dunkin’ Donuts
Ugly: mean
Wicked: good or very
Package store, Packie: liquor store
Marble orchard: cemetery
Grinder/submarine: sandwich in long bread or roll
Shots, sprinkles, jimmies: tiny candies used to top ice cream
Regular: If describing a coffee order in a restaurant, it means coffee with cream and sugar. To get cream only, ask for coffee “white” and to get sugar only, ask for coffee “sweet.”
Pronounce it like a local!
Amherst: AM-erst, without the “h”
Worcester: Wiss-tah in western Massachusetts; WUSS-tah in central and eastern Massachusetts
Gloucester: GLOSS-ter
Haveril: HAY-vril
Holyoke: HULL-yoke in western Massachusetts; HOLY-oke everywhere else
Chicopee: Chick-a-pee
Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Porchmuth
Warwick, Rhode Island: WAH-rick
Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg: Call it Webster Lake. That’s what the locals do. Or, use the other local name, Lake Chaubunagungamaug (it’s still shorter!). This is the longest place name in the United States and one of the longest in the world. It has more of the letter ‘a’ than any other word in the English language, according to Wikipedia. By the way, camping on the shore of the lake is available at Indian Ranch Campground — www.indianranch.com — in the town of Webster.