There’s plenty of parking at the Visitor Center and it has spots for RV’s.Young Women Were America's First Industrial Workforce Close The Visitor Center has some historical displays, maps of the park, tour information, and a theater that shows an introductory film about Lowell and the textile industry. There’s a Visitor Center which is housed in the Market Mills building. The Lowell National Historic Park is located in some of the original textile mill buildings in downtown Lowell. As the mills shut down in the early 1900’s, the mill towns of New England began a long economic decline. Mills began to relocate to the southern states to take advantage of cheaper labor and to avoid cotton shipping costs. Steam engines were used to power the looms and spinning equipment. They formed their own neighborhoods and forever changed the demographic and cultural fabric of the mill towns and all of New England.īy the late 1800’s, the New England textile business began to decline. ![]() Many had families so workers no longer lived in the boarding houses. These new immigrants took over the textile jobs. In their place, cheaper immigrant labor from Ireland, eastern Canada, and Easter Europe began to arrive and take the place of the mill girls. At times, there were work strikes to improve wages and work conditions.ĭuring the Civil War, the labor system began to fail as women returned to their families and homes to take the place of the men who left to fight in the war. ![]() To minimize turnover and labor competition, all the mill owners agreed to pay the same wage rates. In Lowell, this labor and production system worked well for numerous years. They’re wearing a cloth apron over their dress and have a small leather apron that hold tools. The women are all wearing long dresses with their sleeves rolled up. Lowell believed that by providing a safe workplace, comfortable living conditions, and a socially positive living environment he could ensure a steady supply of labor. They were also provided educational, religious, and cultural opportunities. They were housed in supervised boarding houses which were located adjacent to the mills and provided their meals. Instead, Lowell recruited farm girls and young woman from rural New England to perform the spinning and weaving tasks. He wanted to avoid the child labor system that he saw in England. To meet this need, Lowell and his partners designed an innovative labor program. The workforce needs for the mill were more than the local community could provide. Lowell’s mill design required large amounts of labor to process the cotton, weave the cloth, and to maintain the machines. Others quickly followed using Lowell’s mill design. In 1823, his business partners built the first textile mill in Lowell – the Merrimack Manufacturing Company. Lowell died unexpectedly in 1817 at the age of 42. Lowell and his business partners quickly found that the Charles River did not have sufficient flow to fully power his mill design and began looking for a new site. Lowell’s mill design set a standard for other textile mills throughout New England. The cloth was dyed and then cut into the finished product. It was then turned into thread, then the thread woven into cloth. The raw cotton was delivered and processed at one level. His mill was a vertically integrated model where all aspects of production occurred in one building. ![]() So, I was curious to see and learn what the environment and work life was like back then. My grandfather also worked in a cotton mill and his brother worked in the textile mills in Lowell. She worked as a weaver for most of her working life. Her mother, who was born in 1893 went to work in the textile mills when she was 9 yrs old. My mother’s family emigrated from northern Quebec in the early 1900’s to work in the textile mills in New Hampshire. I had a personal interest in learning about this story. It uses what began in Lowell to tell the story of how our country transformed from an agrarian economy to an industrial economy. The Historic Park in Lowell showcases how water powered textile mills came into being and helped create several of the larger cities in New England. It’s not a historic event landmark or a famous building. As a national site, this place it’s not a scenic wonder. This historic park is located in downtown Lowell, MA. I recently took a day trip in my RV and visited the Lowell National Historic Park.
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