Material Culture: The transformation of a New England cotton mill into a centre for learning and cultural preservation
From Firenze University Press Journal: Fashion Highlight
Joanne Benham Rennick, Wilfrid Laurier university
THE COTTON MILLS OF LOWELL MA: WEAVING THE FABRIC OF COMMUNITY
The Boott Cotton Mills Museum at Lowell National Historical Park sits in Lowell, Massachusetts, 30 miles from Boston on the Merrimack river near Pawtucket Falls. It was developed in the 1830s as a new mill town amongst a consortium of textile manufacturing operations established and operated by the Boston Manufacturing Company. Operations faltered in response to 20th century challenges until finally ceasing in 1955. Soon afterwards, in the early 1960s, a group of Lowell citizens, most of them descendants of the mill workers, came together with a plan to “revitalize the community, transform the educational system, and stimulate the local economy” (National Park Service, 1992, p. 90). They proposed to celebrate the region’s fibre- and weaving history by turning the mill architecture and the diverse community the mill workers had established all around it into an “historical park that would present the city as a living museum” (ibid.).Through primary and secondary source analysis of materials from the National Park Service, and site visits to the Lowell National Historic Park site during May through August 2024, this paper considers the lasting impact that textile production at the Boott Cotton Mill has had on the identity of the region. Other researchers have noted the historical and industrial importance of New England mill towns in the region, and examined the opportunities and challenges of the National Park Service’s “culture-based approach to revitaliza-tion” and the city’s partial “renaissance” (Stanton, 2006, p.3) through heritage tourism. This paper contributes to the literature by considering the ways in which fibre, fabric, and textile manufacturing are both resources for and perpetuators of culture. It offers perspective on how the repurposing of industrial heritage sites such as textile mills, can preserve the historical legacy of a region while generating innovative collaborations that enhance socio-economic prospects, civic pride, and community-engaged learning.
FROM NEW ENGLAND FARM GIRLS TO ETHNIC ENCLAVES
The Boott Cotton Mill is one in a series of New England textile manufacturing sites developed under the auspices of the Boston Manufacturing Company established in 1813 by Henry Cabot Lowell and a group of business associates (Mullin & Kotval, 2021). These textile mills and the urban communities that sprung up around them played a critical role in the rise of the American Industrial Revolution by harnessing natural resources (river power and raw materials), technological innovations, and human labour. The Boott Mill of Lowell, Massachussettes was among the most successful of these (Gross, 2000).It was designed and overseen by former British army engineer Kirk Boott. Boott’s grand vision for the project went well beyond the factory itself and included city planning, architecture and construc-tion of streets and buildings as well as “mills, canals, locks, machine shop and worker housing” (National Park Service, 1992, p. 32). Throughout the 19th century, the Boott Mill transformed the region from an agrarian settlement to a booming industrial zone employing thousands of workers.Initially, labourers were drawn from surrounding farm communities: primarily young women who could be spared from farm work to take paid employment in town. These young, unchaperoned workers, typically ranging in age from 15 to 25, were obliged to live with relatives or in mill-owned boarding houses managed by older women also employed by the mill (Dublin, 1994). These “mill girls” formed the backbone of labour from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s until waves of Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Famine arrived in droves, eager for work. Various global crises ensured the continuing influx of other immigrants whose cheap labour benefited the mill while simultaneously undermining efforts to improve labour conditions and causing inter-group tensions. From its origins as a proud “Yankee mill town” in the 1830s, by the 20th century, Lowell had become home to more than 40 different ethnic groups including, “Irish, French Canadians, Greeks, Poles, Italians, Swedes, Portuguese, Armenians, Lithuanians, Jews, [and] Syrians” (Kenngott, 1912; National Park Service, 1999, p. 68) and sustains a host of ethnic enclaves. Like the fabrics being designed and woven in the mill, these groups learned to live and work together and their cultural, linguistic and traditional influences are now woven into the cultural tapestry of the region and continue to influence it today (Forrant, 2022).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/fh-3061
Read Full Text: https://riviste.fupress.net/index.php/fh/article/view/3061
