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The history of the mills and evolution of Downtown Lowell

The Boott Mills Museum is a repurposed building that was originally built in 1835 (Courtesy of Boott Cotton Mills Museum)
Taylor Carito
Connector Staff

Just over one hundred years ago Lowell was one of the homes to the boom of industrialization in New England. Textile and cotton mills lined the city’s now downtown streets, crowded with migrant and immigrant workers row after row, working countless hours on unsafe machinery. One series of mills in particular, the Boott Mills, is still open to this day as a museum in downtown Lowell.

The museum includes unique interactive features including operational looms, all in original condition from the late 19th century. On the upper levels of the mill, there are informational videos and sample textiles created from the period. The museum is rich of first-hand history of both the growth of Lowell and the effects and operations of the mills.

The majority of the population that worked in the mills were immigrants and, perhaps more infamously, the mill girls. The girls who worked in the mills were primarily from farms in the surrounding areas, who were willing to work for the factory wages. So much history flows through downtown Lowell in regard to these hard workers. Just a few feet away from the Boott Mills, there’s another museum in the downtown area that primarily focuses on the mill girls and their stories.

Lowell’s founders came from cities such as Boston to start businesses in textiles. All of their names are not foreign to us to this day. The founding fathers of Lowell include Israel Thorndike, Nathan Appleton (who founded the mill that Mill No. 5 is in), Patrick Tracy Jackson, Abbott Lawrence, Francis Cabot Lowell, and Kirk Boott (founder of Boott Mills). All of them came here with the purpose of using the Merrimack River and labor to mass produce cotton linens.

As labor and working conditions became unbearable in the early twentieth century, it became impossible to maintain healthy and happy workers within the factories. Eventually, in the 1950s, the mills moved south, leaving Lowell in a very unstable economic situation. Everybody who had flocked to Lowell to work in the mills was now unemployed, and businesses in downtown Lowell went out of business without the working class income.

It took the city of Lowell fifty years to become the place it is today, with flourishing businesses and preservation as a national historic park. By incorporating the mills into the downtown area, more restaurants, shops and other businesses have space to open. The mills of Lowell have shaped the history of the city in many ways, and, although they contributed to the decline of economic stability when they closed, they now contribute to the thriving downtown area.

All information provided from the Boott Cotton Mills Museum.

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