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History : Bibliography
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Links Bibliography
What follows is a select bibliography of books
that will help you to learn more about Lowell and cotton textile
history in the United States. Most of these books are in print
and should be available to you through your local bookstore or
public library. Many may be purchased from the Park
Museum Store.
Blewett, Mary H. The Last Generation: Work and Life in the
Textile Mills of Lowell Massachusetts, 1910-1960. Amherst:
University of Massachusetts Press, 1990.
This book is based on a series of taped interviews with former
mill workers. One gets a vivid and intimate look at this generation
of workers who "survived the worst that economic decline
and hard times could deliver."
Coolidge, John. Mill and Mansion: a Study of Architecture
and Society in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1820-1865, second
edition. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992.
An interdisciplinary study of 19th century architecture, and
the economic and social history of Lowell. Considered THE seminal
work on the classic New England mill town. Coolidge delineates
the architectural development of Lowell, period by period, clearly
and concisely. This book is sometimes called the "Architectural
Bible of Lowell."
Dalzell, Robert F., Jr. Enterprising Elite: The Boston Associates
and the World They Made. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1987.
Who were the men who brought the industrial revolution to America?
Francis Cabot Lowell went to England in 1811 and memorized the
workings of the power looms. When he returned he and his colleagues
organized themselves into corporations to harness the energy
of the Merrimack River and built an industry. Dalzell analyzes
the lives, philosophies, politics and contributions of this
group of entrepreneurs.
Dublin, Thomas. Lowell: The Story of an Industrial City.
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, National
park Service, Division of Publications, 1992, 109pp.
This "Guide to Lowell National Historical Park and Lowell
Heritage State Park" is a comprehensive quick look at Lowell's
story. It is heavily illustrated and an ideal reference for
school reports. It is available from the bookstore
at the Park.
Dublin, Thomas. Farm to Factory: Women's Letters, 1830-1860.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1981.
Mill girl letters are a rarity but this book reprints and discusses
the correspondence of four women who worked in New England textile
factories in the first half of the 19th century.
Dublin, Thomas. Women at Work: The Transformation of Work
and Community in Lowell, Massachsuetts, 1826-1860. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1979.
A study of the first generation of women to work
outside of the home, a generation that found new independence,
responsibility and opportunity. Dublin looks at the mill girls'
backgrounds, their work, social and cultural lives, their interactions
with others in their employment, and their protests and strikes.
Eisler, Benita, editor. The Lowell Offering: Writings by
New England Mill Women (1840-1845). Philadelphia and New
York: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1977.
A selection of sketches, poems, stories and essays
from the monthly magazine written by the "first industrial
wage earners in the United States." Topics covered include
life and work in Lowell, the mill girls quest for knowledge, family,
and the future.
Eno, Arthur L. Cotton was King: A History of Lowell Massachusetts.
[Somersworth, NH]: New Hampshire Publishing Company in collaboration
with the Lowell Historical Society, 1976.
A collection of essays by different historians on
all phases of Lowell's history beginning with the Pennacook tribes
that gathered each spring for fishing season at the Pawtucket
Falls. There are chapters on the pre-industrial settlement in
the area, the beginnings of the textile industry, the mill girls,
the immigrants, as well as the culture and politics of the city.
Cotton was King is out of print. However, it will give
you a very complete history of Lowell, and we urge you to seek
it out through your library and used book dealers.
Gross, Laurence F. The Course of Industrial Decline: The
Boott Cotton Mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, 1835-1955.
Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
History books date the end of Lowell's "golden
age" at the Civil War, yet hundreds of thousands worked in
the mills after the war. Gross studies the rise and fall of one
corporation, a textile mill that perhaps existed longer than it
should have, its main product being capital rather than cloth.
Josephson, Hannah. The Golden Threads: New England's Mill
Girls
and Magnates. New York: Duell, Sloan and
Pearce, 1949.
A very readable history of Lowell written before
there was any interest in celebrating its contributions to our
American past. The history ends with the fall of the Pemberton
Mills in 1860.
Miller, Marc Scott. The Irony of Victory: World War II and
Lowell, Massachusetts. Urbana: Universit of Illinois Press,
1988.
Contrary to the belief that the war brought economic
security and an end to the depression and the need for the New
Deal, Miller shows that Lowell suffered dramatic unemployment
and despair as a result of the war.
Mitchell, Brian C. The Paddy Camps: The Irish of Lowell,
1821-61. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988.
One of the most significant changes in the textile
industry in the mid-nineteenth century was the growing number
of immigrant Irish workers hired to work in Lowell's mills. The
Irish became a major force in shaping the development of Lowell.
Mitchell studies this Irish community up to 1860, after which
other immigrants joined them in Lowell.
Mrozowski, Stephen A., Grace H. Ziesing, and Mry C. Beaudry.
Living on the Boot: Historical Archaeology at the Boott Mills
Boardinghouses, Lowell, Massachusetts. Amherst: University
of Massachusetts Press, 1996.
The authors look at domestic life in the mill boarding
houses in the late 1800's, based on the findings of their archeological
excavations and investigations. An excellent introduction to the
field of historical archaeology and a fresh portrait of nineeteenth-century
domestic life. The three-volume report from which this book is
condensed is available at the Park Library for further study.
Robinson, Harriet H. Loom & Spindle or Life Among the
Early Mill Girls, with a Sketch of "The Lowell Offering"
and Some of Its Contributors. Kailua, HI: Press Pacifica,
1976.
A "rich, warmly humorous, and honest memoir
of Harriet Hanson Robinson, who went to work in the cotton mills.
. .at the age of ten, in 1835." Brief biographies, by Robinson,
of some of the women who wrote for the Lowell Offering are also
included.
Ware, Caroline F. The Early New England Cotton Manufacture:
A Study in Industrial Beginnings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Co., 1931.
An in-depth, oft-quoted, discourse on the New England
cotton industry. "This industry brought the factory system
to the United States and furnished the laboratory wherin were
worked out industrial methods characteristic of the nation."
Weible, Robert, editor. The Continuing Revolution: A History
of Lowell, Massachusetts. [Lowell], Lowell Historical Society,
1991.
A second collection of essays on Lowell, containing
articles on people, the Boston Associates, Sarah Bagley French
Canadians, and Colombian textile workers; on structures, the canals
and the mills; on institutions, public education and the Boott
Mills, and more.
Weisman, JoAnne B., editor. The Lowell Mill Girls: Life
in the Factory. Lowell: Discover Enterprises, Ltd., 1991.
This book, from the Perspectives on History Series,
contains essays and historical fiction, including writing from
the Lowell Offering and Factory Tract Number 1,
and can easily be incorporated into school curriculum.
Zonderman, David A. Aspirations & Anxieties: New England
Workers & the Mechanized Factory System, 1815-1850.
New York:
Oxford University Press, 1992.
A look at how New England factory workers viewed
themselves, the work they did, and the industrial system. The
author studied the writings of the workers--their letters, magazines,
and memoirs--to determine their attitudes about the promises and
perils of the factory system, and their ideas about technology
and labor conditions, and to follow their evolving patterns of
labor protest. He "reveals how gender, ethnicity, age, occupation
and skill shaped the operative's understanding of their changing
workplace."
Zaroulis, N. L. Call the Darkness Light. An Epic novel
of a young woman's passionate struggle for independence in 19th
century America.
Soho Press, Inc., 1979.
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