• The Slater Mill (yellow) and Wilkinson Mill (stone), along the Blacktone River in Pawtucket RI

    Blackstone River Valley

    National Heritage Corridor MA,RI

Mill Village Conference

Mill Village Conference
 

Join us on November 2 & 3 for The Mill Village: Industry, Transformation and Power, a two day conference that will feature noted scholars and practicioners in an animated discussion about the American Industrial Revolution through the lense of the mill village and today's industrial landscape.

The mill village, created by the owners of the mill to provide a steady, reliable, and sober work force became the focus of life in the newly created industrial landscape. The Mill Village was that place of transition - between a work day based on the changing seasons to a work day governed by the clang of the mill bell.

With Slatersville celebrating its 200th Anniversary as the first planned industrial commnity in America, how did this paternalistic landscape shape the nation? What was its impact on the workers who lived there? On the entreprenurial owners who ruled its rhythms? On the social constructs that developed there? How are planned communities of our industrial past lined to the "Boomer" communities of today?

For more information about the conference, contact Ranger Chuck Arning at (401) 762-0250, or e-mail us.

To see the conference schedule, please click here. (pdf)

For a registration form, please click here. (pdf)

Did You Know?

Central Diner in Millbury, MA

The classic American Diner is another Blackstone Valley innovation.  In 1872, Walter Scott began selling food from a horse drawn covered wagon in Providence, RI.  In 1887, the first diner manufacturer opened in Worcester, MA.