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History : Lowell
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Decline and Recovery
World War I gave a short-lived boost to Lowell's textile and
munitions industries as both profited from large military contracts.
As more jobs were created, few could see that the end of Lowell's
prosperity was near, or that by 1930 the city's once vital economy
would grind to a virtual halt.
There were early signs, but one had to look beyond the production
numbers to see them. For several decades after the Civil War,
Lowell's textile production had increased steadily, but after
1890 total employment slipped, declining from 17,000 in 1895 to
less than 14,000 in 1918. Technological advances made possible
gains in output even while mills trimmed their workforce.
Lowell mill owners knew as early as the 1890s that their mills
were aging, becoming increasingly noncompetitive. Yet mill management
chose not to modernize their Lowell operations. They either took
their operations elsewhere or used the profits from their Lowell
mills to finance modern textile plants in the South.
Southern community and business leaders eager for development
actively promoted industrialization by emphasizing the region's
advantages of abundant land, cheaper labor, energy sources, lower
taxes, and transportation. Promoters also promised New England
investors company towns free of union influences and restrictive
laws concerning the health and safety of industrial workers. Lowell
and other New England mill towns experienced an early version
of the capital flight that plagued communities in the northeast
and the Midwestern industrial heartland in the 1970s and 1980s.
As early as World War 1, Lowell firms began to fail or leave
town. The Bigelow Carpet Company (formerly Lowell Manufacturing
Company, one of the first textile firms in the city) departed
in 1914, and Middlesex Mills ceased production in 1918. Other
companies took over their plants, but these closings were the
first by firms that were part of Lowell's founding almost a century
earlier. Then in 1926 came a wave of closings. The Hamilton Company
went into receivership, followed by Suffolk, Tremont, and Massachusetts
Mills. The Appleton Company moved production to the South, and
operations at the Saco-Lowell Shop (formerly the Lowell Machine
Shop) shifted north to Maine. By the mid-1930s, of Lowell's first
large mills, only the Merrimack, Lawrence, and Boott were still
in operation.
The Depression came early to Lowell and stayed. By 1936 total
textile employment had dropped to 8,000, only slightly more than
it had been a century earlier. Many mills stood empty; others
housed a number of small manufacturing firms. Entire mill complexes
were demolished, or sections lopped off, to reduce taxes. Parts
of Lowell looked like a war ravaged city.
Families coped as best they could with unemployment during the
Depression. One Polish-born worker described how her family survived:
"during the summer, dandelion greens were our diet; during
the winter we ate hard bread, sweetened with sugar if we were
lucky. . . . On rare occasions we would sell something we owned
to buy a little meat." Children quit school and took what
work they could find. Jobs were scarce, though, and employers
often took advantage and made increasing demands on those fortunate
enough to be working. Even those with jobs had no assurance of
regular work. One former mill worker recalled the Depression:
Many days I walk into the mill, and [the boss] puts his hands
up, "No work today. " Home you go. They wouldn't tell
you anything. You go back the next day, the same thing. The whole
week. Wouldn't even tell you if there was no work tomorrow. They
waited till you got there.
As the few remaining large mills increased production in the
late 1930s, workers responded to the escalating demands made on
them. The mills' "stretch-out"-the practice of increasing
the workload for the same wage by assigning more machines to workers-recalled
a similar demand made on female workers in the 1840s. It had helped
drive the Yankee women out of the mills, and it was equally resented
by workers a century later. They wanted paid vacations, denied
even to those who had been with the company for decades. They
asked for improved working conditions, which were hardly better
than in the mid-19th century. Yvonne Hoar, who worked in Lowell
in the twenties and thirties, recalled what it was like in the
Merrimack Mills weave room:
It was the noisiest room you could ever be in. There’s
machines going and shuttles going back and forth, and sometimes
they'd fly off and they were pointed things and if they ever hit
you, boy, you'd know it.... The whole place vibrates. When
I come out of there at night I was shaking; I was still in the
mill... then they put me up in the finishing room. .
. . They were doubling up all the machines so it made that
much more work.... There we got 13 dollars a week. No matter
who you are or where you were in the mill, you got thirteen dollars
a week. ... You really didn't need names, because everyone
got thirteen dollars a week. Wouldn't do you any good to complain
... they were so petrified for their jobs in them days,
it was pitiful.
When a union was formed in 1938 to bargain with the Merrimack
Mills, women played a significant role in organizing the workers,
as their forerunners had a century earlier. After their demands
for better wages and working conditions were rejected, they went
on strike. Confronted with strikebreakers and called Communists,
they had to live on meager strike funds. But far-off events shifted
the balance in their favor. War was approaching in Europe and
the Federal government was pressuring the mills for cloth. The
owners capitulated after seven weeks and the workers returned
to the mills.
World War II quickened Lowell's economy. The remaining textile
mills in the city-Merrimack, Boott, Ames (the old Lawrence Company),
and several others-increased employment dramatically, while the
departure of men for military service brought more women
into the labor force. The workers could command better wages as
other firms with military contracts-Remington, General Electric,
and U.S. Rubber-competed with the mills for Lowell workers.
The wartime demand for labor seemed to bring an end to the depression
in Lowell that had begun with the mill closings in 1926. Wages
shot upward. A typical starting figure of $13 a week in the mills
in 1938 rose to $29 by 1943. Earnings in munitions factories were
greater still, reaching an average of $37 at Remington for a 48-hour
week in 1943.
The boom proved only temporary for Lowell. When the war ended
in 1945, orders for munitions and textiles fell off, and the city
lapsed into its old economic doldrums. It was clear that the textile
industry would not lead Lowell back to prosperity. The city's
fortunes were at their lowest in the post-war years with the closing
of the Boott and Merrimack mills in the 1950s. The latter's mills
and boardinghouses soon fell victim to the urban renewal programs
of the 1960s, along with the tenement neighborhood of Little Canada.
Mill employment all but disappeared, and nothing had yet taken
its place. The remaining mill buildings seemed to be bleak reminders
of an era of hard work and meager reward. For many residents,
remembering the past stirred up feelings of anger and abandonment.
In the 1960s a group of Lowell citizens devised a strategy to
revitalize the community, transform the educational system, and
stimulate the local economy. Working with urban planners and historians,
they laid out a plan for redevelopment based on Lowell's architectural
and cultural heritage. Among their proposals was one for a historical
park that would present the city as a living museum.
Pragmatic alliances marked this movement from the beginning.
Political and business leaders offered support. In 1972 the city
council endorsed the idea. Out of this unprecedented cooperation
emerged Lowell Heritage State Park in 1974, Lowell National Historical
Park in 1978, and the Lowell Historic Preservation Commission.
The latter was created in 1978 to assist the park's development,
stimulate historic preservation of Lowell's downtown buildings
and canals, and develop cultural programs related to the park's
themes. Here was a new kind of park, one that mustered the energies,
funds, and talents of many groups and government agencies and
directed them toward common goals.
Other factors in the 1970s contributed to Lowell's rebirth. The
University of Lowell (now the University of Massachusetts Lowell)
emerged from the union of Lowell Technological Institute and Lowell
State College in 1975. Its mission included support for regional
economic development. The arrival in the mid-1970s of Wang Laboratories,
then a leader in computers, brought to the city an industry that
many hoped would lead to another bright technological future.
The late 1970s and the early 1980s were years of prosperity in
Massachusetts, with a soaring economy built around higher education,
high technology, and an attractive cultural ambience. In Lowell
employment rose as business expanded and over 100 old buildings
were rehabilitated and put to new uses. Visitors again came to
Lowell, a model of historic preservation and urban revival. But
by the late 1980s the boom was over. The region's economy had
cooled, the computer industry was tightening its belt, and many
companies were closing their doors or relocating elsewhere. Wang
found itself challenged by strong competition, requiring it to
cut most of its workforce and dramatically restructure its operations.
Boom and bust, technological innovation and obsolescence-these
are old themes in Lowell. Many observers see nothing surprising
in the current cycle and believe a new mix of technology, improved
education, and cultural vitality has positioned the city well
for transition into the coming era of internationally interdependent
economies.
The city's new pride recalls the spirit of the milltown's boom
days. After decades of decline, the population is rising. The
most recent immigrants-as essential to industry as their predecessors
a century before-come from Cambodia, Laos, Latin America, and
other parts of the world. A collection of public art lends interest
to the urban scene. Visitors have a multitude of choices: tours
of the park, exhibits, festivals, concerts, demonstrations of
old skills, a chance to stroll along historic streets. In summer
the Merrimack is crowded with boats. The Canalway pedestrian path
links the city's waterways with its historic structures.
The citizens of Lowell have made the past a vigorous presence.
Historic buildings house new enterprises. Old machinery finds
use in new exhibits. Common threads run through the experiences
of Lowell's earlier generations of immigrants and those still
arriving. If there is any place to observe the beginnings and
the development of American industrialization, it is here in Lowell.
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