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.
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 Magnets.
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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