The Boott Mills Weave Room

First established in 1835, the Boott Mills were home to textile manufacturing for over 100 years. In its heyday, this weave room held around 200 looms. This reconstruction of a historic weave room represents one of dozens that once operated in the city of Lowell, where thousands of people worked at machines just like these.

The Boott Cotton Mills shut down in 1955, amid mill closures in Lowell and across New England in the 1950s and 1960s. The textile industry shifted to the American South because of its lower labor and transportation costs. New England’s mills could not compete and many companies moved their operation or sold their equipment to new factories opening in the American South. New innovations, such as electric motors and pick counters, were added to the older equipment to run in modern mills.

The looms on display in the Boott Cotton Mills Museum weave room tell the story of this movement. The weave room holds over 80 Draper Model E looms, made by the Draper Corporation in Hopedale, Massachusetts. Built between 1913 and 1922, these machines were first produced for a mill in Fall River, Massachusetts. This mill then moved to Tennessee in the mid-1900s. When the textile industry moved again, leaving the southern United States for manufacturers abroad, old machines were often abandoned. These looms were purchased from a dealer in South Carolina in the 1980s and restored here at Lowell National Historical Park with new leather and wooden parts.

 

To learn more about the work of weavers, explore the following resources about the weaving process, the parts of a loom, and the people who operated them.