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Lowell National Historical Park

  • Also Known As: Lowell Historic Preservation District
  • Historic Civil Engineering Landmark: Lowell Locks and Canals
  • Also Known As: Lowell Locks and Canals Historic District
  • Address: Merrimack St
  • Travel Genus: Sight
  • Sight Category: Historic District

All was expectancy. Changes were coming ... nobody could guess what. - Lucy Larcom

Discover the continuing revolution. Lowell's water-powered textile mills catapulted the nation - including immigrant families and early female factory workers -into an uncertain new industrial era. Nearly 200 years later, the changes that began here still reverberate in our shifting global economy. Explore Lowell, a living monument to the dynamic human story of the Industrial Revolution. - NPS

The Locks and Canals District

The Locks and Canals District encompasses all of the canals in the city of Lowell, their associated locks, and the mills that were powered by the canals. This canal system led to the supremacy of Lowell as the cotton textile manufacturing center of the United States, and contributed to the evolution of the first major American industrial city. The District contains virtually unaltered waterways, mills and machinery. - NRHP Registration, 22 December 1977

Lowell Historic Preservation District

The Lowell National Historical Park and Preservation District was created under the federal legislation that created the Lowell National Historical Park in 1978. Several previously-existing districts on the National Register of Historic Places are also located within the larger boundaries of the district including the City Hall Historic District, Merrimack-Middle Streets Historic District, and the Locks and Canals Historic District in addition to several individually-listed National Register properties. The district includes many industrial, commercial, residential, and institutional structures and a wide range of period architectural styles. - City of Lowell Historic Board


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Lowell National Historical Park
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Timeline

Y/M/D Person Association Description Composition Food Event
Y/M/D Person Association Description Composition Food Event
1813/00/00 Middlesex Mills (lost), the first in Lowell, are built in East Chelmsford (now Lowell) at the confluence of the Pawtucket Canal and the Concord River.
1821/00/00 Proprietors of Locks and Canals Owner The Proprietors of Locks and Canals on Merrimack River to buy the land and water rights around Pawtucket Falls in East Chelmsford. New mill owners will buy the land, but lease the water power from the Proprietors of Locks and Canals.
1821/00/00 Nathan Appleton Developer Merrimac Manufacturing Company mill town
1830/00/00 Amos Lawrence Owner Amos and Abbott Lawrence invest in the Suffolk and Tremont Mills
1830/00/00 Abbott Lawrence Owner Amos and Abbott Lawrence invest in the Suffolk and Tremont Mills
1833/00/00 Lawrence Manufacturing Company History Lawrence Manufacturing Company begins manufacturing shirtings, sheetings and printing cloth.
1840/00/00 Lawrence Manufacturing Company History Lawrence Manufacturing employs 1290 women and only 200 men. Most of the Company's single female employees, like other Lowell mill girls, live in company-owned boardinghouses, where they are bound by regulations designed to keep them respectable and safe.
1845/00/00 In the 1840's, first the immigrants employed at Lowell mills are mainly Irish. Later, large numbers of French Canadian, Polish, Portuguese and Greek immigrants, both men and women, will move to Lowell for work.
1862/00/00 Lawrence Manufacturing Company History Anticipating a shortage of cotton from the south for the duration of the Civil War, nine mills in Lowell, including Lawrence, shut down entirely. Ten thousand mill workers, about 1600 of whom work for Lawrence, lose there job.
1864/00/00 Lawrence Manufacturing Company History Lawrence Manufacturing Company restarts operations and adds the manufacturing of such knitted goods as hosiery and underwear.
1865/00/00 The firms of 'George C Richardson and Company' and 'R M Bailey and Company' are the selling agents for the Lawrence Manufacturing Co.
1866/00/00 Townsend and Yale (later E M Townsend and Company) replaced R M Bailey and Company as the Lawrence Manufacturing selling agents for shirts, drawers and woolen hosiery.
1871/00/00 Lawrence Manufacturing Company History Lawrence Manufacturing Co begins using steam power and expands production.
1896/00/00 Lawrence Manufacturing Company History Lawrence Manufacturing Co discontinues the manufacturing of woven cotton cloth, their original product, to concentrate on knitted hosiery and underwear.

Places

PlaceAsNotedInType
PlaceAsNotedInType
Boott Cotton Mills Museum
Hamilton and Pawtucket Canals

Data »

Particulars for Lowell National Historical Park:
Area of Significance Architecture
Criteria Architecture-Engineering
Area of Significance Community Planning and Development
Industry Cotton
Owner Federal
Architectural Style Federal Style
Architectural Style Greek Revival
Sight Category Historic District
Criteria Historic Event
Era Industrial Revolution
Area of Significance Industry
Architectural Style Italianate
Historic Use Manufacturing facility
Level of Significance National
Area of Significance Social History



US National Registry of Historic Places Data »

Accurate at time of registration:

PLACE DETAILS
Registry Name:
Registry Address:
Registry Number: 76001972
Resource Type:
Owner: Private, State, Federal
Architect: Appleton,Nathan; Boott,Kirk
Architectural Style: No style listed
Other Certification: Designated National Landmark, Designated unit of the National Park Service
Nominator Name: National Historic Landmark
CULTURAL DETAILS
Level of Significance: National
Area of Significance: Engineering, Industry
Applicable Criteria: Architecture-Engineering, Event
Period of Significance: 1825-1849, 1850-1874, 1875-1899, 1900-1924, 1925-1949, 1800-1824
Significant Year: 1821, c 1830
Historic Function: Industry, processing, extraction
Historic Sub-Function: Manufacturing facility, Water works
Current Function: Industry, processing, extraction
Current Sub-Function: Manufacturing facility Water works

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