There are many places named Auburn, and the source of them all is a long poem named The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith, written in 1770. In a time when books were few and often re-read, it provided contemplation and inspiration and was read widely. Auburn means the equivalent of Paradise or Utopia, and the poem title is similar to Paradise Lost.
The poem was part of the curriculum of Harvard College, and an idyllic patch of land nearby where the students would congregate was called Auburn. It is what became Mt Auburn Cemetery. The town’s name change to Auburn and the founding of Mt Auburn Cemetery were just a few years apart. Auburn is an idea as much as a place, just as the cemetery tries to create heaven.
The Deserted Village laments the decline of agrarian life, the concentration of wealth, and population decline from immigration to America from Ireland, but it also provides a rich description of a happy society, not unlike the loss Native Americans were experiencing here as well.
Click here to read the full text of the poem. There are a lot of ideas and imagery in the poem and in our history which can help to inspire your design.
Modern finance and the industrial revolution began almost simultaneously and fed one starting from the early 1700’s. As a result, the world has changed significantly for every generation for the last 300 years. Places like Hopedale, Brooks Farm in Roxbury, Oneida in New York, and Shaker Village in Harvard were all part of a widespread envisioning a new ideal society, just as much as replacing monarchy with democracy was in 1776.
Robert Godard’s application of the pressure relief valve from the steam engine to rocket propulsion is one example of many of the compound effect of industrial changes.
Site of first liquid fueled rocket. Launched by Robert Goddard in 1926.
Nipmuck Native Americans spent their spring and summer in Auburn for hundred of years. They would plant crops in the spring and stay until harvest, wintering elsewhere.
Dairies: There were many large dairies in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. Robert Goddard received complaints about scaring the cows.
Mills: both fabric and lumber
There was a railroad station in town for loading production from the mills, factories and farms, and for passengers.
Site of the Auburn Mall
The Auburn Cyclones, a semi-pro football team from 1920-1930
Motorcycle races were held near Water Street and was a stop on the national motorcycle race circuit.
Auburn has many service organizations. Elks, Masons, Rotary, etc
The crossing of major highways: routes 146, 20, 290, 395 and the Mass Turnpike.
General Artemus Ward. The town was originally named Ward after the Revolutionary War general who helped to liberate Boston from British control. He was a native of Shrewsbury.