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Vocabulary
Capitalist: a wealthy person who invests money in trade and industry for profit.
The Industrial Revolution was a time of great change in how people lived and worked that started in Great Britain in the late 1700s. Wealthy capitalists in the United States realized they could use advancing technology, unregulated natural resources, and abundant mass labor to build a fortune. They built factories and whole industries to employ workers who mass-produced cheap goods on machines rather than by hand.
Lowell's Pawtucket Falls provided plenty of water to power the capitalists' cotton textile mills. In the early 1800s, these founders of Lowell dammed the river and diverted its water through canals to their factories, where they used waterwheels and turbines to turn the water’s kinetic energy into power for factory machines, like looms.
Lowell’s first mill opened in 1823, and within 25 years, ten mills operated in the city. In 1848, Lowell was the largest industrial center in America. Fifty thousand miles of cotton cloth – enough to circle the globe twice – was produced in the city that year.
The emergence of factories in Lowell, Lawrence, and other cities around the Merrimack Valley initiated a period of great change – including increased industrial waste, air pollution, urbanization, and large-scale deforestation – that contaminated the land and waterways. All of these processes interacted to change our ways of life and even our planet, resulting in unhealthy environmental conditions. Some of these polluting actions, like dumping toxic waste, have been made illegal by federal or state laws, but some continue to worsen, like carbon emissions and sewage overflow. Humans must work together – both locally and globally – to address pollution and support human health, justice, and economic and social stability.
According to a recent EcoHealth Report Card, as a result of nearly 200 years of industrialization, "all surface waters in Massachusetts contain enough mercury deposited from air pollution to make fish consumption unwise for children and women of childbearing age. Mercury contamination from the former Nyanza chemical plant in Ashland has made all fish in the Sudbury River downstream of the plant too contaminated to eat." The Sudbury River flows into the Concord River, which joins the Merrimack River.
Industrial Revolution Timeline in Lowell and Beyond
Industrial Revolution Timeline in Lowell and Beyond
1771 – First successful water-powered spinning mill opens in England
1790 – First successful water-powered spinning mill opens in Rhode Island
1793 – Cotton gin patented
1796 – Completion of the Pawtucket Canal in East Chelmsford, MA (now Lowell)
1807 – First successful steamboat service in United States
1813 – Boston Manufacturing Company opens first integrated textile mill in Waltham, MA
1821 – First textile mill opens in Lowell, MA
1835 – Boston and Lowell Railroad begins service
1844 – Vulcanized rubber patented
1856 – Bessemer process allows for mass production of inexpensive steel
1870s – Coal-fired steam power begins to replace water power in Lowell’s mills
1882 – First coal-fired power station in London, England.
1885 – First gas-powered car engine
1913 – Introduction of assembly line for mass production of cars
1918-1932 – Eight of Lowell’s original eleven textile companies move to the southern part of the United States or go out of business
1950s – Last three of Lowell’s original eleven mills close
Activities
Activities
Who Polluted the Merrimack (activity): https://www.uml.edu/docs/who_polluted_complete_lesson_tcm18-230466.pdf
Resources
Resources
The Merrimack: The River at Risk: Looks at one of the country's most threatened watersheds and the towns and cities that have relied on it throughout history. (documentary, 56:15): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62mWQcQvM3w
Image: Alvan Fisher, "Falls in Merrimack," 1833, Oil on canvas, 26 × 35 in. (66 × 88.9 cm), Harvard Business School Art and Artifacts Collection, 1958.2.Quote: EcoHealth Report Cards, https://ecoreportcard.org/report-cards/sudbury-assabet-concord-rivers/issues/. Timeline: Assembled from various sources.
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