Lowell, MA was the first large industrial city in the United States. When Lowell was built in the 1820s, the large brick factories stood out in a landscape of small wood mills and farms. Within 30 years, it grew to a city of 10,000 workers and produced 2.8 million yards of fabric every week, and was home to some of the most complex machinery in the country.
This video looks at the city itself as an invention. In the beginning, Lowell was built as a corporate planned city. Everything from the factories and canal system, to the churches and parks were built by the textile companies. Even the housing and social life were structured by company managers. Every detail of the city was designed to meet the goals of the textile companies. So, the whole city was a kind of complicated machine.
I created this video as part of the “Places of Invention” exhibition project. The project was organized by the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the National Museum of American History. It was created in conjunction with the American Textile History Museum (ATHM) and Lowell Telemedia Center (LTC). The materials in the video were from the ATHM collection.
Sadly, the American Textile History Museum is no longer in operation and the collections have been distributed to other repositories. I’m glad to have this video reminder of the great material they had in their library.