Lowell
While the Boston Manufacturing Company proved immensely profitable, the Charles River had very little potential as a power source. Lowell died prematurely in 1817, and shortly afterwards, his partners traveled north of Boston to East Chelmsford, Massachusetts, where the large Merrimack River could provide far more power. The first mills, the Merrimack Manufacturing Company, were running by 1823. The settlement was incorporated as the town of Lowell in 1826, and became the city of Lowell ten years later. Boasting ten textile corporations, all running on the Waltham System and each considerably larger than the Boston Manufacturing Company, Lowell became one of the largest cities in New England and the model, now known as the Lowell System, was copied elsewhere in New England, often in other mill towns developed by the Boston Associates. Examples include Manchester, New Hampshire; Lewiston, Maine; Lawrence, Massachusetts; and Holyoke, Massachusetts.
Read more about this topic: Waltham-Lowell System
Famous quotes containing the word lowell:
“Flabby, bald, lobotomized,
he drifted in a sheepish calm,
where no agonizing reappraisal
jarred his concentration of the electric chair—
hanging like an oasis in his air
of lost connections. . . .”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
“As one lamp lights another, nor grows less,
So nobleness enkindleth nobleness.”
—James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)
“so vegetarian,
he wore rope shoes and preferred fallen fruit.”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)