General Resources

Dalzell, Robert. Enterprising Elite: The Associates and the World They Made. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987. Excellent introduction to the origins and early years of Lowell. It gives a good perspective on how Lowell fit into the larger picture of American history.

Dobson, Clive. Watersheds. Firefly Books Ltd, New York: 1999. A practical handbook about watersheds, environmental issues and solutions.

Dublin, Thomas. Farm to Factory: Women’s Letters 1830 - 1860. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981. A series of letters written by and to several . Great primary source about life in early Lowell.

Dublin, Thomas. The Story of an Industrial City. Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, 1993. This Lowell National Historical Park handbook is the best single source on Lowell history. Excellent color illustrations.

Eisler, Benita. The Lowell Offering: Writings by New Mill Women 1840–1845. NY: Harper Colophon Books, 1977. Through letters, stories, essays and sketches the reader hears the voices of young women from Lowell’s textile mills, writing for their own literary magazine.

Eno, Arthur L. Cotton Was King: A History of Lowell, Lowell, MA: Lowell Historical Society, 1976. A valuable introduction to Lowell history.

Larkin, Jack. The Reshaping of Everyday Life 1790 - 1840. New York: Harper & Row, 1989. Highly readable portrayal of the daily lives of Americans in the first fifty years of the new republic.

Larcom, Lucy. A Girlhood Outlined from Memory. Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1889. Reprint, Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1986. Lucy Larcom’s memoir of her childhood, adolescence and early adulthood in the seaport town of Beverly and the factory town of Lowell, Massachusetts.

Layton, Edwin T. From Rule of Thumb to Scientific Engineering. New York: Research Foundation of State University of New York, 1992. Overview of fundamentals of water power and the story of James B. Francis and the invention of the Francis turbine.

Malone, Patrick M. Waterpower in Lowell: Engineering and Industry in Nineteenth –Century America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. Excellent description of how innovative engineering helped make Lowell, Massachusetts, a symbol of American industrial prowess in the 19th century.

Meier, Pauline, and others. Inventing America: A History of the United States, Vol. 1. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. A chronological study, linking the theme of innovation to political, economic, social and cultural developments.

Mind Amongst the Spindles: A Selection from the Lowell Offering. London: Charles Knight & Company, 1844. These selections were wholly composed by nineteenth century “Factory Girls of Lowell” and recently reprinted by Applewood Books in Carlisle, Massachusetts.

Montrie, Chad. Making a Living. North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2008. Cases studies revealing unexpected connections between the fight for workers’ rights and the rise of the modern environmental movement.

Mrozowski, Stephen A. Living on the Boott: Historical Archaeology at the Boott Mills Boardinghouses, Lowell, Massachusetts. Lowell: Lowell Historic Preservation Commission, 1996. Using findings from an archaeological dig at the Boott Cotton Mills in Lowell Massachusetts, the authors create a portrait of nineteenth century domestic life in company-owned boardinghouses. An excellent introduction to the field of historical archaeology.

Robinson, Harriet H. Loom & Spindle or Life Among the Early Mill Girls. Kailua, HI: Press Pacifica, 1976. Memoir of Harriet Hanson Robinson, who worked in the cotton mills of Lowell, Massachusetts from age ten until she married at twenty-three.

Rosenberg, Chaim M. The Life and Times of , 1775 – 1817. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2011. Tells the story of Francis Cabot Lowell and the great success of the Boston Manufacturing Company which spurred American industrialization.

Steinberg, Theodore. Nature Incorporated: Industrialization and the Waters of New England. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. A “must-read” work on environmental history and political ecology.

Walker Howe, David. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815 – 1845. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. In this critically acclaimed addition to the series, The Oxford History of the United States, historian Daniel Walker Howe illuminates the period from the battle of New Orleans to the end of the Mexican-American War, an era when the United States expanded to the Pacific and won control over the richest part of the North American continent.

Watson, Bruce. Bread and Roses. New York: Penguin Group, 2005. Account of the 1912 Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts based on newspaper accounts, magazine reports, and oral histories.

Weible, Robert, Ed. The Continuing Revolution. Lowell, MA: Lowell Historical Society, 1991. A volume of essays on Lowell including engineering and industry, immigration, labor and management issues.

Historical Fiction and Student Resources

Avi. Beyond the Western Sea. 2 volumes. New York: Orchard Books, 1996. Fictional account of trials and hardships first in Ireland during the famine, then during voyage to America and last in the mills of Lowell. Grades 5-9 and up.

Brill, Marlene Targ. Margaret Knight, Girl Inventor. Brookfield, Connecticut: Millbrook Press, 2001. Picture book about Margaret Knight, a young mill worker in the Amoskeag Mills, , New Hampshire, who was determined to invent something to make the looms safer. Grades 3–6.

Cherry, Lynne. A River Ran Wild. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992. A picture book describing the land and the river before industrialization. Grades 1-4 and up.

Chorlian, Meg, Ed. The Mill Girls: From Farm to Factory. Cobblestone Magazine. Peterborough, NH: Cobblestone Publishing Company. Magazine format with historical fiction, mill girl letters, maps and images of factory and city life, highlighting mill life in nineteenth century New England. Grades 3-6.

Denenberg, Barry. So Far From Home: The Diary of Mary Driscoll, an Irish Mill Girl. New York: Scholastic, Inc., 1997. Fictional diary account of a fourteen year old girl's journey from Ireland in 1847 and of her work in a mill in Lowell, Massachusetts. Grades 4-8.

Hopkinson, Deborah. Up Before Daybreak, Cotton and People in America. New York: Scholastic, Inc., 2006. Traces the history of the cotton industry in America using oral histories to capture of voices of the slaves who toiled in the fields, sharecroppers who barely got by and the girls who worked in the New England mills of Lowell. Grades 4–8.

Isaacs, Sally Sensell. Life in a New England Mill Town. Chicago, IL: Heinemann Library, 2003. Looking mostly at Lowell, Massachusetts, this book presents the history of nineteenth century textile mill towns in New England. Nicely illustrated with photographs and artists’ drawings. Also includes timelines, maps, glossary. Grades 3–6.

Levine, Ellen. If Your Name was Changed at Ellis Island. New York: Scholastic, Inc., 1993. This book describes the immigrant experience at Ellis Island when it was opened in 1892 as a center for immigrants coming to live in America. Grades 4–6.

Macauley, David. Mill. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983. Excellent discussion of how water power works; extensively illustrated.

Macauley, David. The Way Things Work. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988. Excellent pictures and discussion of technology.

McCully, Emily Arnold. The Bobbin Girl. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 1996. Picture book describing life of a young mill girl in Lowell. Grades 2-5.

Paterson, Katherine. Lyddie. New York: Lodestar, 1990. Entertaining and accurate historical novel about life in a New England textile mill town. The most popular and widely read young adult novel about Lowell's mills. Grades 5-8.

Paterson, Katherine. Bread and Roses, Too. New York: Clarion Books, 2006. A moving story based on the real events in Lawrence, Massachusetts surrounding the infamous 1912 Strike.

Ross, Pat. Hannah’s Fancy Notions. New York: Puffin Books, 1992. Introduces young readers to the concept that history is made up of the lives of real people like themselves. Hannah creates decorative band boxes to be used by the nineteenth century mill workers in Lowell, MA. Grades 2-6.

Wilt, Vicki Tyler. Lowell, At Work in the Mill. New York: Newbridge Educational Publishing, 2005. Wonderfully illustrated history of Lowell and the American Industrial Revolution for young readers. This book can be bought individually or in classroom sets with a teacher’s guide. Grades 3–6.

Winthrop, Elizabeth. Counting on Grace. New York: Random House, Inc., 2006. This is the story behind the famous photograph by reformer Lewis Hine taken while collecting evidence for the Child Labor Board. Grace’s brief acquaintance with Hine and the photos he takes of her changes her sense of herself, her future and her family’s future.

Curriculum Packets and Teacher Resources

Tsongas Industrial History Center. Lowell & the American Industrial Revolution Curriculum Packet. Eastern National. Students explore the American Industrial Revolution using Lowell as a case study. This primary source-based curriculum packet features maps, timetables, regulations, hospital records, letters, photos and more. Teacher's guide and student activities are included. Grades 5-12. (Available at the Eastern National Store at the Lowell National Historical Park.)

Tsongas Industrial History Center. Cotton, Cloth, and Conflict: The Meaning of Slavery in a Northern Textile City. Eastern National. Using this collection of primary source materials and related activities, students investigate the relationships between the industrial North and plantation South before the Civil War. Grades 8-12. (Available at the Eastern National Store at the Lowell National Historical Park.)

Tsongas Industrial History Center. The Ten-Hour Movement: Women and the Early Labor Movement. Eastern National. Students become immersed in the struggles and strategies of an important early labor movement through this primary-source-based curriculum packet, which includes a historical background essay and timeline, eight activities, and thirteen documents. Grades 7-12. (Available at the Eastern National Store at the Lowell National Historical Park.)

Tsongas Industrial History Center. The Lowell Mill Girls. Eastern National. This portfolio contains concise information about the mill girls, reproductions of original documents, and suggestions for using the material in the classroom. Grades 3-8. (Available at the Eastern National Store at the Lowell National Historical Park.)

Tsongas Industrial History Center. Teaching with Historic Photographs: Lowell and the Industrial Revolution. Eastern National. Eight photograph/line-art study prints illustrate themes related to Lowell’s history: waterpower, the , mill work and workers, housing and immigration. (Available at the Eastern National Store at the Lowell National Historical Park.)

Tsongas Industrial History Center. The World of Barilla Taylor Interdisciplinary Rental Kit. Students read Barilla Taylor’s personal letters and examine primary sources such as maps, mill timetables, corporation hospital records, newspaper articles and more to learn about mid nineteenth century farm and factory life. (Available through the Tsongas Industrial History Center.)