The Industrial Revolution
The city of Lowell, MA is called the cradle of the industrial revolution and its mills and other industries certainly led the way in creating the manufacturing juggernaut which New England became. Situated near the Pawtucket Falls on the Merrimack River, the earliest industries in Lowell used hydropower from the falls to drive their machinery. Sawmills and gristmills came first. The thriving community of Chelmsford developed along the Merrimack. Francis Lowell opened the first cotton mill operated by water power in the United States in Waltham MA. After his death his successor in the company, Patrick Jackson, opened a second plant near Chelmsford.
Soon other mills were opened and a company town developed in an area of Chelmsford called Lowell. It was the first true company town to be built in the United States. Lowell’s manufacturers actively recruited young single women to operate the water powered looms, and boarding houses were built to provide them with living quarters. Through the 1820s the town grew steadily, and in 1826 Lowell was separated from Chelmsford and incorporated as the Town of Lowell. Its population at the time was around 2,500. By the spring of 1836 more than 18,000 people lived in Lowell and it became the third city to be chartered in Massachusetts, after Salem and Boston.
Lowell continued to grow in area by annexing neighboring towns and through the ongoing growth of its industries during the antebellum era. Industries expanded beyond the textile mills to include canning factories, patent medicines, and machining companies. The Boston and Lowell Railroad was built in the 1830s, rendering the earlier established canals obsolete for transport. Other railroad connections followed. Work in the mills attracted large numbers of immigrants, principally from Ireland and the German states, creating a large Catholic community in Lowell. Ethnic neighborhoods became a part of the city.
During the American Civil War the many textile mills, which relied on cotton as their primary raw material, were forced to shut down. A few managed to stay in operation through the use of wool. Another effect of the war was the shifting in many industries to the use of steam to operate their machinery rather than the water power provided by the canals dug for the purpose. After the war steam was gradually supplanted by electrical power. By then though, Lowell’s boom years were largely over. Lowell continued to be a bustling manufacturing center, but the shift to steam meant other locations, with better access to ports, were more attractive to investors looking for new opportunities.
The decline of the textile industry in New England began in the early 20th century, and all of Lowell’s mills gradually shut down. Most of the jobs moved to new locations in the south. Lowell’s textile mills and the means to power them led to the city’s many contributions to the industrial revolution which changed New England and the rest of the nation in so many ways. One of them was the invention of a drink which the young women could consume without lapsing into immorality. One such “soft” drink was invented and first produced in Lowell. Its inventor, Dr. Augustin Thompson, sold it as a patent medicine. It was called Moxie.