Category Archives: lowell

May 4, 2012

Racing along Lowell’s Pawtucket Boulevard – in 1908

By Forgotten New England

Source: The Lowell Sun, September 5, 1908

‘Thrown from Machine at Harpin Curve in Tyngsboro’

‘The bursting of one of the front tires on the Isotta car, entered in the automobile race to be held Monday over the Merrimack Valley course, came near resulting in the death of Al Poole, the driver, and Coot, the mechanician. The accident occurred about 5.15 o’clock this morning while he was trying to negotiate the hairpin curve.  The machine turned completely over, pinning Poole to the ground, while the mechanician was thrown a distance of fifteen or twenty feet.’

So began the Lowell Sun story in the September 5, 1908 edition of the newspaper.  The conditions for the accident were primed by a low-hanging fog that had not yet burned off when Poole overturned his auto just after five o’clock in the morning.  He was extraordinarily fortunate that the driver immediately following him was able to make out the disabled vehicle through the fog and stop, rather than pile into it.

Source: Lowell Sun – September 3, 1908

Is it so difficult to imagine today’s Pawtucket Boulevard (Massachusetts Route 113) as a race track for cars in the very first years of the 20th century?  The 1909 World Almanac and Book of Facts lists the Lowell track, then known as the ‘Merrimack Valley Course’, as one of the most important in the nation.  The races along the track were sponsored by the Lowell Automobile Club and the American Automobile Association.  During the 1909 season, three days of racing took place over Labor Day weekend, September 6-8, and formed part of the larger Lowell Automobile Carnival, which also included one day of motorboat racing and athletic events as well as a day of motorcycle racing.

The Merrimack Valley course was said to have started with a ‘one-mile speedway’ along the present-day Pawtucket Boulevard / Route 113, which, five miles up the road curved along  a ‘hairpin turn,’ at the Tyngsboro Bridge, before sending drivers up a long hill, bordered by deep forest on both sides.  Considered one of the most dangerous points along the course (which led to Poole’s crash the year before), the hairpin turn was thought safer after its widening to a width of 12 feet in 1909.  On the wooded road, today’s Sherburne Avenue in Tyngsboro and said to be the ‘back part’ of the course, racers were actually driving along a farmer’s road that dated back to colonial times.  The boulevard and the back road were so close together that strategically situated spectators could watch racers on both roads simultaneously.  The back road (Sherburne Avenue in Tyngsboro / Varnum Avenue in Lowell) also contained the next well-known peril of the course – ‘the drop’.  It wasn’t lost on race spectators that ‘the drop’ nearly disqualified the back road from forming part of the course.  Some time before, the Racing Board of the national association examined the road, stopped their automobiles just before the drop, and stared in amazement at what they thought was the bottom of the road disappearing.  They remarked at the chimney of a house, just barely visible in the hollow before them, and the road returning up a hill on the other side.  There was absolutely no way an automobile could negotiate that at 40 miles an hour, they reasoned.

Source: The Lowell Sun – August 11, 1908

Soon after, a racer came along, and proved them wrong.  The engineers widened the road some, leveled off some of the uneven spots, and added the road to the new race course.  Beyond the hairpin turn and the drop, the racers most feared a sharp turn from the back road onto Dunbar Avenue and then another sharp turn that brought them back onto the Boulevard.  After negotiating that last sharp turn, the racers were rewarded with the highest speeds attainable on the track, on the mile-long speedway now comprising part of the Pawtucket Boulevard.

The Lowell Automobile Carnival attracted large crowds of fans from Lowell, other cities and towns in Massachusetts, and even locales that were further away.  Many of the racers, including Al Poole and his ‘mechanician’ Coot, developed large followings of fans.  And, as for the fate of the racers Poole and Coot?  Poole, initially thought dead after the accident, was removed from under his overturned automobile, raced to Lowell General Hospital in one of the other race cars, and found to have a broken collarbone, sprained hip, and a twisted ankle.  But he did survive.  His mechanic, Coot, got away a little luckier, suffering only a few scrapes and bruises.

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April 26, 2012

When McDonald’s First Came to Massachusetts, 1960s

By Forgotten New England

Although fast food restaurants seem less prevalent in our neck of the woods than in other regions of the country, it’s hard to picture a strip of suburban road, even in New England, without including a glimpse of those golden arches among the commercial landscape.  Today, McDonald’s employs 1.7 million people in more than 33,000 restaurants in 119 countries.

McDonald's opened its first restaurant in Lowell during the summer of '65, on Rogers Street - near the Tewksbury line.

During the same year that McDonald’s opened its first Lowell-area restaurant in 1965, the chain also celebrated its 10th anniversary and became a public company with its initial public stock offering.  By 1965, McDonald’s had grown to 700 locations in the US and had become famous for its 15-cent hamburgers.  No item on its menu of the mid-1960′s sold for more than 20 cents.

McDonald’s strategy mirrored that of the Detroit automakers:  churn out hamburgers with assembly line efficiency – high volume and low overhead.  Then, hope that customers will continue to wait at the self-service window as long as they can continue to enjoy discounted prices.  Even in the mid-60′s, a burger at fifteen cents was still a steal.

The original model of the McDonald’s restaurant involved self-service windows, rather than today’s familiar eat-in restaurant (introduced in 1962) and drive-thru, which debuted at a McDonald’s located near a military base in Arizona so that soldiers would not need to violate a rule that prohibited them to leave their vehicles while wearing fatigues.

McDonald’s first television advertisement hit the airwaves in 1966, the year after its entry into the Lowell, Massachusetts market.  The ads below tout such forgotten McDonald’s delicacies as Roast Beef on a Roll and McDonald’s own Home Fried Chicken.  There’s also a spot showcasing what’s since become a rare scene:  kids piling into the back of a station wagon.  In this era of car seats and seatbelt laws, there’s something nostalgic about the idea of sitting in the back of a station wagon with five or six of your favorite neighborhood friends.

The second set of McDonald’s ads also dates from the late 1960′s, and captures the debut of the Filet-o-Fish, originally introduced to help revive flagging sales on the “meatless Fridays” practiced by Roman Catholics.  Warning:  The “McDonald’s is Your Kind of Place” tune is the sort of jingle that may stay stuck in your head for a while.

McDonald's first location in Fitchburg, Massachusetts predated its Lowell location by several years. This ad dates from 1963.

McDonald’s today has grown into a multinational corporation that brings what many view as a kind of “Americana” into countries far from America’s shores.  Over the last 15 years, living in Western Europe for extended periods of time and spending stints of time in Latin America too, I sought out McDonald’s when I needed a temporary escape from the local fare.  Whether you love them or not, it’s hard to deny that McDonald’s has had an indelible impact on American culture of the past fifty years.

5 comments   |  tags: , | posted in City Life, history, lowell, Massachusetts

April 21, 2012

Pollard’s Department Store – Lowell Born . . . Lowell Owned . . . Lowell Managed

By Forgotten New England

Arthur G. Pollard, Founder of A G Pollard Department Store in Lowell, Massachusetts and Native of Plaistow, New Hampshire

Late on a Thursday afternoon on June 3, 1926, every available firefighting resource raced to Pollard’s Department Store on Merrimack Street in Downtown Lowell.  All of Lowell’s fire department was joined by men and equipment sent from Billerica, Chelmsford, Dracut and Lawrence in the fight to save Pollard’s from a raging fire.  Pollard’s, also known as A.G. Pollard Co., traced its beginnings to 1836 when Hocum Hosford founded a dry goods store on Lowell’s Merrimack Street, in the same location that would one day house the much larger Pollard’s Department Store.

The fire did not result in any deaths, but many firemen were temporarily overcome by the billowing smoke and illuminating gas.  Others were cut by flying glass or hit by falling debris.

The fire had been discovered at 4:40 PM by workers from the nearby Lowell Electric Light Company.  Four hours later, despite firefighting efforts, only the walls remained of the 90-year-old institution known as the A G. Pollard Department Store on Merrimack, Palmer, and Middle Streets.

With his entire store gutted by the city’s worst fire on record, many expected 83-year-old Arthur Gayton Pollard to retire from retailing after what had been a lengthy and successful career.  Instead, barely a month later, he opened a temporary store, at the Number Six mill of the Bigelow-Hartford plant on Market Street.  Just months later, in 1927, he reopened his full store, at its historic Merrimack Street location.

Arthur Gayton Pollard lived long enough to oversee the return of his store to full operations.   He died on June 4, 1930, just one day after the fourth anniversary of the devastating fire.  So great was his reputation among the Downtown Lowell community that the merchants division of the city’s chamber of commerce voted to close downtown stores for one hour on June 6, during Pollard’s funeral.

Even the Bon Marche, one of A.G. Pollard's main competitors, closed in observance of his funeral on June 6, 1930.

Arthur Pollard’s influence stretched far beyond his department store.  During his working years, he was involved many of Lowell’s companies and institutions.  Pollard served as president of Lowell’s Union National Bank, Stony Brook Railroad Company, the Lowell Hosiery Company, and Lowell General Hospital.  He was also a trustee of the Lowell Cemetery Association, Lowell Textile School, the Ayer Home for Little Children, Rogers Hall School, and the Young Men’s Christian Association.  He was also active in the Republican party.  Although he never held or sought office, he served as treasurer on the Middlesex County Republican Committee for nearly 20 years.  In 1900, he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention, which nominated McKinley for a second term.  Pollard had also amassed quite a reputation in free masonry, and attained high honors in the York and Scottish rites, both in Lowell and nationally.

A Pollard's Ad from 1944 touts its Lowell heritage.

Arthur Pollard was a native of Plaistow, New Hampshire.  He was born on January 5, 1843, the only son of Colonel Joseph Smith and Luella Josephine (Tucker) Pollard.  He moved to Lowell at 11 years old, and, five years later, began working, first with Hilton, Keyes & Lewis of Lowell, and next with the Lowell Board of Assessors.  By the time he turned 18, he had found work with Hocum Hosford, a prominent Downtown Lowell dry goods merchant and sometime mayor of Lowell.  (Hosford Square carries his name).  After three years, Pollard became a partner in Hosford’s firm.  Hosford and Pollard continued their partnership for two decades, until Hosford died in 1881.

A WWI-era advertisement for A. G. Pollard's Department Store

Until 1886, Pollard continued the firm as he had when Hosford was alive, but then bought out his interest from Hosford’s estate and became its sole owner.  Arthur Pollard renamed the concern, A. G. Pollard & Co.; his department store was born.  By the 20th century’s first years, the A.G. Pollard Company had become one of the largest stores in Massachusetts, rivaled only by a couple of stores in Boston.  Pollard became so well-known in Lowell circles that hundreds gathered on Lowell’s Merrimack Street to watch him be the first man in Lowell to drive an electric car.  In retailing innovations, Pollard was credited with the invention of the bargain basement.

From the 1943 Lowell City Directory

Despite his many successes in Lowell, Plaistow, Pollard’s hometown, was never far from his mind.  Over the years, he became known as the “father’ of the town.  Some of his many gifts to the town included a tower clock for the Town Hall, a flagpole for the Village Improvement Society, a site for a school building, and an oil painting of his father, Colonel Joseph S. Pollard.  He also funded the creation of a soldiers’ monument erected in Plaistow’s Pollard Square.  Its pedestal was made of granite and topped with a bronze figure, standing some eight feet in height.  The pedestal bears four bronze tablets, containing the names of 102 citizens of Plaistow who served in the Civil War.

Pollard's Logo, circa 1965

Pollard’s Department Store held on long after Arthur Pollard’s death.  During his lifetime, Pollard admitted his son, Harry G. Pollard to the business, who later succeeded his father as its president.  And, in the decades following Pollard’s death, his other descendants played prominent roles in the department store’s management.  By 1961, two of Pollard’s great-grandsons, William Pollard Bartlett and Sheppard Bartlett managed the company as its executives.

A November 1970 Advertisement for Lynch's Department Store (Formerly Pollard's)

After 133 years of existence and 88 years under the ownership of Arthur Pollard or his family, the store eventually came to be sold on August 21, 1969, to Dexter D. Gould of Manchester, who owned and operated a chain of stores spread across Massachusetts and New Hampshire.  At the time of the acquisition, Gould controlled the Miss Lynch Shop, located across the street from A. G. Pollard.  He also controlled Lynch Co. of Manchester and Kimball Company in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  As the sale was announced in the local press, promises were made that Pollard’s would retain its name.  Sadly, this didn’t turn out to be the case.

Merrimack Street - Lowell - in Fall 2011. Pollard's was once housed in the brick building at the immediate right of the photograph. The adjacent Hosford Block stands just beyond.

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4 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in City Life, Disasters, lowell

April 13, 2012

A ‘Forgotten New England’ Book?

By Forgotten New England

The Jail on Lowell, Massachusetts' Thorndike Street, circa 1908 (Photo Credit: Library of Congress)

Good evening readers – it’s been a good week at Forgotten New England.   The site has hit 150 followers and has been experiencing some of its heaviest traffic ever.

And – an editor from a reputable publishing house happened upon this blog last week and asked if I’d be interested in writing a book on Lowell (Mass.) history.  I am.

I’ve got tons of content and research, but am short on photographs that aren’t already readily available on the Internet.  Does anyone have old photographs/memorabilia (1800′s to 1970′s) of Lowell landmarks and personalities that they’d be willing to contribute?  I can scan and return any originals.  Credit for the photo will be included in the book, of course.  Please send me a message at forgottennewengland at gmail dot com for further details.

And, as always, thanks for your continued readership and for all of the ‘shares’.

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15 comments   |  tags: | posted in lowell, Massachusetts, Writing Life

April 7, 2012

Downtown Lowell’s “Uncle” Dudley Page: The Man behind Page’s Clock

By Forgotten New England

From the 1939 Lowell City Directory

If you’ve spent any time in Downtown Lowell, you’ve surely passed Page’s Clock in Kearney Square on Merrimack Street.  The clock, refurbished in the 1990′s, has been a Downtown Lowell landmark since the D.L. Page Company moved its operations into the nearby building at 16-18 Merrimack Street in May 1913.

As its advertisements claimed, the D.L. Page Company had been “makers of fine candies since Lincoln’s Time.”  By the time the late 1930′s had rolled around, Dudley L. Page had run his business for nearly 75 years.

“Uncle Dudley”, as he was affectionately known throughout Lowell, always proudly recalled that his first day in business was March 17, 1866, which happened to be St. Patrick’s Day.  Uncle Dudley founded his first candy shop on the corner of Lowell’s Middle and Central Streets, in the basement of a building that then housed Richardson’s Clothing Store.  He had returned from service in the Civil War just one year before.

In its years before the move into its Merrimack Street location, the D.L. Page Company housed its operations in various Downtown Lowell locations:  the basement of the Hildreth Block, a store opposite St. Anne’s Church on Merrimack Street, on the street floor of the Fellows Block, and in the old Masonic Building, also on Merrimack Street.  Uncle Dudley also opened branch locations at 9 West Street in Boston, as well as in Lynn and North Chelmsford.

Lowell Sun Advertisement for DL Page & Co, March 16, 1931

Born in New London, NH in the mid-1840′s, Uncle Dudley moved to Billerica when he was six.  At an annual meeting of the Lowell Historical Society in 1934, he delivered a paper on his childhood in Billerica recalling his boyhood ambition, which was not to be a baker and maker of fine candies, but to be a locomotive engineer.  In the decade before the Civil War, Uncle Dudley recalled a life where stagecoaches were the preferred manner of travel to reach the outskirts of town and where he followed the actions of Wendell Phillips, the ‘crusading abolitionist’.  He also recalled timeless childhood antics like skipping school in favor of visiting the swimming hole and hobbies that don’t seem so timeless, like catching eels in the Shawsheen River and pitching quoits.

Barely a decade later, Uncle Dudley went on to join the Union army, and even stood inspection before President Lincoln.  Soon after returning from his Civil War service, Uncle Dudley opened his store, and went on to specialize in candies of all kinds.  Over the years, he added a restaurant and  a luncheonette to his shop.  In the late 1870′s, he even completed a Doctor of Medicine degree at Philadelphia’s Jefferson College.

Even as he neared his 100th birthday in the 1930′s, Uncle Dudley continued to actively bake, make candy, and oversee all of the daily activities of his shop.  And, with each year, Uncle Dudley celebrated the St. Patrick’s Day anniversary of his store with special offerings, including stick candy.

Well into his nineties, Uncle Dudley was often seen pushing slush from his store’s sidewalk, and was used by downtown officials to encourage his fellow merchants to do the same.  He figured prominently into the city’s social scene too.  In August 1934, local papers ignited with the gossip that only scandal brings when Uncle Dudley secretly wedded Miss Ella Calderwood.  Miss Calderwood had been a bookkeeper for his firm for several years, but had retired some 15 years before.  In her retirement, she worked as a piano instructor, and had acquired a reputation among local musicians.  Miss Calderwood had also served as a housekeeper for Uncle Dudley for some time.  Their marriage in August 1934 satisfied the rumors about their romantic involvement.  When they married, she was 85; he was 89.

Dudley L. Page (Courtesy: Lowell Sun - 8/11/1934)

After more than 75 years in business, Dudley L. Page died on November 20, 1942, at his home at 427 Andover Street in Lowell’s Belvidere section.  He was 98. At the time, he was one of the last two remaining Civil War veterans living in Lowell and had served as an honorary marshal in the city’s Memorial Day parades for years.  He had retained active management of his store up until his very last years, and kept an active interest in the store up until his death.  The store held on for a short period afterward, but in December 1947, the location was sold, and eventually became Brigham’s.

Uncle Dudley’s clock remains on Merrimack Street outside his store’s former building.  The clock fell into disrepair for a while in the late 20th century, but since its refurbishing in the 1990′s, it has once again rejoined the Downtown Lowell landscape as a link to the area’s vibrant past and to one of Downtown Lowell’s most influential long-time merchants.

Merrimack Street, Lowell Massachusetts

Merrimack Street, Lowell Massachusetts. Page's Clock appears in the middle left of the photo, along the sidewalk. (Photo credit: Wikipedia, John Phelan)

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2 comments   |  tags: , | posted in Billerica, City Life, history, lowell, Massachusetts

March 23, 2012

Yesterday’s Telephone Numbers: GLenview, MOntrose, and ULysses

By Forgotten New England

In those long ago days before cellphones, speed dialing, and stored numbers, folks like Tommy Tutone telephoned girls like ‘Jenny’ by actually dialing 867-5309.  If he was a modern type, he may have even punched the number into the telephone’s touchtone keypad, an innovation that was several years old by the time the song was released in 1981.

And, 20 years earlier, in 1962, Gladys Horton and the Marvelettes sang of a woman who urged men to call her at BEechwood 4-5789 so they could “have a date, any ol’ time”.

A generation before, in 1940, Glenn Miller and his Orchestra, memorialized the phone number of Manhattan’s Hotel Pennsylvania with the song PEnnsylvania 6-5000.

Do you find it easier to remember the telephone numbers of your childhood home or friends, than those of any one of the ten cellphones and landlines in your family today?  There was something about dialing a telephone number (or even punching it into a touchtone number pad) that helped commit it to memory.

The telephone companies didn’t always think so, though.  As seven-digit phone numbers were introduced during the middle of the 20th century, companies like New England Telephone and Telegraph added exchange names to existing phone numbers to help people remember the two digits added to the beginning of their phone numbers.  Locally, the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company called its telephone exchange names ‘central offices’ when they were implemented in the early 1950′s.  In September 1954, in Massachusetts, along came GLenview for Lowell, ULysses for Tewksbury, NIagara for Tyngsboro, and MYrtle for Westford.  (ALpine for Chelmsford came soon after.)  The two initial letters of the central office names, always capitalized, represented the two initial numbers of the phone number to be dialed.  Hence, as it’s explained below, GL3-2181 becomes 453-2181:

New England Telephone, 1954

The idea behind central office names, beyond helping memories and expanding the pool of available numbers, was to enable ‘wide range dialing’, or allowing people to dial American and Canadian numbers directly into their telephones, without the assistance of an operator. The new system also standardized the numbering system and ensured that each telephone received a unique number.  Under this system, telephone numbers contained three components:  an area designation (now known as an area code), a Central Office designation (consisting of the first two letters of the central office name and the first number thereafter, and the station number (or the last four digits of the telephone number).

New England Telephone and Telegraph, 1964

So, how did it work?  If you were dialing within a central office (or telephone exchange name), you needed only to dial the five figures, as explained above.  If you wanted to call outside of your central office, the two letters were added.

There’s something nostalgic and ‘mid-century sounding’ to a phone number like BEechwood 45789, or more locally, GLenview 8-6361, which was the telephone number to reach one of Lowell’s largest department stores, the Bon Marché.  Today, in an era of Skype and email and text messages, it’s hard to imagine the same sort of nostalgia being attached to a phone number.

6 comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Massachusetts, Billerica, minutiae, City Life, lowell, history

March 10, 2012

The Release of the 1940 US Census – April 2, 2012

By Forgotten New England

On April 2, 2012, at 9 AM (EST), the National Archives will release the 1940 US census schedules at  http://1940census.archives.gov/.  The release, administered by The National Archives in partnership with archives.com, will mark the first time a census has been released online.  Site visitors will gain free access to view, search, print, and download the 1940 census schedules at the site.  The National Archives has already released a video on its YouTube channel providing information on the 1940 census, the archives’ preparations for its release, and instructions showing how to access the census after April 2:

Family tree historians have long scoured census records for basic information about their ancestors: names, approximate ages/birthplaces, and occupations.  Every ten years, since the first US federal census in 1790, the United States census has counted all individuals living in US homes.  The results are then used to determine the allocation of congressional seats and electoral votes.  The most recent census, the country’s 22nd, was executed in 2010.  The census is a requirement established by the US Constitution and is overseen by the United States Census Bureau.  Aggregated census data is available to the public soon after the census is taken.  The actual census records and data specific to individuals is withheld for 72 years.  The 1930 US census was released to the public in April 2002.  The 1940 census will be released next month.

1940 Census Population Questionnaire - Photo courtesy of the Public Information Office - U.S. Census Bureau.

The information collected by each census, as well as the questions asked for each, have varied over the years.  In the 1940 census, for the first time, enumerators asked respondents new questions to determine if they had worked for the CCC, WPA, or NYA (all components of President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs) in late March 1940, as well as how much annual income they had earned during 1939.  The census also asked married women, widows, and divorcees their age at their first marriage as well as if they had been married more than once.  Also, for the first time, enumerators were instructed to add an “x” after the name of the person who answered the enumerator’s questions.

April 1940

Sen. Charles W. Tobey, was a vocal opponent of the 1940 census, more specifically, the inclusion of questions in the census asking for income information.  For the first time, this census asked respondents for information about their income.  Those opposing the collection of the information nearly succeeded in getting the question stricken from the instructions given to the enumerators.  In the end, though, as a compromise, the US government made available forms that people could mail in, if they did not want to provide the information to the enumerators.  The government published large numbers of the forms, but few were actually used.  Sen. Tobey was still not satisfied.  As late as census day, The Portsmouth Herald reported that he was still encouraging people not to answer the financial questions on the grounds that they invaded citizens’ privacy.

The census counted all people who were alive as of April 1, 1940 at 12:01 AM.  Babies born later on that day were not counted, while people who had died after 12:01 AM were.   The execution of the 1940 census was the largest yet, and included more questions than any of the prior censuses had before it.

As April 1940 began, approximately 120,000 enumerators descended upon the country to count each inhabitant.  Each enumerator had been provided a white, 4″x3″ identification card with a photograph and signature.  Unless respondents wanted to risk incurring a $100 fine, they were obligated to answer all questions, except for the ones regarding financial information, which could be mailed to the Census Bureau in Washington.

January 1941 - Commuters, who have just come off the train, waiting for the bus to go home, Lowell, Mass. (Courtesy of Library of Congress)

Locally, in Lowell, Massachusetts, fifty enumerators descended upon the city.  A newspaper article from the day before revealed some of the prevailing thoughts among the citizenry as they thought ahead to census day.  William Tully, the Lowell Sun reporter writing the article, noted that local women felt reluctant to give their ages to census enumerators.  Through interviews documented within the article, Tully spoke with various women.  One thought that certain facts should not be collected, like income, since it was already captured in the income tax returns.  She also thought collecting information about the amount of a mortgage on one’s home was unnecessary.

Another woman, who worked in the executive office of a large department store in downtown Lowell, replied:  ”I know nothing about the census questions and I haven’t, as yet, looked into the matter.  As a rule, my husband knows more about these things than I do.”

April 1940

Another woman, a salesgirl in a local department store, replied:  ”I’m not going to answer any questions about my age.  Oh, I suppose I’ll have to answer their old questions, but it won’t be cheerfully.”  When asked about the census questions:  ’Has this women been married more than once?’  and ‘age at first marriage?’, she quipped:  ”it’s none of their business.  And if you quote me on that, I’ll smash you.”

“What in the world is the government going to do with information like that?”  Another woman asked the reporter, who admitted he had no idea.  ”Neither have I,” she continued, “and I think the whole thing is foolish.”

The US Census Bureau’s web site lists some interesting comparisons between life in 1940 and life today.  In 1940, for example, the average life expectancy was 61 years for men and 65 for women.  Today, the average life span has expanded some 15 years, with male life expectancies reaching 76 years and female life expectancies reaching 81.  Also, in 1940, nearly three in every four (73%) women over the age of 25 had not finished high school.  Today, only 14% in that group have not completed high school.

Family tree historians eagerly await the release of the 1940 census on April 2, 2012, at 9 AM (EST).  For many, it’s the first census in which they will find themselves or their parents.  It’s also the first census that will be released online for the public’s free access, either from the facilities of the National Archives or from the convenience of researchers’ homes.  Readers, what are you hoping to find in the 1940 census?  Where will you start looking?

7 comments   |  tags: , | posted in Genealogy, history, lowell, Massachusetts, New Hampshire

March 6, 2012

Remembering Downtown Lowell’s Bon Marché through the Years, 1878-1976

By Forgotten New England

To mourn the loss of the Bon Marché Department Store in Downtown Lowell is almost like mourning the loss of a beloved grandparent.  On the day the Bon Marché closed, its faithful came out one last time to reflect on their relationship with the store, and to discuss among themselves what its loss would mean to Downtown Lowell.  As the Bon Marché prepared to close its doors for the final time at 5:30 PM on January 10, 1976, customers picked through its remaining inventory and expressed their mixed feelings about the new Jordan Marsh branch that would open in its place.  As she shopped in the Bon Marché one last time, Anita Angers told the Lowell Sun: ”This is awful.  I’ve shopped here for years.  Oh, I like Jordan’s.  I go to the mall for Jordan’s, but I don’t like Bon Marché leaving.  It’s a sad day for Lowell.”  Betty Cook offered The Sun a different perspective:  ”I think it’s great.  I’ve shopped here for 10 years, but I’m glad Jordan’s is coming.”

Merrimack Street looking east, Lowell, Mass. (Courtesy of Library of Congress)

Bon Marché Store Directory from 1928

For generations, the Bon Marché offered six floors of wares to Downtown Lowell.  Below ground, on its basement level, the store sold kitchenware, groceries, and electrical household equipment.  Walk in from the street and you would find  hosiery, gloves, and shoes on its first floor.  One floor up, dresses, coats, and corsets were sold.  The third floor featured the gift shop, mirrors, and dinnerware.  Music was the theme on the fourth floor, where radios, Victrolas, and records could be found.  The top floor included the beauty shop, barber shop, and the store’s executive offices.  The Bon Marché offered it all.

But, to tell the real story of the Bon Marché is to tell the story of Downtown Lowell.  If you’ve grown up or spent any time in Downtown Lowell, you’ve heard of the Bon Marché department store, which operated for decades on Merrimack Street.  Its takeover by Allied Department Stores, the same chain that owned Jordan Marsh, mirrors the same fate that happened to lots of independent, locally-owned department stores in the mid-20th century.  And, its eventual demise on Downtown Lowell’s Merrimack Street mirrors the fate of many long-time downtown merchants as mid-century Lowell rolled into the 1970′s.

The Bon Marché was born during Downtown Lowell’s heyday.  Its founder, Frederic Mitchell opened his first store on Merrimack Street in 1878.  A native of Lowell, Mitchell was educated in the local schools and, in the wake of the Civil War at the age of 16, became a pattern maker.  Soon after, he decided to try his hand at the dry goods business and found work with A. C. Skinner, who then owned and operated a small Merrimack Street store.  Mitchell eventually left the dry goods business and went to California where he speculated in cattle and sheep.  Upon his return to Lowell in the late 1870′s, he opened his first dry good store named ‘This is Mitchell’s‘ on Merrimack Street.  He traded for his first merchandise, exchanging his ranch in California for his new store’s first wave of inventory, sight unseen.  From humble beginnings, the store grew into the Bon Marché of later years, eventually acquiring its well-known name within a few years.

The store’s initial merchandising efforts followed the trends of the day, and much of the store’s wares were sold outside, on Merrimack Street in draped packing cases.  Mitchell could predict with reliable accuracy that his millworker customers would descend on his storefront once monthly, right after they received their monthly wages.  Millworkers waited until ‘the ghost walked’, as they said, and then went to the stores of the day to buy the wrappers, yards of cloth, and silverware that they had been eyeing during the entire month before.  During the three weeks between pay days, Mitchell and his counterparts chased tramps away from their racks of clothes and planned for the next onslaught of millworkers, each one armed with newly-earned cash.

The history of the Bon Marché can be traced through its advertisements to Lowell residents through the years.  Even in its early years, the Bon Marché billed itself as the largest department store in New England and touted its great deals, often obtained through efficient bargaining with its own suppliers.  The Bon Marché got its name from French words translating roughly to a ‘good bargain’.  A typical ad from the time, published during the Christmas season of 1898, was entirely text-based and announced a combination of its offerings to customers and its superior negotiations with suppliers.  Intermixed with offers for china, dolls, men’s suspenders, and ladies’ shirt waists were transcriptions of correspondence from suppliers who had been ‘forced’ to accept ridiculous offers received from the buyers of the Bon Marché, the savings from which had been passed along to customers.

A Lowell Sun advertisement from December 1898

An advertisement for The Bon Marche, 1908

An advertisement for the Bon Marche, 1918

While Lowell progressed through the first years of the twentieth century, the advertisements of the Bon Marché evolved to make use of advancing technology.  Pictures of the store’s merchandise were added to its ads, and the spare heading of its late nineteenth-century ads was substituted out for the more-familiar cursive-based heading that remained the store’s logo well into the twentieth century.  By 1908, the store’s advertisements (at left) carried offers of ice cream, which could be bought by the gallon for a dollar, or in smaller portions with hot chocolate for a more affordable five cents.  And, while Greater Lowell lived through the first World War, the Bon Marché offered its patrons an opportunity to support the US war effort by buying thrift and war stamps (at right).  The Bon Marché also collected peach pits that were used by the government in gas masks.  As the Bon Marché celebrated its 40th anniversary during that year, it continued to offer the latest trends in coats, suits, dresses, muffs, and petticoats, all first quality and at prices that ‘could not be duplicated’.

An advertisement for the Bon Marche, 1928

By 1928, the Bon Marché had become an established member of the Downtown Lowell retailing community and heavily touted its anniversary celebrations.  In 1928, at its fiftieth anniversary, a ten-day sale was prominently advertised in the local press.  The Bon Marché continued to sell the latest in fashions and also began to carry radios, at prices which were good for the time, but high in comparison to today’s prices.  According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, that $137.50 you would have spent for a radio in 1928 would set you back something north of $1,800 in today’s money.

Ten years later, in 1938, the Bon Marché planned another ten-day celebration, with a focus on remembering its founders.  Store managers decorated the store’s interior and exterior in patriotic colors.  Clerks were asked to wear badges that matched the theme.  Sales were advertised in all six floors of the store and streamers had been strewn throughout.  The sixtieth anniversary celebration also honored its employees at a pre-sale banquet at the nearby Rex Grille.  Also, pins were awarded to employees who had more than five years of service with the store.

In a testament to Bon Marché as an employer and to the long-term employment mentality of the time, the Bon Marché and The Lowell Sun ran a special feature on September 30, 1938, showing all employees who had more than 10 years with Bon Marché.  There were 62.  All appear in this full-page advertisement, produced below:

From the Lowell Sun, 9/30/1938, Bon Marché employees with 10 or more years of service

A few years later, as the Bon Marché and the rest of the downtown community lived through WWII, the store instituted wartime hours and again offered war bonds and stamps to its customers to support the war effort.  Lowell experienced a brief economic boom in the war years, mostly from the increased need for clothing produced by its remaining textile mills and its involvement in munitions manufacturing.

January 1943

Later in the 1940′s, as the Bon Marché celebrated its 70th anniversary, the wartime business boom that had fueled increased sales slowed and sale levels returned to normal.  By the time of its 70th anniversary sale in 1948, the store heavily advertised its ‘rock bottom’ prices and the convenience offered by its charge account.

1948

The economic difficulties experienced by Lowell’s downtown merchants continued into the 1950′s.  The city’s last two major textile mills, the Boott Mills and the Merrimack Manufacturing Company, both closed before the Bon Marché 80th anniversary celebration in 1958:

1958

And, the economic malaise continued in Lowell past the store’s 90th anniversary sale in 1968:

1968

1976

The Bon Marché Department Store closed its doors for the last time on January 10, 1976, after surviving several decades of Lowell’s declining economic climate downtown.  Lowell’s unemployment rate entered double digits.  The store’s closure marked the end of a Downtown Lowell institution that had survived nearly a century.  From its small-time beginnings as “This is Mitchell’s” in the last years of the nineteenth century to its last years as a subsidiary of a larger corporation, the Bon Marché Department Store served generations of Lowellians as they sought to buy clothes, housewares, and electronics.  During the changeover in 1976, rumors emerged that Jordan Marsh, the store that replaced the Bon Marché, had only committed to a three-year trial period in downtown Lowell.  In the end, Jordan Marsh stayed in Downtown Lowell, for more than a decade – not leaving until the early 1990′s.  The Jordan Marsh chain, itself with deep New England roots, disappeared in 1996, when the last of its stores were converted to the Macy’s name.

The story of the Bon Marché follows closely the story of the rise and subsequent fall of downtown Lowell as it lost the textile industry to which it owed its founding.  The Bon Marché survived several economic slowdowns, the Great Depression, the loss of the city’s mills, and the loss of downtown shoppers to suburban strip malls.  Unfortunately, the Bon Marché didn’t live to see Lowell’s resurgence, which began in earnest with the establishment of the city’s National Historical Park, which occurred just after the store’s closing.

Readers, do you have memories of the Bon Marché that you would like to share?  Please add them to the comments below.

1976

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February 22, 2012

The Memorial Hall and Public Library of Lowell, Massachusetts, 1893

By Forgotten New England

Lowell's Memorial Building and Public Library, ca. 1905

Today, Downtown Lowell’s Memorial Hall is mostly known for the Pollard Memorial Library it houses, named for the city’s late mayor Samuel S. Pollard.  For its first 90 years, until its renaming in 1981, Lowell residents and visitors knew it as the Lowell City Library.

The library’s building, Memorial Hall, was built to remember the sacrifices of Lowell’s Civil War dead.  Local surviving members of the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.) expected that the Hall would provide them a meeting place, at least for special occasions, if not on a regular basis.

As early as 1887, veterans and citizens of Lowell were considering a memorial to the city’s Civil War dead.  At that point, Lowell residents and the memorial committee of the G.A.R. hadn’t yet decided whether the memorial would be a monument or a building.  The idea of a memorial hall soon gained traction, as the members of the local Grand Army posts needed a place to meet.  The Lowell Sun wrote:  ”"The veterans are growing old; they are paying heavy rent for halls, and now that a memorial building is erected, they expect to be made in some respects the beneficiaries of the city’s good will.”

Several different proposals emerged.  One involved constructing a building with an observatory that would overlook the city from

Lowell's Monument Square predates the Memorial Hall and City Hall buildings, which were constructed on the site of several frame buildings owned by the Merrimack Manufacturing Company

Fort Hill.  (This option was eventually dismissed as Fort Hill was seen as too remote for veterans, and was the location most likely to attract loafers and vacationers, rather than the veterans it was meant to serve.)  Another option would have created a municipal building with the upper floors dedicated to G.A.R. meetings.  (This option eventually morphed into Lowell’s City Hall building, which was completed a few months after Memorial Hall.)  The last, and winning, proposal called for the building of a new city library that included space for G.A.R. meetings.  All agreed that the Memorial Hall should be a ‘grand and imposing edifice’, to adequately recall the men and deeds that they hoped to commemorate.

The history of Memorial Hall is firmly intertwined with the City Hall building next to it.  (Its tower can be seen in the postcard view, above.)  Their cornerstones were laid on the same day:  October 11, 1890, and both took nearly three years to complete.  The Memorial Building opened to much fanfare on June 3, 1893.

A procession marched through Highland, Elm, Central, Merrimack, Moody, and Colburn streets, ending at the new Memorial Building.  Prayers were offered by Rev. Dr. Chambre.  An American quartet sang songs, and the keys to the building were presented to Mayor Pickman.  Speeches were delivered by the Mayor, members of the local posts of the G.A.R., and former mayor and future governor Frederic T. Greenhalge.

Memorial Hall and public library, Lowell, Mass, ca. 1908: Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

A bust of Gen. Benjamin F. Butler was next presented to the people of Lowell by a group of African-American Bostonians who wished to see it placed in the new hall.  In a speech by their spokesman, they said the bust would be “dedicated to the memory of those who gave their lives that the union might be preserved, and all men made free and equal under the law.”

The Hon. F. T. Greenhalge closed the ceremony by saying: “Long may this Memorial Library stand.  May the sun shed its brightest and softest radiance upon it.  And while one stone remains upon another, may it stand as a witness of valor and patriotic devotion – of liberty and wisdom – of the loyalty of your fathers and the love and gratitude of their children.”

As the exercises concluded, the officials opened the new building for public inspection while the quartet played “”Soldier’s Farewell”.

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February 16, 2012

Dating Old Photographs – The Clues that Tintypes Hold, 1890

By Forgotten New England

Most family historians have THAT box.  The box always looks roughly the same.  It’s the box that belonged to the toaster your mother had three toasters ago.  Or, maybe it’s a shoebox for a pair of long-lost boat shoes from Thom McAn or a gift box from Anderson Little (remember them?).  Maybe it’s a bag from a now-defunct department store like Stuarts or Caldor.  Not long after I took up genealogy in 1988, I began inheriting boxes and bags like those, and they all had lots of photographs – old ones.  There were some color photographs from the 60′s and 70′s, black-and-white photographs from the 40′s and 50′s, and older sepia-colored photographs beneath those.

The photographs from the latter half of the 20th century are easiest to identify.  Most times, I know the subject; if not, the bell-bottoms or dark wall paneling scream 1974 . . . and a well-placed beehive will strongly suggest the decade before that.  And, once you have an approximate date, it’s fairly simple to deduce that you’re staring at your second-cousin, or Uncle Freddy as a kid, or maybe you’ve uncovered that long-lost great-aunt no one has mentioned since Thanksgiving 1981.

As you move back in time, what gets harder to identify are the black-and-white photographs.  Some have dates printed along their white borders; others have dates stamped on the back.  It’s usually pretty easy to pick out grandparents as parents and parents as children.  Great-grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles can also be identified, if not on sight, then by context.

Then, you get to the most interesting photographs – the tintypes, the cabinet cards, and the carte-de-visite (CDV) photographs.  These are the photographs you wish you had had when your grandparents were alive to see them.  Sometimes, you can pick out some family resemblances and these provide valuable hints.  Sometimes, you get really lucky and someone, long ago, labelled the photographs for posterity.  That usually doesn’t happen.

So, what do you do?  In 1990 or so, I got a stack of tintypes (one appears above, to the left) from an aunt, who had gotten them from my grandmother 20 years earlier.  My Aunt had no idea who they were, and the small length of ancient string that had long kept them together wasn’t talking either.  At the time, I knew they were old – probably 19th century, but wasn’t really sure how to proceed.  I had researched some genealogy at that point and knew that that branch of the family had come to Lowell in 1869 from Manchester, England.  I also knew that tintypes like the one above spanned a fairly wide range of years, from 1852 to about 1905 or so.  So, I knew that the photograph could be either English or American and that the woman could be an ancestor from any one of three generations.  That wasn’t very helpful in helping me identify her.

I looked for more clues.  The photograph, like lots of others in the 19th century, was obviously taken in a studio – the odd tree-trunk-looking thing and the landscape backdrop weren’t going to fool me.  But, tintypes don’t carry photographers’ marks.  I guessed the woman’s age to be between 30 and 35, and she appeared to be wearing a ring on her right hand, along with a bracelet, necklace, and earrings.  With a range of 1852-1905 for the photograph, though, I still needed more clues to determine her identity.  Enter fashion.

It’s pretty easy to date photographs from the late 20th century, if you spend a moment studying what people are wearing, or how they’ve fixed their hair.  The same can be said for the 19th century.  The woman in the photograph wears a dress of a common pattern known as “windowpane check”; its sleeves are the easiest indicator of a date on the early side of 1890 – the tight sleeves begin precisely at the shoulder’s tip and portray none of the exaggerated fullness that the rather well-remembered leg-of-mutton sleeves would become known for as the 1890′s wore on.  Her hair is another indicator of the late 1880′s.  The bangs aren’t cut short or styled in the large curls popular in the earlier part of the 1880′s.  Instead, she wears her bangs in a style more prevalent right around 1890.

So, a quick study of fashion can get me a guess of, say, 1890, or so, but what if she wasn’t so well-to-do, and if her dress or hair was out of fashion at the time of the photograph?  I still see people trying to sport haircuts from the early 1990′s.  I needed a little more confirmation before I set about looking for women born around 1855 in my family tree.

I looked at the other photographs, and came across this one, in a different box.  I recognized the background immediately – the bridge, the mountains.  And, that same shaggy carpet is on the studio’s floor.  I put the two photographs next to each and decided I had a match.  Both photographs came from the same studio, most likely.  I was even ready to assume they had been taken on the same day.  Why?  If you look very closely at the first photograph, above, you’ll notice in the extreme lower-right corner, the same chair that the child in the photograph at the right is sitting on.  The photographer didn’t quite succeed in moving it out of the picture.  So, the woman from 1888 had a two-year-old child.  But, I still hadn’t solved the mystery of where the photograph had been taken.  From what I knew about the branch of the family, the most likely choices were Lowell, Massachusetts or Manchester, England.  Of course, there was a chance that the photograph could’ve been taken somewhere else entirely.

That’s when I found this carte-de-visite (CDV) photograph, at left.  Do you recognize the background?  I did too.  That’s even the same chair.  This game of matching was paying off.  On the back of the CDV was the photographer’s mark (right), which can be used to help date a photograph too.  Armed with a set of city directories, I quickly determined that the photographer, Napoleon Loupret was at 51 Central Street in Lowell, Massachusetts from 1885 to 1893.  Bingo – I had a probable date (1888 or so) and a city (Lowell, Massachusetts).  I also knew that I had a family, a woman, who was about 30 or so, who had children, born sometime between 1882 and 1890.

A List of Photographers in Lowell, Massachusetts 1886

When I first started researching this photograph, I had a hunch that the woman was my second-great-grandmother, and that the children were my great-grandmother and her older brother.  The age differences were just about right.  But – once I narrowed the date range to 1885-1893, and later to about 1890 – the ages no longer worked.  My great-grandmother was the youngest of her family, but born early enough that she would have been 12 at the time of the photographs, not 2 or 3 as the children pictured clearly are.  So, the search continues, and the mystery remains unsolved, but when I do uncover and add a woman to my family tree who was born around 1855, with children born in the late 1880′s, I’ll already have photographs that just may show what she looked like in life.

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4 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in City Life, Dating Photographs, Fashion History, Genealogy, history, lowell, Massachusetts, minutiae