Ryan W. Owen, Writer and Photographer
At the Lowell Historical Society, we sometimes get the question: “Hey, what’s the strangest thing you have in your collection?” That’s a tough question to answer. The Lowell Historical Society has been around for a long time. I’m reminded of this each time I visit our archive. Just this morning, I found a book, one […]
Read MoreCheck out this badge. I came across it in the Lowell Historical Society’s vast archive, located in the city’s Boott Mills complex. As the society’s newly-appointed Curator of Art and Artifacts, I got to spend some time with the badge, recently, and other items that came with it. The badge, it turns out, comes from […]
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Can anyone actually name all of Lowell’s neighborhoods? Have you heard of Wigginville?
Read MoreIn the wake of the New England Hurricane of 1938, Oscar Grenier found work with the W.P.A. cleaning up storm damage near the Farnan Private Hospital for the Aged on North Billerica’s Mt. Pleasant Street. Grenier first noticed the smoke rising from the hospital just after 10 AM on September 30, 1938. He, George Lindsay, […]
Read MoreIn the years following the US Civil War, roller skating really came into its own. As the design of the roller skate improved over the second half of the 19th century, so did its popularity. Many became fans of the new hobby. Many others viewed it as immoral and a threat to the order of […]
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In the Lowell of our parents and grandparents, a yellow horse-drawn wagon coming down a city street in high summer meant an approaching escape from the summer heat. City children knew each ice man driving the yellow wagons, and often relished jumping aboard for a piece of ice and a ride down the road, or […]
Read MoreIn summer’s waning days in 1881, New Englanders read about hope for President Garfield‘s recovery from a gunshot wound suffered two months earlier, an imminent rising of the Apache Nation in the West, and a baseball game between the “Bostons” and the “Worcesters”, where unfavorable weather “kept away all spectators” and worries that Pike, the center […]
Read MoreImagine receiving a stack of photographs from a second cousin you’ve never met, who received them from a fourth cousin who lives on a Portuguese island off the coast of Africa. And that these photographs show never-before seen, everyday images from your great-grandparents’ life that they sent home to Portugal some fifty to sixty years […]
Read MoreIn the days before refrigeration, ice was a valuable winter cash crop for enterprising businessmen. Ice was a year-round staple in most households, and many families would give up food before they would give up ice. As a region, New England was well-known for its quality ice. The region’s severe cold coupled with its deep ponds produced […]
Read MoreOn a summer morning in July 1890, the cyclone hit Lawrence, Massachusetts suddenly and without warning. What we would today call a tornado or microburst began as soft showers advancing across the city as people made their way to work on Saturday, July 26, 1890. As nine o’clock approached, the clouds thickened and darkened the sky. The […]
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Forgotten New England 