If New England were a country, would mill towns like Lowell exist?
What would New England be without its mill towns? In what universe would mill towns like Lowell never have developed here?
Read MoreTag: history
Old Group Photos: Someone Else’s Ancestors
Maybe you love to stare into the faces of those captured in long-ago photographs and search for a lost image of a long-dead ancestor. Maybe you just like old photos. In our family, we’ve had an old group photograph from 1924 for … well, since it was taken in 1924. The story behind the photograph […]
Read MoreGroton’s Castle of Broken Dreams – Bancroft Castle on Gibbet Hill
As far as hiking trails go in Eastern Massachusetts, Groton’s Gibbet Hill offers an interesting story, as well as spectacular views. Pronounced “jib-bet” and meaning ‘gallows,’ the name for the hill off Groton’s Route 40 comes from another hill in England and was named by Groton’s English settlers when they first came to the area in the 17th […]
Read MoreWe made the Lowell Sun! A Look at the Art and Artifacts of the Lowell Historical Society
We’ve been active lately, at the Lowell Historical Society. Among the responsibilities of my role as curator of the society’s art and artifacts is not only to figure out and document what we have, but also to share this information with the public, many of whom have parents and grandparents (and maybe great-grandparents too) who […]
Read MoreAmong the Artifacts: The Licensed Newsboy Badge
My fingers first brushed across the small metallic oval a few weeks ago. It was right next to Officer Lee’s Lowell PD badge. This very different badge was light, too old to be plastic. I figured it was probably aluminum. As I slid out the drawer at the Lowell Historical Society’s archive, the flourescent […]
Read MoreIf you were to walk . . . Boston’s Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, 1886
If you were to walk . . . Boston’s Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market 125 years ago, on the afternoon before Thanksgiving, you would encounter a large assortment of the city’s vegetable and meat merchants, selling their wares from the many wagons crowding the scene. Today, although these merchants have long since moved on to […]
Read MoreIn His Words: Charles Dickens’ Perspective on New England and Public Transport, 1842
We New Englanders have long called Boston “the Hub”. And there’s a sense, just barely concealed, that we’re really referring to the hub of the universe, and not merely the hub of the state or region. Undoubtedly, New England has a strong regional identity that includes the ubiquitous image of the “proper Bostonian” as well as a […]
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Forgotten New England 