Author Archive

Spring Snow on the way

The crocuses poking up in my front yard must have missed the latest forecast, otherwise they would have stayed below ground. Hoping that the prediction of snow was just an April Fool’s joke, I clicked through the TV dial to survey several weather forecasts: Channel 5 puts Lowell on the…

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George Kenngott: Lowell in 1912

The recent release of the 2010 census got me thinking about the demographics of Lowell. That prompted me to open my copy of “The Record of a City: A Social Survey of Lowell Massachusetts”, a fascinating book written by George F. Kenngott in 1912. The book is both enlightening and…

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South Common Update

The City of Lowell’s Department of Planning and Development hosted a public meeting last night at the Pollard Memorial Library meeting room to update residents on plans to renovate the city’s South Common. DPD’s Rachel Kisker facilitated the meeting and landscape architect Nina Brown (whose first project in Lowell was…

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Lowell Gallery Civil War Exhibit

Guy Lefebvre of the Lowell Gallery has a terrific collection of Civil War prints and memorabilia.  Many of the images used to illustrate my talk on Sunday about “Lowell and the Coming of the Civil War” came to me courtesy of Guy.   Please visit his shop and check out…

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Ben Butler saves Washington DC

Thanks to everyone who attended yesterday’s lecture on “Lowell and the Coming of the Civil War.” While the riot in Baltimore on April 19, 1861 which cost the lives of Luther Ladd, Addison Whitney, Charles Taylor and Sumner Needham and left two dozen of their comrades in the Sixth Massachusetts…

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