History

1972 Congressional Election

When Richard Nixon selected Brad Morse to be the Under Secretary General of the United Nations in 1972, it made for a wild election to select the next Representative for the Fifth Congressional District. The Democratic Primary results (district wide vote totals follow candidate name; Lowell vote follows in parenthesis:…

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1978 Massachusetts House redistricting

After Ed LeLacheur’s passing last week, I began researching his electoral history and was reminded that prior to 1978 there were four state representatives for Lowell. That all changed as a result of a Constitutional referendum that appeared on the state election ballot in 1974. The question addressed the redistricting…

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Cultural Conservation: Jazz

We’re always interested in a good preservation story in Lowell, so here’s one involving the National Jazz Museum in Harlem in NYC and long-rumored legendary recordings of jazz artists from the 1930s that will be preserved and shared with the public. Read the article by Larry Rohter here, and consider…

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Mosque?

In Lowell, there’s a debate about the future of the Pawtucket Falls Dam. There’s another debate about allowing alcohol to be served at a business adjacent to a temple. Behind the discussion are people’s feelings about the power of place, the meaning of certain special places. The concept of place is all…

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Charles Cowley – Week 8

Here’s the eighth installment of my Twitter “tweets” of Charles Cowley’s “Illustrated History of Lowell.” We’ve almost reached the city’s incorporation in 1826 (as a town). Much happened here before Lowell even existed. In 1819 Moses Hale + Oliver Whipple built a (gun) powder mill on Concord River in Lowell…

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