John Prendergast of the Enough Project starts his Greeley Peace Scholar residency at UMass Lowell today. He will visit the campus three times between April and November. Several of the events will be open to the public. The first public events are tomorrow: “The Day Without Violence Lecture,” sponsored by the…
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My recent article in the local history section of Howl in Lowell (Andrew Jackson, Charles Dickens and Lowell) told the story of visits to Lowell by President Andrew Jackson in 1833 and English novelist Charles Dickens in 1842. My story prompted Eileen Loucraft to compile a list of all US…
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I’ve been using Facebook since January 2011, and this online communications tool continues to impress me. Corey Sciuto, a fellow Lowell blogger and member of this year’s class in the Public Matters leadership development program of the Lowell Plan Inc and Nat’l Park Service, wrote to me on FB and said…
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At about 6 pm on Friday, March 30, Chancellor Martin T. Meehan of UMass Lowell spoke to an audience of more than 100 people in the Moody Street Feeder multi-purpose room on the fourth floor of the Boott Cotton Mills Museum. Behind him, through tall east-facing windows of Boott Mill #6, segmented like rectangular-blocked…
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Young Abigail Adams (1766) Portrait by Benjamin Blythe We are reminded that on this day March 31, 1776, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John Adams – future President of the United States – as he and other members of the Continental Congress were gathered as the governing body of the Thirteen Colonies.…
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More than 100 people gathered at the Tsongas Industrial History Center at the Boott Cotton Mills Museum earlier this evening for the opening reception for “Dickens and Massachusetts” which commemorates his 1842 visit to Massachusetts which included a day in Lowell which made a deep impression on the famous English…
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Our North Tewkbury neighborhood is abuzz yet again with talk of happenings along the River Road Tewksbury/Andover corridor. The road itself is in the final stages of reconstruction and reconfiguration – just awaiting some utility pole removal. The enormous Avalon project on the former site of the Poor Clares Monastery…
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Our frequent contributor author Steve O’Connor sent along a bulletin of interest regarding Lowell and The Titanic, that doomed ocean liner much in the news with the centennial of the sinking due next month. Here’s the message received by Steve via a friend who grew up in Lowell and has…
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Within a single decade, two of the most influential men in the early eighteenth century, Andrew Jackson and Charles Dickens, both visited Lowell. What they saw here greatly influenced their views of the coming age of industrialization. On the eve of the grand opening of the Dickens and Massachusetts exhibit…
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Jack Neary, Lee Grande, and company have “kick-started” their musical theater venture that will begin with a production of “The Music Man” at UMass Lowell’s Durgin Hall in August. Using the online Kickstarter tool to raise capital, Jack and friends have reached their goal of $7,600 ($100 for each of…
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