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The Federal Writers’ Project was a New Deal program that provided jobs to unemployed writers during the Great Depression. The writers produced hundreds of publications including guides to states and cities and a variety of history projects. The best-known product of this effort was the American Guide Series which featured…
Read More »Here’s a post from eleven years ago as the country was trying to recover from the Great Recession. In the midst of the pandemic and its resulting economic distress, it seems a timely reminder that the old saying “in crisis there is opportunity” applies to city planning too. Is Lowell…
Read More »Today is Flag Day which observes the June 14, 1777, vote by the Second Continental Congress adopting a national flag of the United States which was to be “thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.” In…
Read More »This month Trasna is featuring writers participating in Words Ireland National Mentoring Programme. Every year, 22 emerging writers are selected for the program in the areas of literary fiction, creative non-fiction, children’s/YA fiction, and poetry. Each are paired with mentors. Featured this week is poet Billy Fenton. On participating in Words Ireland, he…
Read More »The weather in Lowell was mostly sunny and warm on Monday, June 5, 1944. Across the Atlantic Ocean, things were quite different. In the English Channel, high winds caused heavy seas and low clouds enveloped the coast of France. The forecast caused General Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, to…
Read More »Here’s a post I did on June 14, 2007, with some background information added at the beginning . . . Background On November 18, 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court announced its decision in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health (440 Mass. 309). Here are the opening lines of the…
Read More »Diary in the Time of Coronavirus (7) by Paul Hudon 24 May, 2020 ‘The fitful apprehension of history’ is a phrase I picked up four years ago come September. Apparently it was coined by Fredric Jameson, “an American Marxist philosopher.” This poses a problem because the phrase could be very…
Read More »A recent journal article authored by some familiar names contributes important new evidence to our understanding of the earliest Irish immigrants in Lowell. “Migration and Memorials: Irish Cultural Identity in Early Nineteenth-Century Lowell, Massachusetts” (published in the International Journal of Historical Archaeology on December 18, 2019) examines the iconography of…
Read More »The Hill of Uisneach may not appear in many travel guides, but local historian Mawie Barrett explains why this ancient and sacred site in the geographic center of Ireland is not to be missed. Photo: Fergus Hogan As May filters into June, it is an appropriate time to offer an…
Read More »This week’s Throwback Thursday takes us back to June 3, 2013, and a visit to Lowell by Grammy Award winning singer/song writer Carole King. Paul Marion wrote the following blog post to document her visit which had her attend a campaign rally for Ed Markey who was then running for…
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