The following was originally posted on today’s Substack newsletter. In the future, I will continue transmitting my weekly Lowell Politics newsletter via Substack at 4am on Sundays, but will publish the same content here on richardhowe.com a few hours later. **** I was away last week and was unable to…
The following originally appeared in part in the 2022 book, Lowell Irish 200. It was also distributed last Sunday as my Substack newsletter on Lowell politics. In the state election held on November 4, 1942, Lowell residents voted to change the city’s charter. By a vote of 16,477 in favor to…
The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own bloig. On this 247th celebration of our country’s birth, any American who believes in the progress of civilization must be rattling in the throes of PTSD. Over the last two years, the Supreme Court has managed to wipe…
Thomas Handasyd Perkins – One of Boston’s most successful merchants, Thomas Handasyd Perkins (1764-1854) began as a slave trader out of Haiti and then shipped Turkish opium to China for fine silks and crockery. A model of respectability at home, he supported the Boston Athenaeum and a school for the…
John Lowell Jr. – The eldest child of Francis Cabot Lowell, John Lowell Jr. moved to Lowell in 1825 where he became one of the principal shareholders of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company and led the effort to annex the Tewksbury neighborhood of Belvidere to Lowell. Tragedy struck in 1830 John…
The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against GOP legislators in North Carolina, who had claimed that they should have unreviewable powers to set the rules for their state’s federal elections. The six-to-three decision (with Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and…
Once Upon a Time There Was a Golden Age of Scandinavian Cinema – or Was There? By Malcolm Sharps Malcolm Sharps recalls the films that first drew him to cinema and had an impact on him that no later films could ever have. The importance you allot to those things…
The entry below is being corss posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. Picnics, parades, fireworks, and concerts – all wonderfully traditional ways to celebrate the birth of our country and the values embraced in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. In an article published in today’s highly respected Commonwealth…
The Battle of Gettysburg was fought from July 1-3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The United States Army was commanded by Major General George G. Meade. The Confederate Army was commanded by General Robert E. Lee. Before the battle, Lee tried to capitalize on the momentum…
This weekend, 160 years ago, America was in the midst of its Civil War. On July 4, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln received word of two great victories by the United States Army. The first was the better-known battle at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The other the more obscure, but perhaps more strategically…