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Palmer Street Fire Station during the Lowell Folk Festival July 29, 20012 The Palmer Street Fire Station was also known as the Central Fire Station and was designed by Merrill and Cutler and erected in 1889 by the Lowell firm of Ladd and Conant. Photo and text by Tony Sampas.
Read More »Recruiting posters, 1940s. On this day – July 30, 1942 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill creating a women’s auxiliary agency in the US Navy known as Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service – WAVES. Mildred McAfee, President of Wellesley College in Massachusetts, was sworn in as…
Read More »President Lyndon Johnson signing the Medicare amendment. Former President Harry S. Truman and his wife Bess are on the far right. Truman recieved the first Medicare card. On this day July 30, 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Medicare bill into law. Congress created Medicare under Title XVIII of…
Read More »We were lucky about the weather, given the unsettled skies all weekend. Twenty-six years later, the event feels more like a street festival than a music and dance festival, which is fine. The audience is determining what the experience will be. Food from around the world, sidewalk entertainers, storefront buzz,…
Read More »One of the featured acts at this years Lowell Folk Festival was Magic Slim and the Teardrops. Thanks to DaveMcHistory for originally posting this video on YouTube.
Read More »The 2012 Lowell Folk Festival ended several hours ago and I want to record my observations before they fade. My vantage point was different this year. I had volunteered to staff the Elizabeth Warren information table in the Free Speech area in front of Lowell City Hall. I was there…
Read More »I’m not sure that bringing a dog to the Folk Festival is such a good idea (for the dog), but some people do. Here are a few who spent some time near my hangout in the Free Speech area:
Read More »Frequent contributor Jim Peters shares this essay: I was watching television this evening, the news on ABC to be exact, and Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of the City of New York was featured for a new program in the city. Bloomberg has, apparently, dictated that new mothers be given a…
Read More »Elizabeth Warren visited the Lowell Folk Festival today, spending 90 minutes walking around town, shaking hands with Festival goers. Here are a few pictures.
Read More »From the NYTimes: Meanwhile, back at the stadium, the Olympic flag was carried along the track by eight humanitarians, including Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, and Leymah Gbowee, who shared the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. Once they made a half-circuit of the stadium, they met a frail-looking Muhammad…
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