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MassMoments reminds us that on this day – January 21, 1861 – the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia was formally organized. In early January 1861, as civil war approached, the men of Massachusetts began to form volunteer militia units. Many workers in the textile cities of Lowell and Lawrence were among the first to join…
Read More »I don’t know why I’ve been watching as much TV news coverage of the Republican Party contest for the presidential nomination. I avoid Fox, but even on CNN and MSNBC and what we used to call the “network news” the reporting is staggeringly shallow. All the talk today, and this…
Read More »On this day – January 20, 1961 – John Fitzgerald Kennedy – son of Massachusetts – was sworn-in as the 35th President of the United States. As an eighteen-year old Irish, Catholic, Democratically-raised, Lowellian and avid Kennedy supporter, this was an important milestone in my life – details and impressions ever-remembered.…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Boston Mayor Tom Menino’s 19th state-of-the-city speech last night was a welcome relief from the nasty partisanship and overheated rhetoric of the national political scene. Locally, Boston’s unemployment rate is 5.7 percent, two points lower than last year.…
Read More »Edgar Allen Poe Lowell, Massachusetts, late May to early June 1849 Daguerreotype On this day – January 19, 1809 – American short-story writer, poet, critic and editor Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Poe poularized the short-story and his tales of mystery and horror gave birth to the modern detective story. Among…
Read More »Harvard University just celebrated its 375th anniversary. But the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War is also of importance to Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust. A noted historian and scholar of the Civil War, Faust will speak in April at the Boston Public Library as part of the Lowell Lecture Series. Her lecture will focus on…
Read More »Both state and federal laws allow courts to authorize the forfeiture of property obtained with profits from the sale of drugs. Cash is involved most often. Anytime the police make a major drug bust, piles of money are often seized. With the defendant more concerned with minimizing jail time than…
Read More »Here’s a memory painting of a night scene at the movies on Central Street in Lowell: “The Strand” by Richard Marion (c) 2012 See more artwork at www.richardmarion.net Here’s a link to Nancye Tuttle’s museum exhibition brochure about the movie theaters in Lowell. Her 1993 exhibit was called “Picture It: Lowell Goes to the…
Read More »With the Costa Concordia disaster fresh in everyone’s minds, I suppose you could get a pretty good deal booking a Mediterranean cruise these days, if the companies that run these ships survive the big hit to their stock, that is. I’ve never been on a cruise (and the chances of…
Read More »While going through an accumulated pile of newspapers (both paper and electronic) this weekend, I read a couple of stories about a $2 fee Verizon was charging customers who paid bills by debit or credit cards and the resulting anger among effected customers. A front-page story by Todd Wallack in…
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