Labor and Landscape: Lowell as 19th-Century Crucible
FAIN: BH-267097-19
University of Massachusetts, Lowell (Lowell, MA 01854-3629)
Sheila Kirschbaum (Project Director: February 2019 to October 2022)
Two one-week workshops for 72 K-12 school teachers
on the environmental history of Lowell, MA.
The Tsongas Industrial History Center, a partnership of UMass Lowell's College of Education and Lowell National Historical Park, proposes to build educators’ content knowledge and pedagogical skills through a study of Lowell as an environmental "crucible." Through talks, tours, and discussions, educators consider nineteenth-century textile manufacturing as a moment when multiple ways of using nature collided. We look at ways of labor and meaning of landscape for the Merrimack River Valley’s Native Americans, for enslaved people in the Deep South, and for “Yankee” farm families on New England’s rural homesteads. We study the industrial transformation of raw cotton into finished cloth by a changing array of wage laborers in Lowell. We also locate the origins of American environmental concern, social protest, and regulatory policy in the reaction to widespread environmental disruption and ever-worsening pollution associated with textile and other factories.
Associated Products
Virtual Site Visits for Landmarks Workshop - "Labor and Landscape: Lowell as Nineteenth-Century Crucible" (Web Resource)Title: Virtual Site Visits for Landmarks Workshop - "Labor and Landscape: Lowell as Nineteenth-Century Crucible"
Author: Tsongas Industrial History Center
Abstract: To provide a sense of place for teachers attending our 2021 virtual NEH Landmarks Workshops, the Tsongas Industrial History Center created a series of videos (shot by videographer Nathan Hendrie) showing settings (built and natural) that participants would have visited in person if the pandemic had not forced us first to delay a year and then to go virtual. Locations include Lowell mills, greenways, gardens, and canals, as well as Walden Pond and sites in Old Sturbridge Village.
Year: 2021
Primary URL:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qssQ4uZPxZs&list=PLC6a9ee8rNdRxONIyd8KYZcpQNaI_dk_pPrimary URL Description: A series of videos that enable viewers to learn about history and culture by examining significant places in New England.