Social Movements and Reform in Industrializing America: The Lowell Experience

FAIN: BH-272381-20

University of Massachusetts, Lowell (Lowell, MA 01854-3629)
Sheila Kirschbaum (Project Director: February 2020 to February 2025)
Kristin Gallas (Co Project Director: August 2020 to February 2025)

Two one-week workshops for 72 school teachers on the history of reform movements in Lowell, MA.

The Tsongas Industrial History Center, a partnership of UMass Lowell's College of Education and Lowell National Historical Park, proposes to engage educators in investigating Lowell’s textile industry as a case study of early 19th-century industrialization and reform. We use the resources of the Park and other cultural/historical sites to examine changes in work, society, and culture between 1820 and 1860, changes that led Lowellians, imbued with the ideals of the natural rights tradition, to engage in labor reform, women’s rights, and antislavery movements. We also look at nativism in this time period as a reactionary reform movement. An industrial city that formed the template for later industrial cities in the U.S., Lowell provides an ideal setting for historical inquiry. Through lectures, discussion, hands-on and field investigations, drama, and close study of primary, secondary, and literary sources, educators gain both useful content knowledge and new pedagogical approaches.