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Didyouknow 5 Thdraft

The two canals built in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Pawtucket Canal and Middlesex Canal, improved transportation on the Merrimack River and connected the river to Boston Harbor. These canals evolved into a powerful canal system in Lowell with over six miles of canals by 1850 powering the city's textile mills. The Boott Cotton Mills clock tower originally regulated mill workers' schedules, waking them early and signaling work times. Over time as technology advanced, the mills increased productivity while shortening workers' hours from 73 hours per week in the 1830s-1840s to 60 hours in 1876 due to new state regulations. In 1990 during renovations, a time capsule left in 1919

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107 views2 pages

Didyouknow 5 Thdraft

The two canals built in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Pawtucket Canal and Middlesex Canal, improved transportation on the Merrimack River and connected the river to Boston Harbor. These canals evolved into a powerful canal system in Lowell with over six miles of canals by 1850 powering the city's textile mills. The Boott Cotton Mills clock tower originally regulated mill workers' schedules, waking them early and signaling work times. Over time as technology advanced, the mills increased productivity while shortening workers' hours from 73 hours per week in the 1830s-1840s to 60 hours in 1876 due to new state regulations. In 1990 during renovations, a time capsule left in 1919

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Did You Know?

Canals: Technological development


Eastern Massachusetts participated in the early years of Americas transportation revolution,
between 1790 and 1860. To improve navigation on the Merrimack River, a group of investors
from Newburyport chartered the Proprietors of Locks and Canals on Merrimack River in 1792.
By 1796, a 1-mile canal around Pawtucket Falls at East Chelmsford permitted log rafts and
limestone-bearing barges to bypass the falls at Lowells future location.
While the Pawtucket Canal was under construction, Boston moguls launched another impressive
canal endeavor: the Middlesex Canal. Completed in 1803, the Middlesex Canal commanded 20
locks and 7 aqueducts over a length of 27 miles, joining the Merrimack River above Pawtucket
Falls to Bostons harbor.
Together, these two canals provided excellent transportation and evolved into Lowells powerful
canal system, coursing almost six miles through the city by 1850. The canals, operated on two
levels by over 10,000 workers, drove the waterwheels of 40 mill buildings, powering 320,000
spindles and nearly 10,000 looms.

Clock tower & bells: Daily schedules and monitoring time changed
Originally built in 1865, the Boott Cotton Mills clock tower regimented mill workers schedules.
Bells woke workers at 4:30 a.m, called them into the mill at 4:50, rang them out and in for
breakfast and dinner, and then out again at 7 p.m., the day's close.
By the late 1970s, the tower had significantly deteriorated, losing its rooftop balustrade and
other details. Initial restoration began in the late 1980s to reconstruct and renovate the rooftop
balustrade, entrance canopy, and signature weathervane, among other structural pieces. The
clocker tower was renovated again in 2004 for residential use.

City model: Shorter hours, more production in 1876 Lowell


The Boott Cotton Mills produced more than 10 million yards of coarse drillings, fine shirtings,
and printed cloth a year in the 1840s. By 1890 over 2,000 workers operated more than 4,000
looms and other textile machines. Over this period of increased productivity, working conditions
changed for mill workers. In 1876, employees averaged a 60-hour work week, a stark decline
compared to the average 73 hours a week in the 1830s and 1840s. This was due to the ten-hour
workday signed into law in 1874. Still, the mills did not shorten the working hours of their own
agreement. Only under demand from state regulation did the hours eventually decrease.

Time capsule: Lowell - From 1919 to 1990 to now (link to informational sheet)

As part of the Boott Cotton Mills Complex redevelopment in 1990, James Normandin of
Normandin & Sons Steeplejacks removed the Boott Mill Weathervane from the Boott Mills
tower for restoration and regilding. Upon moving the weathervane, James found a copper tube
inside the acorn finial and recovered a sheet of paper hidden within the tube. The words on the
document were hardly legible, as time and weather had caused the blue ink to bleed, but
translators translated the document and found it was a recording of 1919 daily life. A draftsman
by the name Walter B. French recorded names of people involved in the current Mills
renovations, as well as important local, national, and global news from the year 1919.

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