Editing Lowell, Massachusetts (section)

=== Founding and Early Industry ===
Founded in the 1820s as a planned [[manufacturing]] center for [[textile]]s, Lowell is located along the rapids of the [[Merrimack River]], {{cvt|25|mile}} northwest of [[Boston, Massachusetts|Boston]] in what used to be a farming community called East [[Chelmsford, Massachusetts]]. The so-called [[Boston Associates]], including [[Nathan Appleton]] and [[Patrick Tracy Jackson]] of the [[Boston Manufacturing Company]], named the new mill town after their visionary leader, [[Francis Cabot Lowell (businessman)|Francis Cabot Lowell]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=3011|title=Profile for Lowell, Massachusetts, MA|publisher=ePodunk|access-date=August 24, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190515115200/http://epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=3011|archive-date=May 15, 2019|url-status=dead}}</ref> who had died five years before its 1823 incorporation. As Lowell's population grew, it acquired land from neighboring towns, and diversified into a full-fledged urban center. Many of the men who composed the labor force for constructing the canals and factories had immigrated from [[Ireland]], escaping the poverty and [[Great Famine (Ireland)|Great Famine]] of the 1830s and 1840s. The mill workers, young single women called [[Mill Girls]], generally came from the farm families of New England.
[[File:Saint Anne's Episcopal Church; Lowell, MA; south (front) side; 2011-08-20.JPG|thumbnail|right|Saint Anne's Episcopal Church, built 1824]]

By the 1850s, Lowell had the largest industrial complex in the United States. The textile industry wove cotton produced in the [[Southern United States]]. In 1860, there were more cotton spindles in Lowell than in all eleven states combined that would form the [[Confederate States of America]].<ref>Stephen J. Goldfarb, "A Note on Limits to Growth of the Cotton-Textile Industry in the Old South", ''Journal of Southern History'', 48, (1982), 545.</ref> Many of the coarse cottons produced in Lowell eventually returned to the South to clothe enslaved people, and, according to historian Sven Beckert, "'Lowell' became the generic term slaves used to describe coarse cottons."<ref>{{Cite book|title = Empire of Cotton: a Global History|last = Beckert|first = Sven|publisher = Knopf|year = 2014|location = New York}}</ref> The city continued to thrive as a major industrial center during the 19th century, attracting more migrant workers and immigrants to its mills. Next were the [[Catholic Germans]], followed by a large influx of [[French Canadians]] during the 1870s and 1880s. Later waves of immigrants came to work in Lowell and settled in ethnic neighborhoods, with the city's population reaching almost 50% foreign-born by 1900.<ref name="Yankee">[http://www.yankeemagazine.com/issues/2009-11/features/lowell-timeline/1 Marion, Paul, "Timeline of Lowell History From 1600s to 2009"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120316054422/http://www.yankeemagazine.com/issues/2009-11/features/lowell-timeline/1 |date=March 16, 2012 }}, ''[[Yankee Magazine|Yankee]]'' magazine, November 2009.</ref>  By the time [[World War I]] broke out in Europe, the city had reached its economic peak.

In 1922, it was affected by the [[1922 New England Textile Strike]], shutting down the mills in the city over an attempted wage cut.<ref name=":122">{{Cite book |last1=Foner |first1=Philip Sheldon |title=History of the labor movement in the United States. 9: The T.U.E.L. to the end of the Gompers era / by Philip S. Foner |last2=Foner |first2=Philip Sheldon |date=1991 |publisher=Intl Publ |isbn=978-0-7178-0674-4 |location=New York |pages=19–31}}</ref><ref name=":02">{{Cite journal |last=E. Tilden |first=Leonard |date=1923 |title=New England Textile Strike |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41828627 |journal=Monthly Labor Review |volume=16 |issue=5 |pages=13–36 |jstor=41828627 }}</ref>

The Mill Cities' manufacturing base declined as companies began to relocate to the South in the 1920s.<ref name="Yankee" /> The city fell into hard times, and was even referred to as a "depressed industrial desert" by ''Harper's Magazine'' in 1931, as the [[Great Depression in the United States|Great Depression]] worsened. At this time, more than one third of its population was "on relief" (government assistance), as only three of its major textile corporations remained active.<ref name="Yankee" /> Several years later, the mills were reactivated, making [[parachute]]s and other military necessities for [[World War II]]. However, this economic boost was short-lived and the post-war years saw the last textile plants close.
[[File:Abandoned mill in Lowell.jpg|thumbnail|left|Mills sat abandoned after industry left the city in the early twentieth century.]]