↑ Parent: Atlas of the city of Lowell, Massachusetts
Collection: Textile Museum Collection
Name: Plate 1
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Notes: While site-specific mill plans document single industrial properties, the more common urban fire insurance and real estate atlases provide coverage in multiple sheets for the entire built-up or “congested” areas of individual cities. These atlases show the footprint of each structure and are color coded to indicate construction materials: yellow (wood), red (brick), and blue (stone). Real estate atlases also include the names of property owners.
For example, this 1906 real estate atlas of Lowell provides coverage for the city of Lowell and several surrounding communities on 30 sheets, allowing an examination of the broader geographical context of the city’s industrial activity. On Plate1, shown here, there are three major mill complexes (Merrimack, Boott, and Massachusetts) adjacent to each other on the south shore of the Merrimack River. Just south of the Merrimack Mills are long narrow brick and wooden structures identified by owner’s names (Saiman Sirk and Hiram Whitney). These structures were tenements rented to the mill workers and their families. In the adjacent area, there are six churches of differing denominations, several schools, and numerous buildings devoted to business, government, and social activities. Taken together, they represent and constitute the rich social and community life that developed in proximity to the mills.
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