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The Lowell Mills were 19th-century textile mills that operated in the city of Lowell, Massachusetts, which was named after Francis Cabot Lowell; he introduced a new manufacturing system called the "Lowell system", also known as the "Waltham-Lowell system".
The precursor to the Waltham-Lowell system was used in Rhode Island, where British immigrant Samuel Slater set up his first spinning mills in 1793 under the sponsorship of Moses Brown. Slater drew on his British mill experience to create a factory system called the "Rhode Island System", based on the customary patterns of family life in New ...
In 1813, businessman Francis Cabot Lowell formed a company, the Boston Manufacturing Company, and built a textile mill next to the Charles River in Waltham, Massachusetts.. Unlike the earlier Rhode Island System, where only carding and spinning were done in a factory while the weaving was often put out to neighboring farms to be done by hand, the Waltham mill was the first integrated mill in ...
The system of operation the company employed became known as the Lowell System. Initially capitalized with $600,000, [2] its typical product was calico cloth. Situated at the foot of the Merrimack Canal, the original mills received the full 32' drop of the river.
In 1974, Lowell Heritage State Park was founded, and in 1978, Lowell National Historical Park was created as an urban national park, through legislation filed by Lowell native, congressman, and later senator Paul Tsongas. The canal system, many mills, and some commercial structures downtown were saved by the creation of the park and the ...
By 1810, dozens of spinning mills dotted the New England countryside. However, cloth production was still fairly slow with this system. While on a visit to Lancashire, England, in 1810, [5] Francis Cabot Lowell studied the workings of the successful British textile industry. He paid particular attention to the power loom, a device for which ...
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The already existent Pawtucket Canal, designed for transportation around the Pawtucket Falls on the Merrimack, became the feeder canal for a 5.6-mile long system of power canals based around the falls. Unlike many other mill towns, however, Lowell's manufacturing facilities were built based on a planned community design.