LOWELL 



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LOWELL 



simplicity of Longfellow's verse, and the metri- 

 cal perfection and musical quality of Poe's; it 

 is crowded with allusions and with references 

 to literature and hence is often hard reading. 

 It well repays study, however. His chief prose 



ELMWOOD 

 Lowell's Home at Cambridge. 



works are Fireside Travels, which contains some 

 delightful fancies and descriptions; My Study 

 Windows, containing his descriptive and critical 

 masterpieces which are perhaps best known; 

 and Among My Books, two volumes which 

 have placed him above all previous American 

 critics. C.W.K. 



Many quotations from Lowell have become 

 well known; of these, the following may be 

 cited: 



They are slaves who dare not bo 

 In the right with two or three. 



Be noble ! and the nobleness that lies 

 In other men, sleeping but never dead, 

 Will rise in majesty to meet thine own. 



Before man made us citizens, great Nature 

 made us men. 



Talent is that which is in a man's power ; 

 genius is that in whose power a man is. 



Consult Brownell's American Prose Masters; 

 Greenslet's James Russell Lowell: His Life and 

 Work. 



LOWELL, MASS., one of the greatest textile 

 manufacturing cities of the United States. It 

 is one of the two county seats of Middlesex 

 County, the other being Cambridge, and is situ- 

 ated in the northeastern part of the state, at 

 the junction of the Merrimac and Concord 

 rivers, seven miles from the New Hampshire 

 state line. Boston is twenty-five miles south- 

 east. Transportation facilities are provided by 

 the Boston & Maine and New York, New 

 Haven & Hartford railways, and interurban 

 electric lines extend from the city in all direc- 



tions. The population in 1910 was 106,294; a 

 Federal estimate in 1916 increased the number 

 of people to 113,245. Only twenty-five per 

 cent of these are Americans. The area of the 

 city is a little less than thirteen square miles. 



Lowell is noted for the variety of its manu- 

 factures aside from its textile industry. The 

 value of its combined products amounts to 

 $80,000,000 annually, and its factories employ 

 39,000 people. Immense water power is fur- 

 nished by the Merrimac River, which has a fall 

 here of thirty-two feet, and by the Concord 

 River. The Canal and Lock Company, or- 

 ganized to supply power to the cotton factories, 

 furnishes water power to Lowell, where it is 

 used extensively, as coal commands a high 

 price. By means of its canals, Lowell develops 

 about 30,000 horse power daily. The larger 

 mills, however, are equipped with steam power 

 machinery for use in dry seasons. 



The city claims to have the largest cotton 

 mill, the best textile school, the largest sail- 

 cloth factory and the largest hosiery mill in the 

 United States.' In one year it produces suffi- 

 cient cloth to wind seven times around the 

 world. For its product of leather, magnetos, 

 proprietary medicines, mohair plush, phono- 

 graph needles and muslin underwear it enjoys 

 a high rank, and in the manufacture of shoes 

 its importance is rapidly increasing. Other 

 products worthy of note are carpets, cartridges, 

 machinery, tools, electrical goods and rubber 

 goods. One of the most interesting things ob- 

 servable in Lowell is the interest displayed by 

 manufacturers in the welfare of the industrial 

 class. The city has an enviable record for 

 labor conditions, and for its system for provid- 

 ing good homes and advantages for education, 

 recreation and amusement. There are night 

 schools, free reading rooms, a library with 

 90,000 volumes, four high schools which 

 $1,600,000, four industrial schools, its excellent 

 textile school, Rogers Hall for girls, and a 

 state normal school. Besides its $500,000 city 

 hall, it has a Federal building, Memorial build- 

 ing, the Ayer Home for Young Women and 

 Children, and one for aged women, four hospi- 

 tals and nearly eighty churches. 



The original name of the city was Chelms- 

 ford. In 1822 the Merrimack Manufacturing 

 Company established a cotton mill here and 

 changed the name to its present one, in honor 

 of Francis Cabot Lowell, pioneer in cotton 

 spinning in the United States. The village 

 grew rapidly. In 1826 it was incorporated as a 

 town and in 1836 was chartered as a city. The 





