Not too far from Boston is the riverside town of Lowell, MA, famous as a planned mill town that played a key role in U.S. industrialization. Thirty years ago, the mills were given a second life as part of the Lowell National Historic Park, which has revitalized this industrial area and turned it into an educational and cultural attraction.
We recommend that you begin your visit to Lowell by watching the video program, called Lowell: The Industrial Revelation, at the visitors' center. This presentation, while a bit slow and repetitive by today's standards of quick cuts and multi-sensory bombardment, provides a good overview of the reason the mills were established, how they thrived, and what ultimately brought them into decline. Then take a ranger-led trolley tour or canal ride to learn more about how the mills worked and how the mill girls lived.
Not far from the Visitors' Center is our favorite Lowell museum, the Brush Art Gallery, where you can observe area artists at work and talk with them about the creative process and their current works-in-progress. We love that the artists work in a variety of different media, often approaching the same topic from different perspectives. This was particularly evident in the recent exhibition, called Going to the Dogs.
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