Life on the Corporation

Lowell’s first company-owned boardinghouses were built across the canal in 1823 to house young women workers from rural New England. Neat rows of boardinghouses once lined Lowell’s streets as companies hoped a moral, clean, and safe environment would persuade parents to send their daughters to work in the mills. Life on the corporation soon became a centerpiece of the acclaimed Lowell Experiment. Over time, as mill owners sought to cut costs, working and living conditions deteriorated, and workers resisted with strikes in the 1830s and agitation for a shorter work day in the 1840s. The once-heralded Merrimack Mills boardinghouses were demolished in 1966, and that destruction fueled an intense local debate that helped lead to Lowell’s commitment to preserve its industrial and cultural heritage. By providing decent housing for employees, Lowell investors sought to avoid the brutality of Britain’s factories and urban slums.

Lowell, Massachusetts · United States