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    Lawrence in the Gilded Age
    Lawrence in the Gilded Age
    Lawrence in the Gilded Age
    Ebook202 pages58 minutes

    Lawrence in the Gilded Age

    By Louise Brady Sandberg

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    The Gilded Age, c. 1870-1898, was a time of promise and expanding horizons for the people of Lawrence, known as "the Queen City on the Merrimack." Passenger trains, horse-drawn trolleys, and electric streetcars dominated transportation, one-third of the population worked in manufacturing, and thirteen newspapers brought the latest information to the city's burgeoning population of nearly sixty thousand people. Through unique images from the special collections of the Lawrence Public Library, rich commentary, and a virtual walking tour, Lawrence in the Gilded Age relives the last three decades of the nineteenth century in Lawrence, which had managed to avoid the labor strikes and political and social unrest that plagued the city in the early twentieth century.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateMar 17, 2004
    ISBN9781439615645
    Lawrence in the Gilded Age
    Author

    Louise Brady Sandberg

    Louise Brady Sandberg is the special collections librarian at the Lawrence Public Library and serves on the board of directors for the Lawrence History Center. She frequently lectures on local history and organized an exhibit in honor of the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of Lawrence's incorporation as a city.

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      Book preview

      Lawrence in the Gilded Age - Louise Brady Sandberg

      book.

      INTRODUCTION

      The term Gilded Age comes from the title of an 1873 novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner. The novel satirized the ostentatious display of wealth of America’s newly created capitalist aristocracy. This opulent veneer was the gilded part of the age. In fact, the last three decades of the 19th century presented what seemed to be endlessly expanding opportunities (albeit intermixed regularly with recessions). The age also fostered a growing disparity between the nouveau riche and the poor.

      Those heady days after the Civil War saw the fantastic rise of cities across the country, and the expansion of the railroads brought in more markets for the goods just starting to pour out of eastern factories. A need arose to build more factories and hire more workers, thus fueling the steady flow of immigrants. Two consequences of these changes were nostalgia for a simpler agrarian time and the progressive movement. The overall success of industrial capitalism led many to believe that this ever increasing wealth was the reward for those of the upper middle class. The race is to the strong, said William Lawrence. Godliness is in league with riches. To many, the appearance of America’s triumph over poverty and cultural deficiencies was a victory of the democratic experiment. If human beings, unfettered by government, tradition, and historical restrictions, could turn the wilderness into a paradise, anyone could join the experiment and make his or her own dream a reality.

      This unparalleled opulence, however, led to an opposing effort by reformers to provide benefits and services for everyone by redistributing the wealth. City fathers worked to change the landscape from small crowded streets and alleys to broad avenues lined with stately public buildings. Cities hired engineers to create modern sewer systems and sources of fresh water to counteract the escalating incidence of disease. Streetlights and paved roads were also signs of these emerging cities’ desire to promote a commercial center for all. New institutions, such as public libraries and city charitable organizations, were adding positive elements to urban living. Communities began to create additional parks and playgrounds to make city living more healthful. City parks also became a meeting place for all classes. The growing middle class wanted comfortable homes, whether in the city or in the new suburbs. Smaller cities sprang up to provide specialized industry (for example, mills), bridging the gap between the cosmopolitanism of the big cities and the provincialism of the small towns.

      The city of Lawrence was a microcosm of the developing American urban scene. Lawrence’s population began at nearly 29,000 in 1870. By 1900, the city had grown to over 62,000. The Lawrence Board of Trade saw the burgeoning population as a sign of progress. All aspects of the city were becoming bigger and better. There were more spindles in the mills and more employees in the tenements. The mills would continue to produce the world’s fabric, and the lives of management and the middle class would continue along their separate paths toward a rosy future.

      Lawrence mirrored the evolution of city life in Gilded Age America. As you will see from the images in this book, Lawrence was building grand public buildings, developing parks, welcoming new technology, establishing city institutions (such as the public school system and the library), and designing up-to-date infrastructures (a water department, roads, bridges, and so on) just as other cities in the country were doing.

      As the special collections librarian at the Lawrence Public Library, I have had the good fortune to organize the library’s large collection of historical materials that were the basis of an exhibit during the city’s 150th anniversary year. While sorting and organizing photographs, manuscripts, printed materials, artifacts, and ephemera, I kept asking myself questions: Where were these places? Who lived here? What is here now? So many things—both buildings and institutions—had been lost to time that I chose a visual display, called Forgotten Lawrence, describing the life and times of 1895 as the theme for the exhibit.

      This book expands upon that exhibit, covering Lawrence from 1870 to 1900, during the Gilded Age. The material used in this book is mostly from the library’s collection. I have attempted to open a window to the past and recapture a vibrant and exciting time. Many of the images show Lawrence as it was before living memory. Any omissions or other deficiencies are generally due to the scarcity of information and images. I welcome information from readers to continue to tell the story of the city.

      One

      THE MILLS

      The city of Lawrence was planned to be a center of commerce, both for the manufacturing of products for profit and for housing the employees who would patronize the businesses that blossomed around the mills. The Essex Company was a Boston-based corporation that organized the funding to create this new industrial center, first called Merrimack and later Lawrence (after Abbott Lawrence). The Essex Company built the dam in 1845, and the incorporation of the town followed in 1847. This photograph is from a very early stereo slide of the mills on the Merrimack River.

      Pacific Mills was incorporated in 1853 with capital of $1 million. The original mills and print works were built by the Essex Company, remodeled in 1882, and enlarged and added to over the many years of its operation. In the latter part of the 19th century, the company was considered one of the foremost corporations in the world. Abbott Lawrence, the city’s namesake, was the first president. The company started as a producer

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