The city also began to have a larger student population. By the 1990s, Lowell had built a new ballpark and arena, which became home to two minor league sports teams, the Lowell Devils and Lowell Spinners. Additional historic manufacturing and commercial buildings were adapted as residential units and office space. This effort began to attract other companies and families back to the urban center. However, this economic boost was short-lived and the post-war years saw the last textile plants close.Īlthough Wang went bankrupt in 1992, the city continued its cultural focus by hosting the nation's largest free folk festival, the Lowell Folk Festival, as well as many other cultural events. Several years later, the mills were reactivated, making parachutes and other military necessities for World War II. At this time, more than one third of its population was "on relief" (government assistance), as only three of its major textile corporations remained active. The city fell into hard times, and was even referred to as a "depressed industrial desert" by Harper's Magazine in 1931, as the Great Depression worsened. The Mill Cities' manufacturing base declined as companies began to relocate to the South in the 1920s. By the time World War I broke out in Europe, the city had reached its economic peak. Later waves of immigrants came to work in Lowell and settled in ethnic neighborhoods, with the city's population reaching almost 50% foreign-born by 1900. Next were the Catholic Germans, followed by a large influx of French Canadians during the 1870s and 1880s. Many of the coarse cottons produced in Lowell eventually returned to the South to clothe enslaved people, and, according to historian Sven Beckert, "'Lowell' became the generic term slaves used to describe coarse cottons." The city continued to thrive as a major industrial center during the 19th century, attracting more migrant workers and immigrants to its mills. In 1860, there were more cotton spindles in Lowell than in all eleven states combined that would form the Confederate States of America. The textile industry wove cotton produced in the Southern United States. Saint Anne's Episcopal Church, built 1824īy the 1850s, Lowell had the largest industrial complex in the United States. LeLacheur Park, and a multipurpose indoor sports arena, the Tsongas Center, both of which have hosted collegiate and minor-league professional sports teams. The city has a baseball stadium, Edward A. In sports, the city has a long tradition of boxing, hosting the annual New England Golden Gloves boxing tournament. Arts facilities in the city include the Whistler House Museum of Art, the Merrimack Repertory Theatre, the Lowell Memorial Auditorium, and Sampas Pavilion. Middlesex Community College's two campuses are in Lowell and in the town of Bedford, Massachusetts. UMass Lowell, part of the University of Massachusetts system, has three campuses in the city. Lowell is home to two institutions of higher education. During the Cambodian genocide (1975–1979), the city took in an influx of refugees, leading to a Cambodia Town and America's second largest Cambodian-American population. Many of Lowell's historic manufacturing sites were later preserved by the National Park Service to create Lowell National Historical Park. The city became known as the cradle of the American Industrial Revolution because of its textile mills and factories. Incorporated in 1826 to serve as a mill town, Lowell was named after Francis Cabot Lowell, a local figure in the Industrial Revolution. The city also is part of a smaller Massachusetts statistical area, called Greater Lowell, and of New England's Merrimack Valley region. With an estimated population of 115,554 in 2020, it was the fifth most populous city in Massachusetts as of the last census, and the third most populous in the Boston metropolitan statistical area. Alongside Cambridge, It is one of two traditional seats of Middlesex County. Lowell ( / ˈ l oʊ ə l/) is a city in Massachusetts, in the United States.
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