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In His Words: Charles Dickens’ Perspective on New England and Public...
We New Englanders have long called Boston “the Hub”. And there’s a sense, just barely concealed, that we’re really referring to the hub of the universe, and not merely the hub of the state or region....
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The Etiquette of Eating Olives – Victorian-Era Table Manners
There’s a story about the rather richly named Armand Jean du Plessis that circulated throughout Victorian-era New England during the 1880′s. The story goes that du Plessis, better remembered by the...
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Turkey Drovers – Traditions from Thanksgiving Days Past
It turns out that wild turkeys are incredibly difficult to move across long distances. In the days before refrigerated travel, a national roadway system, and even railroads, driving turkeys across...
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Abraham Lincoln’s Visit to Lowell, 1848
If you spend a considerable amount of time reading turn-of-the-(twentieth)-century editions of the local papers of Lowell, Massachusetts, you’ll soon come across the name of Samuel P. Hadley, who...
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The Great White Hurricane – New England’s Blizzard of 1888
During New England‘s Blizzard of 1888, also known as the Great White Hurricane, over four feet of snow fell in Connecticut and Massachusetts. The storm dumped as much as 40 inches of snow in New York...
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1918: Spanish Flu, Attitudes toward Housekeeping, and a Little Bit about...
One of the more interesting aspects of writing a blog is seeing which topics attract the most interest. In mid-December, I wrote a post about the Spanish flu (link below) and its spread across...
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If Ancestors Could Talk: The Words of Nineteenth-Century New England
Eastern Massachusetts has its own way of saying things. Whether you’re drinking a tonic, or slurping a frappe, or quenching your thirst with water from a bubbler, you know you’re near Boston when the...
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A Train Accident in Lowell – 1928
Few people living today remember the 1920s – let alone the specifics of travel during the era. Luckily, New England‘s commitment to preserving its history makes it relatively easy to envision the...
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The Valentine’s Day Storm of 1940.
The Valentine’s Day Storm of 1940 crossed Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts within just a few days in February 1940. Locals said it was the biggest storm to hit the region since the New...
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Past Occupations: Ice Cutters in Massachusetts
In the days before refrigeration, ice was a valuable winter cash crop for enterprising businessmen. Ice was a year-round staple in most households, and many families would give up food before they...
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New England’s Yellow Day of 1881: A Saffron Curtain Descends
In summer’s waning days in 1881, New Englanders read about hope for President Garfield‘s recovery from a gunshot wound suffered two months earlier, an imminent rising of the Apache Nation in the West,...
View ArticleIf New England were a country, would mill towns like Lowell exist?
What would New England be without its mill towns? In what universe would mill towns like Lowell never have developed here?
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