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Register 22 Seats Remaining
Join us for a local history discussion about the catastrophic collapse at the Pemberton Mill in Lawrence, MA.
On January 10, 1860, in Lawrence, MA, the unthinkable happened. A rumble in the early evening dark, a heave, a shake, and the Pemberton Mill collapsed with nearly 700 workers inside! Ninety-eight of them died that night, fifteen under the age of fifteen.
“The catastrophe that destroyed the mill is almost unparalleled in our history,” said Harper’s Weekly.
“We doubt, indeed, whether in any age, so many human beings have ever perished so terribly by an accident of ordinary life,” The London Times reported.
Was it an accident? At a hurried coroner’s inquest, blame was assessed. Were the wealthy Bostonians involved in the mill’s construction to blame? Worker carelessness?
UMass Lowell history professor Robert Forrant will discuss these questions and more in a talk based on his recently published article in the New England Quarterly on the mill’s collapse.
AGE GROUP: | Adults |
EVENT TYPE: | Library Program--Adults |
