We have compiled a variety of multimedia learning resources including videos, games, oral histories and online exhibits, organized by topics:
- Civics
- Environmental Impacts of Industrialization
- Immigration and Community
- Life in an Industrial City
- Literary and Artistic Responses to Industrialization
- Slavery and the Cotton Economy
- Technology, Engineering, and Waterpower
- Transition from Farm Life to Factory Life
- Working in the Mills
Civics
| Title / Link | Brief Description | Program | Grade Level | Type of Resource |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| African American Voting Rights | Learn about the struggle to secure and maintain equitable constitutional voting rights for African Americans. | 8-12 | video, remote learning module | |
| History of Felony Disenfranchisement in Massachusetts | Explore the history of felony disenfranchisement, the denial of the right to vote due to conviction of a criminal offense, in Massachusetts. | 8-12 | video, remote learning module | |
| How Citizenship Laws Change Throughout U.S. History | Trace how citizenship laws have changed throughout United States history. | 8-12 | video, remote learning module | |
| Lowell's Voting Rights Lawsuit | Investigate the 2017 lawsuit that alleged the lack of diversity on the city's council and school board were caused by the use of an at-large plurality voting system, an electoral strategy struck down by a number of previous court cases. | 8-12 | video, remote learning module | |
| Native American Voting Rights | Examine primary and secondary sources on the history of Native American voting rights in Massachusetts and the United States. | 8-12 | video, remote learning module | |
| Women's Suffrage in Massachusetts | Use primary sources to explore the story as women fight for voting rights in Massachusetts. | 8-12 | video, remote learning module | |
| Youth Voices for Political Change | Discover how young people have fought to have their voices heard and to make change, even without the power of the vote. | 8-12 | video, remote learning module | |
| Women's Activism in Lowell | Explore this online exhibition that highlights the struggle for women's rights especially the fight for the right to vote.
Arranged chronologically, the collection of articles highlights the notable groups of women as well as a few exceptional individuals who were essential in promoting suffrage and women’s rights. | 8-12 | online exhibit |
Environmental Impacts of Industrialization
| Title / Link | Brief Description | Program | Grade Level | Type of Resource |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All the World's Water video | Learn about all the world's water, our most precious natural resource. This video and its companion activity encourages students to think about how they use water and what they can do to conserve it. |
| 5-8 | video |
| 360° Virtual Tour of the Boott Cotton Mills Museum - "Environmental Impacts of Industrialization Tour" | Photos and video provide panoramic vistas. Pop-up boxes contain in-depth information, historic photographs, short videos, and primary documents offer a deep-dive on various topics. |
| 4 and up | virtual tour |
Immigration and Community
| Title / Link | Brief Description | Program | Grade Level | Type of Resource |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Immigration Stories: The World Comes to Lowell | This inclusive site presents the full sweep of Lowell's human story - from Native American populations who inhabited the land pre-colonization to the waves of Irish, French-Canadian, Greek, and Portuguese immigrants who arrived in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Southeast Asian, South Asian, Central American, Caribbean, African and Middle Eastern immigrants and refugees settled in Lowell during the late 20th and 21st centuries. The motion-graphic videos are a unique, creative, and compelling way to introduce immigration history to students at all levels. | 4 and up | video and background information | |
| Cambodian Refugees in Lowell | Explore this online exhibit that features mini-biographies of Cambodian refugees who moved to Lowell in the 1980s-1990s, and photographs of cultural objects related to the Cambodian community in Lowell. The biographies and objects are from the Cambodian "luggage" in our Yankees and Immigrants program. This site is part of the Smithsonian Institution's Learning Lab. | All grades | online exhibit | |
| "Their Stories: Lowell's Youth and the Refugee Experience" | This is an online version of a former exhibit at Lowell National Historical Park, Lowell, Massachusetts. It features stories of five refugees who came to Lowell as teenagers. Read their stories and hear, in their own words, whey they left their home countries, their experiences, and how they are adapting to life in Lowell. This site is part of the Smithsonian Institution's Learning Lab. | All grades | online exhibit, oral histories | |
| The Next Generation of Lowell's Immigration Stories | Listen in as student interns from Lowell High School interviewed their fellow students who were immigrants or refugees to Lowell. The four interviewees shared their thoughts about what it was like to leave their home country, their first impressions of Lowell, and how they have adjusted to life here by integrating their home culture with their new American culture. | All grades | online exhibit, oral histories | |
| "A School for Kids Like Me" | Introduce students to the controversial 1830s issue of whether or not public funds should support what was essentially a parochial school in Lowell's Irish Neighborhood. This video and activity are used on-site as part of the Yankees and Immigrants program. Do not do this activity as a pre-visit activity. | Grades 4 and up | video, primary sources, and activity | |
| Immigration and Temperance Reform in Lowell video | Learn about the confluence of immigration and temperance reform amongst the Irish population in Lowell's Acre during the early-mid 19th century. | 8 and up | video | |
| Lowell's Acre Neighborhood in the Early 1800s: Irish Immigration video | Highlights the lives of early Irish immigrants to Lowell through the finds of an archaeological dig at St. Patrick Church | 4 and up | video | |
| Changing Immigrant Communities in Lowell's Acre video | Describes the transition of the Acre's Irish and Greek immigrant population in the 19th and20th centuries and the impact of immigration law on these communities. | 8 and up | video | |
| Education and Reform in Lowell video | Take a look into early 19th-century education reform in Lowell, including the funding of a Catholic school with public funds | 8 and up | video | |
| "Browsing Through Birke's" Documentary and Discussion Guide | This documentary and companion discussion guide profiles a family whose business was well-known for its eccentricity. The Birke’s personal story was less well-known: proprietors Nathan and Sally Birke were Holocaust survivors. At a time when rhetoric about immigrants and refugees makes daily news, the film shows that whatever compels people to flee their homeland can have powerful and long-lasting effects, but human resilience is equally or more powerful. The film and companion discussion guide are good resources for teaching about genocide in US History 2 and World History 2, per S. 2557, the new state law, An act concerning genocide education. In addition to the discussion guide, you can find more information about the Birkes story at: | 8-12 | Discussion guide and video. To access a free, classroom version of the video: please write to Szifra Birke and she will send you a code and link. |
Life in an Industrial City
| Title / Link | Brief Description | Program | Grade Level | Type of Resource |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Choose your own mill girl adventure: "Bringing History Home" | Make decisions as mill girl Eliza Paige who just arrived in Lowell from her family farm. What will she face in this new industrial city? You will be challenged with a series of decisions that will decide Eliza's future. You can play multiple times and make different choices for Eliza. | 4-8 | game | |
| A Day in the Boardinghouse video | Explore what life was like for the mill girls who lived in company boardinghouses during the mid-19th century. The boardinghouse became a home away from home for the young women who lived there. | All | video | |
| Boardinghouse System and the Agent's House video | Dive deeper into the details of the boardinghouse system of housing that mills provided for their workers, along with the nearby agent's house that was occupied by mill management. | 8 and up | video | |
| Lowell's Belvidere Neighborhood: Home to Mill Owners and Prominent Businessmen video | Explore a counterpoint to worker and immigrant housing with the grand homes of Lowell's early wealthy businessmen. | 8 and up | video | |
| Cork Street's Immigrant Housing video | Discover some of the last surviving tenement structures built for Irish immigrants in the mid-19th century. | 8 and up | video |
Literary and Artistic Responses to Industrialization
| Title / Link | Brief Description | Program | Grade Level | Type of Resource |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thoreau at Walden Pond video | Tour the place where Henry David Thoreau spent his "experiment in living" to reflect on life in a rapidly industrializing country. | 5 and up | video |
Slavery and the Cotton Economy
| Title / Link | Brief Description | Program | Grade Level | Type of Resource |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anti-slavery in Lowell | Explore historic downtown Lowell's sites of anti-slavery activity frequented by activists, free people, operatives, and leaders.
Follow their fight for freedom and equity - from factory floors, to church pews, and even old City Hall. | 8-12 | online exhibit |
Technology, Engineering, and Waterpower
| Title / Link | Brief Description | Program | Grade Level | Type of Resource |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tour of Lowell National Historical Park's "River Transformed" waterpower exhibit video | Find out how turbines, gears, and pulleys transformed the potential energy of Lowell's canal water into kinetic energy that powers hundreds of machines. | 5 and up | video | |
| 360° Virtual Tour of the Boott Cotton Mills Museum - "Technology and Worker Safety" | Photos and video provide panoramic vistas. Pop-up boxes contain in-depth information, historic photographs, short videos, and primary documents offer a deep-dive on various topics. | 4 and up | virtual tour |
Transition from Farm Life to Factory Life
| Title / Link | Brief Description | Program | Grade Level | Type of Resource |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Domestic Life on a Rural Farm in the 1830s video | Learn about the daily routines of young women on a farm. | 5 and up | video | |
| Carding Mill - Processing Raw Wool for Home Textile Production video | See how farmers in the 1830s used waterpower carding mills to assist with the time-consuming job of carding wool for making textiles at home. | 5 and up | video | |
| Home Textile Production in the 1830s video | Find out about how people in rural New England made woolen cloth by hand prior to the proliferation of textiles mills. | 5 and up | video | |
| Commerce in an 1830s Rural General Store video | Discover the various types of merchandise both handmade and manufactured - available in a rural New England general store. | 5 and up | video |
Working in the Mills
| Title / Link | Brief Description | Program | Grade Level | Type of Resource |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1912 Strike and Labor Reform in Lowell / Lawrence video | Discusses the 1912 factory workers strike in Lowell and Lawrence, known as the Bread and Roses Strike, and the International Workers of the World Strike headquarters in Lowell's Acre | 8 and up | video | |
| 360° Virtual Tour of the Boott Cotton Mills Museum - "Technology and Worker Safety" | Photos and video provide panoramic vistas. Pop-up boxes contain in-depth information, historic photographs, short videos, and primary documents offer a deep-dive on various topics. | 4 and up | virtual tour |