WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 18th-Revisiting Public Health in Massachusetts: A Free Virtual Series
On January 10, 1860, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, something unthinkable happened: a textile mill collapsed with nearly seven hundred workers inside. Ninety-eight workers lost their lives, 302 were injured, some quite severely, and an equal number emerged unscathed from the fall. At a hurried coroner’s inquest, West Point-educated Charles H. Bigelow, chief engineer on the project that built the Pemberton, received singular blame for the horror. The wealthy Bostonians involved in the mill’s construction got a free pass. Efforts to reform worker health and safety in the aftermath failed.
Robert Forrant, is Distinguished University Professor of History and director of the History Department’s graduate program at UMass Lowell. A board member of the Lawrence History Center, recent publications include: The Great Lawrence Textile Strike of 1912: New Scholarship on the Bread & Roses Strike, 2014; The Big Move: Immigrant Voices From a Mill City, with Christoph Strobel, 2011. Forthcoming books include Where are the Workers: Interpreting Labor and Working-Class History at Museums and Historic Sites, with Mary Anne Trasciatti, University of Illinois Press, 2021, and Lowell: The Worlds and Histories of a New England Mill City, University of Massachusetts Press, 2022.