Lowell's National Park

Who would've thought that the city of Lowell had a national park? I, for one, certaintly would not have guessed at it. Who would've thought that Lowell is the national historical park? Not me is all I can say. Surprisingly, Lowell is a national historical park. The city of Lowell was prominent in the rise of the Industrial Revolution in the United States. Everyplace you go in Lowell you'll see some sort of historical land mark, whether its the Boot Cotton Mill, the canals, or Boston and Maine train engine.
The city is teeming with history, just waiting to be explored. If you want to find a place to visit, you can go to the Visitor's Center in Downtown Lowell. They have a movie that brings you through Lowell's history. Visiting all the historical places around Lowell is a great way to dive into the city and discover the roots that it was founded upon.
Before the Industrial Revolution, Lowell was a rural town that was just trying to establish itself in the newly formed United States. However, a man by the name of Francis Cabot Lowell(Pictured Below), memorized the plans of a loom in England, which was going through its Industrial Revolution at the time, and brought the plans back to Lowell. He manufactured looms and started textile mills along the Merrimack River. With the building of the mills, young women began to flock to Lowell to work in the factories and enjoy the city life. Lowell flourished for some time.

Unfortunately, with the mass production of textiles, there was not enough demand for the product so prices of the goods dropped dramatically. Mill owners still kept producing more and more textiles, and prices still kept dropping. The workers were working longer hours, being forced to handle more machines, and being paid less than they should've been making. The workers wouldn't stand for it, so mill owners had to resort to children. They also began to take in new waves of immigrants. The mills of Lowell turned into the very thing that Lowell hated about the European Industrial Revolution. They put their laborers through unbearable conditions and started to make children do their work for even less than the average worker was paid. Immigrants were also part of these terrible working conditions. Many natives of Lowell resented the immigrants.
Each wave of immigrants established a section of the city for themselves. They're was the Irish section, the Italian section, the German section, and it continues on and on. Immigrants were new to America, and would take the first jobs that they could get. They provided a great market for mill owners to choose their workers from. However, each wave faced discrimination, especially from natives of Lowell, who disliked the immigrants for taking their jobs. Nowadays, Lowell is a culturally diverse city, mostly in part due to the immigrants who set up roots in Lowell when they came to work in the mills.
For a while the underpaid workers labored through these conditions. Some perished or were wounded by them, but many did survive. Alot of people remember the downfalls of the Industrial Revolution in Lowell. Many people forget that the Industrial Revolution put Lowell on the map. Their key role in the Industrial Revolution is what make Lowell a National Park today. I'll say once again that Lowell is very great city to explore. Its a place where you can enrich yourself with the history of such a pivotal time in our country's transition form rural town to booming cities.
With the dawn of the world wars, the factories returned to a better environment, because most people were helping to support the war effort. Production continued to slow and eventually the factories were shut down, because more product was being produced elsewhere for a much cheaper price. Since then the factories have become the historic sites that are scattered throughout Lowell. The history that lies within the confines of this great city is magnificent.

Works Cited
1. "History & Culture." Www.nps.gov. National Parks Services, n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2013.