Lowell family Mary C Crawford, The Lowell Family appears January 31, 1670-1671, in the Town of Newbury Famoul Families of Manachusetts Records, when, with others, he was accorded permission to build, at his own charge, a pew in the southeast corner of the Z 2uds. little, Brown Co., 1930P, 155. 110- Meetinghouse for the use of his wife and daughters. The House here referred to was the First Church of Newbury, which was succeeded in 1699 by what is described "as a large and commodious edifice." CHAPTER VIII It was to this Newbury church, much repaired and refurbished, that Percivall Lowle's 1 great-great-grandson, THE LOWELL FAMILY Vol. I John, who had graduated from Harvard in 1721, came as No Saltonstall, so far as I have been able to discover, has minister in 1726. He continued to serve the parish for yet married a Lowell. This is the more striking since both forty-one years. But another house of worship was built the Saltonstalls and the Lowells are connected with nearly during his time, with the result that we find the Reverend every other outstanding family in Massachusetts. And John Lowell spoken of in the histories as "pastor of the both clans have deep roots in Essex County. Third Church in Newbury", now the First Church of New- Originally the surname "Lowell" was "Lowle", and it buryport. Lord's Day services under the Reverend John continued in this form for several centuries, there being a Lowell consisted chiefly of a long prayer and a sermon Percivall Lowle in Somersetshire, England, as early as 1571. occupying two hours. Then followed an intermission of an The mother of the Percivall Lowle who introduced the hour for the midday meal, with substantially the same order name to this country was herself of distinguished ancestry of exercises in the afternoon. The reading of the Bible was and Percivall 1 had been a merchant at Bristol before he not considered essential or even justifiable in the public emigrated to America in 1639, bringing with him this wife, worship of that day; we are told that the Scriptures were Rebecca, his two sons, John and Richard, and his daughter, not read at divine services in the Third Parish until the year Joan. He was then sixty-four years old, but he lived nearly 1750.3 Following a thunder shower (February 9, 1754), in thirty years longer in Newbury, where he established a home, the course of which lightning struck the steeple 'of Mr. dying January 8, 1665, at the age of ninety-three. Lowell's Meeting House and shattered it very much", In the early Newbury records, Percivall Lowle is mentioned Benjamin Franklin visited Newbury and made a careful as having been assigned "his stint of the OX & cow common." examination of the premises. The Reverend John Lowell Another interesting allusion to him under the old spelling died May 15, 1767. 1 This merchant from Somerset seems to have possessed a foreshadowing of the John Lowell, generally known as the "Statesman", was the poetic gift which has since flowered so notably in the Lowell family. On the death of Governor Winthrop he wrote a long funeral elegy in verse which contains the 1 The emigrant Percivall had two sons, John and Richard. John had a son of following naive quatrain: the same name, born in England, who by his marriage with Naomi Sylvester was Here you have Lowell's loyalty, the father of Ebenezer, born in Boston in 1675. Ebenezer Lowell married Elizabeth Pen'd with his slender skill Shailer. They were the parents of the pastor of the Third Parish in Newbury. And with it no good poetry 2 Newburyport having been set off as a separate town. He held but one pastor- Yet certainly good will. ate and that was in what is now Newburyport. See Appendix, "Life and Letters of John Winthrop" by Robert C. Winthrop. 3 "Ould Newbury' John J. Currier, p. 435. IIO III Boott Cotton Mills Page 1 of 2 H Baker Library B Historical Collections Boott Cotton Mills Business Records, 1898-1916 Mss: 442 1898-1916 B751 Historical Note: The Boott Cotton Mills, located in Lowell, Massachusetts, was incorporated in 1835 by Abbott Lawrence, Jol Amory Lowell and Nathan Appleton for the purpose of producing "drillings, sheetings, shirtings, linens, fanc dress goods, and yarns." Between 1836 and 1839, four mill buildings were built along the Merrimack River, each operating independently from the other. A three-story counting house located in front of the mills house the administrative and accounting functions. The complex grew in 1846-1847 with the addition of a fifth mill central picker house was added in 1860 and a cotton storehouse in 1865. Mill #6, built in 1871-72, not only contained carding, spinning and weaving machinery, it included a blacksmith shop, a large machine shop, a paint shop and carpenter shop. By the 1870s, Boott Cotton Mills shifted to a variety and order mill with the six mills working as a unified plant. At the same time, management made the decision to increase production, keep pay rates low and avoid reinvestment in plant and equipment. The increased production helped maintain profits and dividends, but ultimately working conditions and wages declined while buildings and machinery became obsolete. After 188 when the South became increasingly competitive with the long-established northern textile mill industry, this corporate policy proved unwise. However, throughout the 1880s and 1890s, the Boott paid consistent dividen and its stock price remained high. Long-term neglect of plant and labor proved the undoing of Boott Cotton Mills for a time. In February 1905, mill closed and the corporation ceased with stockholders, dominated by the current generation of directors, selling the plant and its assets for $300,000 to a group of investors from Lowell and Boston. Renamed Boott Mill, this new company reorganized management and production, invested in new equipment and retrained workers. This markedly different way of doing business allowed the company to successfully withstand the economic necessities of two world wars and the depression years. However, the bad market and big inventori which existed for cotton textiles during the early 1950s hastened the end of many mill operations in the northeast. Boott Mill became one of the casualties, and in 1955, it closed after one hundred and twenty years operation. Scope and Content: The collection consists of one volume of semi-annual accounts, May 1898-November 1905. Included in this volume are additional loose papers concerning the liquidation of the company. Provenance : Gift of George S. Gibb, 1961 http://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/sfa/boott cotton.htm 4/28/2005 About Amy Lowell Page 1 of 7 You are here: About > Homework Help > Women's History > Art, Music. Writing. Media > Writers > Women Writers 1901-2000 > About Amy Lowell FREE SHARP MEGAPIXEL A $199.99 VALUE! WEB EXCLUSIVE, T Mobile- LIMITED-TIME OFFER! CAMERA PHONE GET YOURS NOW! Search About Women's History Sponsored Links Home Amy Lowell Lowell Hotel (February 9, 1874 - May 12, 1925) Offer Yourself the Ultir Essentials poet, critic, biographer, socialite; promoted Imagist school of Luxury at Lowell Hotel www.lhw.com Biographies of Notable poetry Women Hotel Lowell Amy Lowell Also on This Site Quotes by Women Visiting Lowell? Comp didn't become Amy Lowell Poems Picture Gallery Prices & Reviews a poet until Amy Lowell Biography www.TripAdvisor.com Mother's Day History Preface and Title Page Today in Women's she was years Men, Women and Ghosts: Lowell Hotel History into her Preface Save 70% on Lowell t adulthood; Photos, Reviews & Ma travelYahoo.com History Offers then, when Related Resources Lowell MA she died Women Writers of the 20th Advertisem What are offers? early, her Century poetry (and Boston Marriage Ella Wheeler Wilcox Articles & Resources life) were Most Popul Sappho About Women: nearly Emily Dickinson Coco Chanel - Courtesy of the Library of Congress Biographies indication Jone Johnson Learn forgotten -- and Links African American until gender studies as a discipline Emily Dickinsor From Other Guides Poems/Letters Air, Space, Science, began to look at women like Lowell Mother of Us All Women's Histo Math as illustrative of an earlier About Poetry Gallery Ancient & Medieval About Women Writers lesbianism. She lived her later years Quotations by 1 Art. Music. Writing. in a "Boston marriage" and wrote Women: Index Media erotic love poems addressed to a Lowell On the Web About Alice Wa Education & Sports woman. Amy Lowell biography Feminism, Suffrage, Amy Lowell - biography Rights Untermeyer on Lowell What's Hot Life: Family, Work. T. S. Eliot called her the "demon Lillian Faderman: On Teaching Emily Dickinson Fashion saleswoman of poetry." Of herself, Amy Lowell Poems/Letters Perspectives in American Medicine, Nursing, she said, "God made me a Rachel Carson Literature: Amy Lowell Health businesswoman and I made myself a Rachel Carson Military & War Elizabeth Black poet." Politics, Laws, Rulers Writings On the Web Quotes Reforms: Abortion, Poems from Sappho.com Dorothea Dix C Peace Amy Lowell was born to wealth and Amy Lowell on Robert Frost prominence. Her paternal On Imagism and Ezra Pound Religion, Goddess, by Amy Lowell Witches grandfather, John Amory Lowell, Where & When developed the cotton industry of Women's History - More Massachusetts with her maternal Related Books grandfather, Abbott Lawrence. The Chloe Plus Olivia Buyer's Guide towns of Lowell and Lawrence, Masks Outrageous and Massachusetts, are named for the Austere Before You Buy To Believe in Women: What Top Picks families. John Amory Lowell's cousin Lesbians Have Done For America - Women's History on A History Video Books on American Women's History http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/blbio_amy lowell.htm 4/28/2005 Elmwood (Cambridge, Massachusetts) - Wikipedia Page 1 of 8 Coordinates: 42°22'31.7"N 71°8'18.2"W WIKIPEDIA Elmwood (Cambridge, Massachusetts) Elmwood U.S. National Register of Historic Places U.S. National Historic Landmark District Main house, December 2008 Show map of Massachusetts Show map of the United States Show all Location 33 Elmwood Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts Coordinates 42°22'31.7"N 71°8'18.2"W Built 1767 Architect Thomas Oliver Architectural style Georgian NRHP reference # 66000364 (https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/66000364) [1] Significant dates Added to NRHP October 15, 1966 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmwood_(Cambridge,_Massachusetts) 8/9/2019 Elmwood (Cambridge, Massachusetts) - Wikipedia Page 2 of 8 Elmwood, also known as Designated NHLD December 29, 1962 the Oliver-Gerry- Lowell House, [2] is a historic house and centerpiece of a National Historic Landmark District in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is known for several prominent former residents, including: Thomas Oliver (1734-1815), royal Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts; Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814), signer of the US Declaration of Independence, Vice President of the United States and eponym of the term "gerrymandering"; and James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), noted American writer, poet, and foreign diplomat. C.H.Dorr (1820-1893) The house, originally on a 100-acre estate, was built in the Georgian style about 1767 by Thomas Oliver, scion of a wealthy merchant family in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Abandoned by the Loyalist Oliver at the outset of the American Revolutionary War, the property was confiscated by the state of Massachusetts. It was purchased by Elbridge Gerry, who used it as his family residence until his death in 1814. The house was sold by his heirs to the Lowell family, and was the birthplace and residence of James Russell Lowell for most of his life. During Lowell's ownership significant portions of the original estate were sold off, and his heirs sold the house to Arthur Kingsley Porter, a Harvard University professor. He bequeathed the property to the university, which now uses it as the official residence of its president. Architecturally the house has retained most of its Georgian character, and has had only modest exterior additions and modifications. Although it was decorated in a Victorian style by the Lowells, Harvard restored the interior to a more traditional Georgian style when it took over the property. The house is not open to the public. In addition to the property owned by Harvard, the National Historic Landmark District encompasses the adjacent Lowell Park, a state-owned park which was once part of the original Oliver estate. Contents History Oliver, Revolution, and Gerry Lowell family 20th century to present Architecture See also Notes References Further reading History Oliver, Revolution, and Gerry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmwood_(Cambridge,_Massachusetts) 8/9/2019 Elmwood (Cambridge, Massachusetts) - Wikipedia Page 3 of 8 The house now known as Elmwood was built about 1767(2) by Thomas Oliver, appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts in the spring of 1774. The estate, located on the western edge of Cambridge, Massachusetts, at that time consisted of about 100 acres (40 ha) of rolling fields with a commanding view of the Charles River. [3] Oliver's property extended from Fresh Pond in the north across the Charles River to what is now the Boston neighborhood of Brighton to the south, then part of Cambridge. [4] It was not far from the 1759 mansion built by his brother-in-law John Vassall, [5][6] now the Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site. [7] On September 1, 1774, pursuant to orders given by Governor Thomas Gage, British Army troops removed provincial gunpowder from a magazine in what is today Somerville. This activity caused a spontaneous rising of militia throughout the province amid rumors of actual violence that is known as the Powder Alarm. [8] The next day Oliver was able to dissipate a crowd that formed in Cambridge (near present-day Harvard Square) by going to Boston, conferring with Gage, and reporting that no further military movements were planned. However, the crowd followed him home and compelled him to resign his office, which he did under protest. [9] Oliver and his family shortly thereafter fled to Boston. [3] Early in the Siege of Boston that began after the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the house was occupied by troops that eventually became part of the Continental Army; one of the building's notable occupants during this time was Benedict Arnold, then in the Connecticut militia. After the Battle of Bunker Hill it was used as a hospital. When the British military evacuated Boston in March 1776, the Olivers, like many other Loyalists, traveled with them to Nova Scotia. [10] Oliver eventually settled in Bristol, England, where he died in 1815. [3] The Massachusetts government confiscated Oliver's property during the American Revolutionary War, and sold it in 1779 to Andrew Cabot. In 1787 Elbridge Gerry purchased the Cambridge estate, which became his home. [3] In the aftermath of the XYZ Affair, for which Gerry was unjustly criticized, Elmwood was the scene of protests in which Gerry was burned in effigy. [11] Gerry served as Governor of Massachusetts in 1810 and 1811; redistricting of the state in 1812 prompted the coining of the term "gerrymandering" to describe the practice of shaping legislative districts in partisan ways. [12] In March 1813 Gerry took the oath of office as Vice President of the United States in the house; he died in 1814 in Washington, D. C. [3] Gerry rented out large parts of the estate to tenant farmers. [13] He sold and later repurchased land near the Charles River from a relative, who operated a landing and storehouse; the area (located near the present-day Eliot Bridge) became known as Gerry's Landing. [14][15] Lowell family Ten acres, including the house, were purchased from the Gerry family in 1818 by Charles Russell Lowell, Sr. of the Lowell family. It was in this home ¹6 that James Russell Lowell was born on February 22, 1819. [17] In the 1850s, Lowell dealt with many personal tragedies, including the sudden death of his mother and his third daughter, Rose. [18] His personal troubles as well as the Compromise of 1850 convinced him to spend a winter in Italy after coaxing from William Wetmore Story. [19] The trip was financed by the sale of land around Elmwood, and Lowell intended to sell off even further. Ultimately, 25 of the original 30 acres (120,000 m² were sold to supplement Lowell's income. ² His personal troubles continued: his son Walter died while overseas, his wife https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmwood_(Cambridge,_Massachusetts) 8/9/2019 Elmwood (Cambridge, Massachusetts) - Wikipedia Page 4 of 8 Maria White Lowell died in October 1853, his father became deaf, and his sister Rebecca was deteriorating mentally such that she often went without speaking for weeks. He had difficulty coping and became a recluse at Elmwood for a until an invitation to speak at the Lowell Institute resulted in a job offer at Harvard He accepted the job, with the request he be allowed to study abroad for a year first. [24] Lowell returned to the United States and began his duties at Harvard in the summer of 1856. [25] Still grieving the loss of his wife, James Russell Lowell at Elmwood however, he avoided Elmwood, lodging instead in an area known as (from Edward Everett Hale's Professors' Row on Kirkland Street in Cambridge along with his biography of Lowell, published daughter Mabel and her governess Frances Dunlap.(2) [26] Lowell and 1891) Dunlap married in 1857. After the death of Lowell's father in January 1861 due to a heart attack, he moved back to Elmwood with his family. Despite avoiding the home for SO long, he was pleased to be back. He wrote to his friend Charles Frederick Briggs: "I am back again to the place I love best. I am sitting in my old garret, at my old desk, smoking my old pipe I begin to feel more like my old self than I have these ten years". [27] However, Elmwood's expenses drained him, with taxes at $1,000 a year. As early as 1867, he considered renting out Elmwood and moving into a smaller home elsewhere but never did. Instead, to ease his financial plight, he began to sell off land in 1870 until only two and a half acres remained. [28]) Lowell remained at Elmwood for the remainder of his life, except during the period between 1877 and 1885 when he served as Minister to Spain and Great Britain. At Elmwood, he wrote some of his best-known works, including The Vision of Sir Launfal, The Biglow Papers, and A Fable for Critics, all published in 1848. [29] It was Lowell who named the house "Elmwood". He mentions the home in some of his poetry: My Elmwood chimneys seem crooning to me, ELERIDGE SERRY As of old in their moody, minor key, THE STATES KINGSLYY PORTER And out of the past the hoarse wind blows. Lowell's friend and fellow poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow also wrote a This marker near Mount poem about the house called "The Herons of Elmwood". [31] Auburn Street summarizes the history of the home In the summer of 1872, when Lowell traveled to Europe, he rented the house to Thomas Bailey Aldrich. Years later, in 1877, when Lowell was appointed Ambassador to Spain, he rented the home to the violinist Ole Bull. [32] Shortly after Bull's death in 1880, the Norwegian poet, playwright, and novelist Bjornstjerne Bjornson was the guest of Bull's widow at Elmwood for three months. [33] Upon Lowell's return to the United States in 1885, he stayed at Elmwood until his death. He died in the home on August 12, 1891. [29] 20th century to present https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmwood_(Cambridge,_Massachusetts) 8/9/2019 Elmwood (Cambridge, Massachusetts) - Wikipedia Page 5 of 8 After the death of James Russel Lowell the house was inherited and used seasonally first by his daughter Mabel the wife of Edward Burnett then by their children. Arthur Kingsley Porter purchased Elmwood and the remaining lands from the Lowell heirs in 1920. Porter, a Harvard professor, used the house as a private residence, but also taught some of his classes there and allowed students to use his extensive library. Under the terms of his will, the property was bequeathed to Harvard upon his death in 1933, although his wife was granted lifetime occupancy. She died in 1962, at which time Harvard took full control of the property. [3] After major renovations Elmwood was occupied by Franklin L. Ford, who served as Harvard's Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for most of the 1960s. Acting President Derek Bok moved his family to its bucolic grounds in 1971 amid security concerns originating in student protest activity near the then-president's residence on Quincy Street. The house has been the official residence of Harvard presidents since. It still houses portions of the Lowell library. [34] Lowell Park; Elmwood is visible in The Harvard-owned property and the adjacent state-owned Lowell the distance Park were declared a National Historic Landmark District in 1966. [1][3][35] Lowell Park was established in 1899 as a memorial to James Russell Lowell. It was paid for in part by private subscription and also with some public funds, and donated to the state in 1898. It was at first administered by the Metropolitan District Commission as part of the Charles River Reservation; the MDC's successor, the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, is now responsible for the park. [35][36] Architecture Although parts of Elmwood's interior have been altered, its exterior has not changed greatly over the years. It is a large, square, clapboarded structure in Georgian style with brick-lined walls and two chimneys. The floor plans on each floor are the same: two rooms on either side of a central hall housing a staircase. The windows on the first and second floors have decorative cornices, and a 19th-century balustrade surrounds the roof. The exterior entranceway is flanked by Tuscan pilasters supporting a classic entablature A photochrom image of decorated with a frieze. Above the entablature is a large window with Ionic Elmwood, published by the pilasters on either side, topped by a triangular pediment. [3] Detroit Publishing Co. in the 1890s The building has had some modifications and additions, made principally during the Lowell ownership period. Additions housing more modern services and a library were added to the west side of the house, and first-floor windows in the front parlor and dining room were replaced with French doors. A one-story porch with balustraded roof deck was added on the north side of the house, and a terrace was installed on the south side. The Lowells decorated the house in a Victorian style; Harvard restored the building interior to an 18th-century style when it took over the property. [3] See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmwood_(Cambridge,_Massachusetts) 8/9/2019 Elmwood (Cambridge, Massachusetts) - Wikipedia Page 6 of 8 List of National Historic Landmarks in Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places listings in Cambridge, Massachusetts Notes 1. "National Register Information System" (http://nrhp.focus.nps.gov/natreg/docs/All_Data.html). National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007. 2. Wilson, p. 112 3. "Nomination for Elmwood"(https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NHLS/66000364_text).I National Park Service. Retrieved October 24, 2012. 4. An Historic Guide to Cambridge, p. 115 5. Calhoun, Charles C. Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004: 124. ISBN 0-8070- 7026-2. 6. Howard, Hugh. Houses of the Founding Fathers. New York: Artisan, 2007: 84. ISBN 978-1-57965-275-3 7. "Longfellow House-Washington Headquarters National Historic Site" http://www.nps.gov/long/parknews/upload/LHB-15-1-11.pdf) (PDF). Longfellow House Bulletin. National Park Service (Volume 15, No. 1). June 2011. 8. Brooks, pp. 16-18 9. Stark, pp. 186-187 10. Stark, p. 188 11. Purcell, pp. 51-52 12. Buel, pp. 148-149 13. An Historic Guide to Cambridge, p. 116 14. Publications of the Cambridge Historical Society, p. 85 15. Bethell et al, p. 62 16. Heymann, p. 55 17. Nelson, p. 39 18. Duberman, p. 116 19. Duberman, p. 117 20. Wagenknecht, p. 36 21. Heymann, pp. 101-102 22. Duberman, p. 133 23. Sullivan, p. 215 24. Heymann, p. 105 25. Sullivan, p. 216 26. Heymann, p. 106 27. Heymann, p. 119 28. Duberman, pp. 257-258 29. Ehrlich and Carruth, p. 40 30. Wilson, p. 113 31. Gale, p. 106 32. Duberman, p. 283 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmwood_(Cambridge,_Massachusetts) 8/9/2019 Elmwood (Cambridge, Massachusetts) - Wikipedia Page 7 of 8 33. Haugen and Haugen, pp. 28-30 34. "33 Elmwood" (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2001/10/14/33-elmwood-soon-after-assuming-office/). The Harvard Crimson. October 14, 2001. 35. "West Cambridge Neighborhood Study, 2007" (http://www.cambridgema.gov/~/media/Files/CDD/Planning/Neighborhoods/10/area10_ns_2007.ashx). City of Cambridge. Retrieved October 26, 2012. 36. Public Documents of Massachusetts, 1898, pp. 12-13 References Bethell, John; Hunt, Richard; Shenton, Robert (2004). Harvard A to Z. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674012882. OCLC 492735502 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/492735502). Brooks, Victor (1999). The Boston Campaign. Combined Publishing. ISBN 1-58097-007-9. Buel, Richard (2005). America on the Brink. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781403962386. OCLC 55510543 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/55510543). Duberman, Martin (1966). James Russell Lowell. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Ehrlich, Eugene; Carruth, Gorton (1982). The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the United States (https://archive.org/details/oxfordillustrate00euge). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19- 503186-5. Gale, Robert (2003). A Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Companion. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 9780313323508. OCLC 249576525 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/249576525). Haugen, Einar; Haugen, Eva (1978). Land of the Free: Bjornstjerne Bjornson's America Letters, 1880- 1881. Northfield, MN: Norwegian-American Historical Association. Heymann, C. David (1980). American Aristocracy: The Lives and Times of James Russell, Amy, and Robert Lowell (https://archive.org/details/americanaristocr00heym). New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. ISBN 0-396-07608-4. Nelson, Randy F (1981). The Almanac of American Letters (https://archive.org/details/almanacofamerica00nels) Los Altos, CA: William Kaufmann, Inc. ISBN 0-86576- 008-X. Purcell, L. Edward (2010). Vice Presidents: A Biographical Dictionary. New York: Facts on File. ISBN 9781438130712 OCLC 650307529 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/650307529) Stark, James Henry (1910). The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution ps://books.google.com/books?id=jkgSAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA188#v=onepage&f=false). Boston: J. H. Stark. OCLC 1655711 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1655711). Sullivan, Wilson (1972). New England Men of Letters. New York: The Macmillan Company. ISBN 0-02- 788680-8. Wagenknecht, Edward (1971). James Russell Lowell: Portrait of a Many-Sided Man. New York: Oxford University Press. Wilson, Susan (2000). Literary Trail of Greater Boston (https://archive.org/details/literarytrailofg00wils). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-618-05013-2. An Historic Guide to Cambridge (https://books.google.com/books? id=YBMpAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA187#v=onepage&f=false). Cambridge, MA: Daughters of the American Revolution. 1907. OCLC 7873709 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/7873709). Public Documents of Massachusetts, 1898: Volume 12 (https://books.google.com/books? d=St1KAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA12#v=onepage&f=false). Boston: Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 1899. OCLC 7771614 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/7771614) Publications of the Cambridge Historical Society (https://books.google.com/books? d=Aj4VAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA85#v=onepage&f=false). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Historical Society. 1920. OCLC 6177743 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/6177743). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmwood_(Cambridge,_Massachusetts) 8/9/2019 Your independent source for Harvard news since 1898 HARVAR MAGAZINE Log-In Register Remaking the Mosquito The end of malaria? HARVARD MAGAZINE Search ARTICLES CURRENT ISSUE ARCHIVES CLASS NOTES CLASSIFIEDS DONATE YOUR SUPPORT makes Harvard DONATE Magazine possible. FEATURES Francis Cabot Lowell Brief life of an American entrepreneur: 1775-1817 by DAN YAEGER SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2010 Commencement 2016 Click Here to read our online coverage sponsored by the Harvard Alumni Card and the Harvard Alumni Association On Readers' Radar 1. Steven Spielberg: "I I Was in a Celluloid Bubble" 2. Rashida Jones '97: "Don't Just Follow the Rules" 3. Harvard's 2016 Honorary-Degree Recipients 4. Kindness Is "a Powerful and Subversive Thing" 5. A Sunny Celebration The undated silhouette above is the only known portrait of Lowell. From the collection of the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation EW INDIVIDUALS have influenced economic history as did Francis Cabot F Lowell, A.B. 1793. Born as American colonists struggled for political independence, he helped lay the groundwork for the new country's economic independence with his idea for an integrated textile mill. That concept eventually transformed the United States into a world trading power and put into play forces of technological innovation that continue today. http://harvardmagazine.com/2010/09/vita-francis-cabot-lowell 1/3 5/27/2016 Brief life of American textile industry entrepreneur Francis Cabot Lowell Harvard Magazine Lowell's father, John, A.B. 1760, was a successful lawyer, politician, and colleague of John Adams, who named him chief judge of the First Circuit Court of Appeals. His mother, Susannah, was the daughter of Salem shipping magnate Francis Cabot. Both Borden Cottage the newest of our families shaped the boy's name and career. Entering Harvard at 14, he distinguished himself in Signature Recovery Programs mathematics, but as a senior lit a bonfire in the Yard, an uncharacteristic episode of mischief. For this he was "rusticated" for several months and tutored in math and morals before being allowed to return to Cambridge. He graduated with highest honors. Surely to the chagrin of his father, he exhibited a "bland unconcern" with politics, and pursued Start your treatment today instead a Cabot-like career as an international merchant. Signing on as supercargo of an uncle's ship, he quickly learned the trading business. Soon he set up his own account at Boston's Long McLean Borden MARVARE MEDICAL SCHOOL ASTILLATE Wharf and amassed a substantial fortune in the Federal-era trade of textiles, crops, and foreign currency. On the side, he acquired significant chunks of Boston wharf property, several residences, and tracts of Maine wilderness. You Might Also Like: But by 1810 hostilities between France and Great Britain threatened his prosperity. With gunships patrolling the Atlantic, international shipping became an impossibly risky livelihood. Harvard Shared Interest The stresses took their toll. Lowell was described as a "high-strung, delicate [man], prone to Groups Commencement overwork and periods of nervous exhaustion." His remedy was to settle accounts and embark week events on a two-year trip to Britain, to regain his health and contemplate his prospects. Carrying high-value Spanish doubloons and letters of introduction from important friends such "Remembering Monomoy" as former U.S. Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, A.B. 1763, Lowell enjoyed access to the honors a special part of Cape Cod highest levels of British society. Connections also gained him entry to the flourishing textile mills of Lancashire, where water-powered looms rolled out miles of cloth and created fabulous wealth for their owners. A keen observer, he toured the factories and realized that his fortune Houston mayor Sylvester and future lay with cotton manufacturing. Another Boston merchant with whom he Turner promises "transformative" tenure rendezvoused during his sabbatical recalled that Lowell visited the mills "for the purpose of obtaining all possible information on the subject, with a view to introduction of the improved manufacture in the United States." One obstacle to his incipient plan, however, was Britain's tight control of its advanced textile industry. To protect trade secrets, the technologies were not for sale, and British textile workers were prohibited from leaving the country. Lowell's admission through the factory gates is testimony to the caliber of his references and his standing as a trader, not yet a competing manufacturer. He left Britain in 1812 on the eve of war and sailed away with his head evidently buzzing with ideas. Immediately upon his return to Boston, he set to work on a scheme that many in the conservative Lowell clan considered "visionary and dangerous." Nevertheless, he raised the unheard-of amount of $400,000 from family and friends through the novel idea of selling shares in his enterprise, which became known as the Boston Manufacturing Company. He purchased a dam and property on the Charles River in the country town of Waltham, 10 miles from Boston, then built a four-story brick mill with a handsome cupola and Paul Revere bell. Most important, he hired the skilled engineer Paul Moody who, with Lowell making the complex calculations, created the country's earliest operable power loom and linked it to other previously mechanized weaving processes to establish the first fully integrated mill in the world. Cotton entered as a bale and exited as a bolt, a revolutionary idea that made the "Waltham system of manufacture" emulated across the globe and the basis for modern industry. "From the first starting of the first power loom," reported one of the investors, "there was no hesitation or doubt about the success of this manufacture." By 1815, cloth flew out of the factory as fast as the company could make it, fulfilling the high demand for American textiles after war stemmed the flow of imported goods. The operation soon returned 20 percent annual dividends to its lucky backers, who talked excitedly about creating great industrial cities throughout New England on the Waltham model. But Lowell himself barely enjoyed the fruit of his triumph. A frenetic pace coupled with his "delicate nature" proved a tragic combination. He died at 42, just three years after the birth of his industrial vision. http://harvardmagazine.com/2010/09/vita-francis-cabot-lowell 2/3 5/27/2016 Brief life of American textile industry entrepreneur Francis Cabot Lowell I Harvard Magazine Despite his frail constitution, Lowell possessed a combination of ability, ambition, wealth, connections, and risk-taking that would come to define later generations of American entrepreneurs. Like Edison, Ford, and Gates, Lowell not only created products, he created a market where none existed. In this he established much more than a textile mill in Waltham, Massachusetts. He helped inaugurate a culture of innovation that has driven the world economy ever since. Dan Yaeger, M.T.S. '83, the former executive director of the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation, in Waltham, Massadhusetts, is executive director of the New England Museum Association. He is at work on a biography of Francis Cabot Lowell. Comments for this thread are now closed. 0 Comments Harvard Magazine Login S Recommend 8 Share Sort by Best This discussion has been closed. And CONTACT/ABOUT CUSTOMER SERVICE DONOR SERVICES E-NEWSLETTERS ADVERTISE MY ACCOUNT FAQ HARVARD All Content ©1996-2016 Harvard Magazine Inc. All right reserved Privacy Policy Tube MAGAZINE http://harvardmagazine.com/2010/09/vita-francis-cabot-lowel 3/3 On also MY STUDY WINDOWS BY James Russell Lowell COMPLETE POETICAL AND PROSE WORKS. Riverside Edition. 11 vols. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 1-4. Literary Essays (including My Study Windows, Among My Books, Fireside Travels) ; 5. Political Essays ; 6. Literary and Political Addresses; 7. Latest Literary Essays and Ad- dresses, The Old English Dramatists ; 8-11. Poems. PROSE WORKS. Riverside Edition. With Portraits. 7 vols. POEMS. Riverside Edition. With Portraits. 4 vols. COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS. Cambridge Edition. Printed from clear type on opaque paper, and attractively bound. With a Portrait and engraved Title-page, and a Vignette of Lowell's Home, Elmwood. Large crown 8vo. Illustrated Library Edition. With Portrait and 16 Photo- gravures. 8vo. Gout Pogiliar Edition. Witl. Portrait and Illustrations. Crown Svq,full leatlier. Autograph Edition. With Portrait. Crown 8vo. Household Edition. With Portrait and Illustrations. Crown Svo. Cabinet Eduin. 18mo. For the numerous single volurnes by Mr. Lewill, see Catalogue. The Riberside Press HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON AND NEW YORK BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY (be niberside press Cambridge PREFATORY NOTE. ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS, IN THE YEAR 1871, BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, IN THE OFFICE OF THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS, AT M Y former volume of Essays has been so kindly WASHINGTON received that I am emboldened to make an- COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY MABEL LOWELL BURNETT COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY MOORFIELD STOREY, EXECUTOR other and more miscellaneous collection. The papers ALL RIGHTS RESERVED here gathered have been written at intervals during the last fifteen years, and I knew no way 80 effectual to rid my mind of them and make ready for a new departure, as this of shutting them between two ,covers where they can haunt me, at least, no more. I should have preferred a simpler title, bat publishers nowadavs are inexorable on this point, and i was 500 much occupied for happiness of choice. That which I have desperately snatched is meant to imply both the books within and the world without, and perhaps may pass muster in the case of one who has always found his most fruitful study in the open air. 108408 nicle, Brookline, Mass., February 10, 1927 GUY LOWELL DIES Brown University, Andover Academy Simmons College, and the State Normal ON TRIP ABROAD School were erected. The Cumberland County Court House at Portland, Maine ion Famed Architect and Leading Citizen is his work, as is the New York County Court House, and other notable examples CK C. CARREIRO Succumbs to Heart Attack of his work are the Public Library at kline Village North Andover, the building of the New A cablegram received by relatives Hampshire Historical Society at Concord, here last Saturday announced the death New Hampshire, the Pawtucket (Rhode in Madeira, the day before, while en LOTHING Island) Memorial Hospital, the Piping route to France, of Guy Lowell, one of Rock Clubhouse at Locust Valley, Long ISSES America's foremost architects and for Island. He also designed the resi- many years a distinguished and leading dences and layed out the grounds of the UPRE RAYON resident of Brookline. It is believed estates of many prominent persons. He ID KNICKER that death resulted from a sudden heart was the architect of the Iówa State Mem- attack as Mr. Lowell was in his usual orial at Vickesburg, Mississippi, and the SHADES, $1.75 health when he left here two weeks ago, Johnson Memorial Gates on Westland accompanied by Mrs. Lowell and Herbert Avenue, Boston, were his work; while Sears of Boston, on one of his periodical he did the Edwin V. Curtis mémorial business and pleasure trips to Europe, in Boston at the time of his death. Mr. SHOP and had planned to be abroad for some Lowell was working at the request of time. The body is being brought back Governor Alvan T. Fuller in an attempt DGE CORNER to Brookline and is expected to reach here to solve the problem of a proper treatment ; ASP. 3557 about February 22. Arrangements for for Copley Square and the erection by the the funeral have not been made at this Commonwealth of a fitting memorial writing. to her soldiers. Fortunately he finished The deceased was a member of the his design for the memorial and it is now famed Lowell family-of-New England under consideration by the special com- that has given many illustrious persons mission, along with several other plans to various walks of life, born in Boston for memorials. When the National Art fifty-seven years ago. He was graduated Committee was formed to arrange for from Harvard in 1892 and two years paintings by American artists of portraits later received his degree of bachelor of military, civic, and religious leaders in y of sciènce from the Massachusetts In- the World War, Mr. Lowell was chosen /S stitute of Technology. He spent the as one of the group. Three years ago next five years studying architecture e he received a commission as consulting abroad and was graduated from the architect on a new park system for Pitts- ts Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris in 1899. burgh, Pennsylvania, work on which 8 He began his career as an architect in he was still engaged when he sailed for Boston a year later, becoming at the same time lecturer on landscape architecture Europe. During the World War Mr. Lowell at Technology, a position he held for saw fourteen months of service in Italy S Co. the next thirteen years, and advisory as director of the department of military architect for the then Metropolitan affairs of the American Red Cross. For erset 1100 Park Commission in the development this service he earned the publicity ex- of the park system and Charles River pressed by the King and the Pope. He HERDS Basin, serving in this capacity until was also decorated with the Medal of the later project was completed. He Valor, which is the Italian counterpart soon attracted attention by his work of the Distinguished Service Cross, and and in a few years had reached a com- also the Italian Military Cross, and other EN manding place in his profession. During honors bestowed on him were the order subsequent years he designed and carried of SS. Mauritius and Lazarus and the out many large public and private build- LE Order of the Crown of Italy. ng and landscape projects and enjoyed He was an enthusiastic yachtsman, a large clientele. He was considered an and his boat, the-Cima, was one of three LDS authority on architectural matters and American yachts to take part in the Kiel had written a number of books and other regatta in 1911. perience" compositions on architecture. In addition to his office in Boston, Mr. Locally he was known as the designer Lowell had one in New York. He was of the Museum of Fine Arts building in a member of the Somersef Club. the Boston. He was the architect for Emer- Tavern Club, the Eastern Yacht Club, case U.... at Harvard and the residence of Tnminnnd Dacquet here last Saturday New Hampshire, the Pawtucket (Knode in Madeira, the day before, while en CLOTHING Island) Memorial Hospital, the Piping route to France, of Guy Lowell, one of Rock Clubhouse at Locust Valley Long MISSES America's foremost architects and for Island. He also designed the resi- many years a distinguished and leading dences and layed out the grounds of the UPRE RAYON resident of Brookline. It is believed estates of many prominent persons. He ND KNICKER that death resulted from a sudden heart was the architect of the Iowa State Mem- attack as Mr. Lowell was in his usual orial at Vickesburg, Mississippi, and the SHADES, $1.75 health when he left here two weeks ago, Johnson Memorial Gates on Westland accompanied by Mrs. Lowell and Herbert Avenue, Boston, were his work; while Sears of Boston, on one of his periodical he did the Edwin V. Curtis mémorial business and pleasure trips to Europe, in Boston at the time of his death. Mr. ; SHOP and had planned to be abroad for some Lowell was working at the request of time. The body is being brought back Governor Alvan T. Fuller in an attempt DGE CORNER to Brookline and is expected to reach here to solve the problem of a proper treatment G. ASP. 3557 about February 22. Arrangements for for Copley Square and the erection by the the funeral have not been made at this Commonwealth of a fitting memorial writing. to her soldiers. Fortunately he finished The deceased was a member of the his design for the memorial and it is now famed Lowell England under consideration by the special com- that has given many illustrious persons mission, along with several other plans to várious walks of life, born in Boston for memorials. When the National Art fifty-seven years ago. He was graduated Committee was formed to arrange for from Harvard in 1892 and two years paintings by American artists of portraits later received his degree of bachelor of military, civic, and religious leaders in ay of sciènce from the Massachusetts In- the World War, Mr. Lowell was chosen lys stitute of Technology. He spent the as one of the group. Three years ago the next five years studying architecture he received a commission as consulting abroad and was graduated from the architect on a new park system for Pitts- sts Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris in 1899. burgh, Pennsylvania, work on which le's He began his career as an architect in he was still engaged when he sailed for Boston a year later, becoming at the same Europe. time lecturer on landscape architecture During the World War Mr. Lowell at Technology, a position he held for saw fourteen months of service in Italy ts Co. the next thirteen years, and advisory as director of the department of military architect for the then Metropolitan affairs of the American Red Cross. For Merset 1100 Park Commission in the development this service he earned the publicity ex- of the park system and Charles River pressed by the King and the Pope. He HERDS Basin, serving in this capacity until was also decorated with the Medal of the later project was completed. He Valor, which is the Italian counterpart soon attracted attention by his work of the Distinguished Service Cross, and and in a few years had reached a com- also the Italian Military Cross, and other DEN manding place in his profession. During honors bestowed on him were the order subsequent years he designed and carried of SS. Mauritius and Lazarus and the out many large public and private build- BLE Order of the Crown of Italy. ng and landscape projects and enjoyed He was an enthusiastic yachtsman, a large clientele. He, was considered an and his boat, the Cima, was one of three LDS authority on architectural matters and American yachts to take part in the Kiel had written a number of books and other regatta in 1911. perience compositions on architecture. In addition to his office in Boston, Mr. Locally he was known as the designer Lowell had one in New York. He was of the Museum of Fine Arts building in a member of the Somerset Club, the Boston. He was the architect for Emer- Tavern Club, the Eastern Yacht Club, son Hall at Harvard and the residence of Automobile Club. and Tennis and Racquet the president of the university, while Club, Harvard Club, the Brook Club of from his drawings several buildings at New York, the New York Yacht Club, and the Piping Rock Club, also of New Smart Wearing Apparel York. He was a trustee of Simmons College and of the Lowell Observatory BATHA MILLINERY at Flagstaff, Arizona. On returning to Boston after his two KEEPS YOU Helen Cheney Shop years of study in Paris, Mr. Lowell married FIT 14 PLEASANT ST., COOLIDGE CORNER Henrietta Sargent. daughter of Professor EVERY Reg. 1632 Charles S. Sargent of "Holm Lea." She survives him, as do a brother, Frederick E. Lowell of the board of trustees of the TO THE M PERSONALITY SHOPPE Boston Symphony Orchestra; and a sister, Mrs. James Hardy Ropes (Alice Individual Tastes Catered to in Lowell), wife of Professor Ropes, the LADIES' APPAREL theologian, and dean of special students MILLINERY at Harvard University. M. GRANT HANNRAHAN 79 Harvard Street BROOKLINE Tel. Regent 4282-M Polly Green Antique Shop HANGING AROUND LOWELL HOUSE THE PORTRAITS OF LOWELL HOUSE 11111 DIANA L. ECK, FACULTY DEAN The Reverend John Lowell (1704- Judge John Lowell (1743-1802) 1767) Portrait by Nathaniel Emmons (1704- "The Old Judge" 1740) [Masters' Residence Reception Room] Portrait attributed to John Johnston (1753- 1802) [Masters' Residence Reception Room] The Reverend. Son of the Reverend John Lowell and Sarah (Champney) Lowell, young John Born in 1704 in Newburyport, John attended Harvard College, living during Lowell was already in the fifth generation his freshman year in Wadsworth House, of Lowells in America. The Reverend John where President Holyoke also lived. He Lowell was the first of the Lowells to had a distinguished Harvard career, graduate from college, finishing his graduating in 1760. He went on to study studies at Harvard in 1721 at the age of Law at Harvard and returned to just seventeen. Ordained by twenty-two, Newburyport to a fine law practice. Lowell took up the ministry of the church of Newburyport, Massachusetts in 1726. He was not, at the outset, a supporter of He would remain in this position for the the Revolution, in part because of rest of his life, serving the church for flourishing trade between Newburyport forty-two years. At the time of his death, it and England. Lowell was elected a was written, "He was a lover of good men, Representative for the General Court of tho' of different denominations and Newburyport in 1776. Now a staunch differing sentiments; and being given to Federalist, he moved to Boston "to take a hospitality, his doors were open for their more active part in our public matters," reception, and they were entertained with and was elected a Representative for kindness and generosity." (John Tucker, Boston in 1778. In 1779, Lowell become a Ministers of Boston, 1767) This tradition key player in the drafting of the of hospitality is, we hope, one that Massachusetts State Constitution; he is continues in Lowell House two and a half credited with adding the phrase, "All men centuries late. are born free and equal. " 2 Lowell's career in law was illustrious. The eldest son of the "Old Judge, "John Appointed Judge of the U.S. District Court Lowell graduated from Harvard in 1786, of Massachusetts by George Washington, and passed the bar exam in 1789, he served in this position until appointed following the tradition of his father. He Chief Justice of the U.S. Circuit Court by married Rebecca Amory in 1793 and lived President Adams in 1801. He is referred in Roxbury. Their son was John Amory to as "The Old Judge." Lowell. Though he stopped practicing Law in 1803, John Lowell continued As a young man, Lowell had made a pact working for the Federalist Party, writing with a college friend never to marry. Even impassioned pamphlets expressing New so, he ended up marrying three times --to England Federalist opposition to the War a Higginson, a Cabot, and a Russell, one of of 1812, signed "The Boston Rebel" or the reasons that the family tree includes "The Roxbury Farmer. many of the old families of Boston. His first marriage to Sarah Higginson in 1769 From 1810 till 1832 he was a member of took place on the very same day and in the corporation of Harvard which gave the same ceremony as that of the college him the honorary degree of L.L.D. in 1814. friend with whom he made the pact! Having inherited his father's love for horticulture, John Lowell Jr. was for many Judge John Lowell served for 18 years as a years president of the Massachusetts member of the Corporation of Harvard agricultural society and has been called College [1784-1802] and was one of the the "Columella of the New England States. founders of the American Academy of "He was a benefactor of the Arts and Sciences. In 1792, Harvard Massachusetts General Hospital and an bestowed upon him an Honorary L.L.D. early supporter of the Boston Athenaeum. John Lowell, Jr. (1769-1840) "The A biographer of the Lowells wrote of John Rebel" Portrait by Gilbert Stuart (1755- Lowell Jr., "His private charities were very 1828). [Masters' Residence Dining Room] great, so that for many years he employed an almoner to hunt up worthy subjects. He also gave his legal talents without charge to the poor. His house in Roxbury was often visited by many of the most noted men of science and culture at home and abroad." [Delmar Rial Lowell, 59] He died in his Roxbury home in 1840. In one account, he died of apoplexy. Another says he died suddenly, reading the newspaper. Given his history as a spirited man of opinion and literary gifts, both are surely true. Francis Cabot Lowell (1775-1817) While we do not have a portrait of the second son of the "Old Judge, Francis Cabot Lowell is an important figure in New England. Born in Newburyport, Francis Cabot Lowell, A.B. 1793, became a textile manufacturer and for him the City of Lowell is named.) His son was John 3 Lowell Jr. (1799-1836). Due to physical He served for forty years as a member of infirmity, he finished only two years of the Harvard Corporation [1837-77] and Harvard before sailing to India and points was awarded an honorary L.L.D. in 1851. East with his family's firm. He returned to Boston to his manufacturing career, but John Amory Lowell married his first after the tragic death of his wife and two cousin Susan Cabot Lowell in 1822. Their children in 1830, he again took to travel son, yet another John Lowell, became a to deal with his grief. Before leaving, he federal judge. established a trust that provided for "the maintenance and support of public lectures." This became the Lowell Institute and its banner Lowell lectures. He died in Bombay in 1836 John Amory Lowell [1798-1881] Portrait by George Peter Alexander Healy [Dining Hall] John Amory Lowell (1798-1881) Portrait by Jacob H. Lazarus. [Dining Hall] John Amory Lowell became the sole trustee of the Lowell Institute founded by his cousin John Lowell Jr. whose will stipulated that there would be only one trustee at any given time, with preference given to a male descendent of his Lowell House has two portraits of John grandfather, Judge John Lowell. Besides Amory Lowell, the only son of John Lowell helping the trust's endowment to grow, Jr. "The Rebel," and Rebecca Amory. He Lowell ensured that the Lowell Lectures was born in Boston and, like five featured the very best intellects of the generations of his family before him, he time. During his tenure, for example, the attended Harvard College, graduating in lecture series featured novelist Charles 1815 at the age of seventeen. He traveled Dickens and geologist Sir Charles Lyell Europe for a considerable time before and the Lowell Institute became the returning to Massachusetts. In the 1830s, premier vehicle of public intellectual life he became a very successful merchant in Boston. involved in textile manufacturing in Boston and Lowell, Massachusetts. John Amory Lowell - Wikipedia Page 1 of 3 WIKIPEDIA John Amory Lowell Hon. John Amory Lowell (November 11, 1798 - October 31, 1881) was an American businessman and philanthropist from Boston. He became the sole trustee of the Lowell Institute when his first cousin, John Lowell, Jr. (1799-1836), the Institute's endower, died. (Lowell 1899, pp 117-118) [1] Contents Family Career Lowell Institute See also Hon. John Amory Lowell References 1798-1881 Family John Amory, the second child of John Lowell, Jr (1769-1840) and Rebecca Amory (1771 -1842), was among the first generation of Lowells to be born in Boston, and the fifth generation to be born in America. His father maintained a well-established law firm in the city, and three years after John Amory's birth, retired for reasons of his failing health. After retiring in 1801, the elder Lowell spent much of his time and wealth patronizing the burgeoning horticultural society in Boston, SO much SO that he became known to his friends and family as "The Norfolk Farmer." John Amory Lowell's paternal grandfather, also named John Lowell (1743-1802) but referred to as "The Old Judge," was a Federal Judge appointed by President George Washington and is considered to be the founding father of the Boston Lowells. (Greenslet 1946) [2] Like his father and grandfathers before him, Lowell would be the fourth member in his family line to graduate from Harvard College in 1815, at the age of 17. After spending an extended time traveling through Europe and then establishing himself as a successful merchant in Boston, Lowell married his first wife, Susan Cabot Lowell (1801 -1827), a daughter of his uncle, Francis Cabot Lowell. [3] Together, they would have two children, Susan Cabot and John. Lowell's wife died during childbirth in 1827. Their son, John, would be appointed to the U.S. District Court in 1865 by President Abraham Lincoln, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Amory_Lowell 3/18/2020 John Amory Lowell - Wikipedia Page 2 of 3 and in 1878, appointed to the U.S. Circuit Court by President Rutherford B. Hayes. John Amory's grandson, James Arnold Lowell, would also go on to become a Federal Judge. Lowell's wife, Susan Cabot, who was a great-granddaughter of Edward and Dorthy (Quincy) Jackson, would connect their children and their descendants to those of the Holmeses of Boston, a family that includes poet Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and U.S. Supreme Court justice and Civil War hero, Hon. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. With his second wife, Elizabeth Cabot Putnam (1807-1881), Amory fathered a son and three daughters. Augustus, Elizabeth Rebecca, Ellen Bancroft, and Sara Putnam. Augustus Lowell would become a very successful business man and eventually succeed Lowell as the second trustee of the Lowell Institute. John Amory's grandchildren, through Elizabeth Cabot, included author and astronomer Percival Lowell, Harvard President Abbott Lawrence Lowell, and poet Amy Lowell. Career In 1835 and 1838, John Amory became the first Treasurer for both Merrimack Manufacturing Company and Boott Cotton Mill, textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts. [3] And in 1857, he became Director of The Winnipiseogee Lake Cotton and Woolen Manufacturing Company. All positions his son, Augustus, would succeed to within the same companies. Merrimack Manufacturing Co., (Bay State Monthly 1884) [4] Lowell, Massachusetts Lowell was a Fellow of Harvard College (1837-1877), a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the Linnean Society of London. Later, in 1851, Harvard would honor John Amory with an LLD. Lowell Institute The trust-or Lowell Institute, as it came to be known-had an unusual mode of governance: a single trustee who was empowered to appoint his successor and who was, in the language of John Lowell, Jr.'s will, to "always choose in preference to all others some male descendant of my grandfather, John Lowell, provided there be one who is competent to hold the office of trustee, and of the name of Lowell." (Everett 1840) [5] Despite this odd restriction (or perhaps because of it), the Institute proved to be an extraordinarily innovative philanthropic force. Under John Amory, its first trustee, [3] the Institute flourished. Lowell was both a man of extraordinary financial acumen and a man of high intellect. The list of Lowell Lecturers during his tenure was a veritable pantheon of the most internationally celebrated figures in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Amory_Lowell 3/18/2020 John|Amory Lowell - Wikipedia Page 3 of 3 science, literature, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology, including Britain's most celebrated geologist, Sir Charles Lyell, Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz, and novelists Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray. The lectures were SO immensely popular that crowds crushed the windows of the Old Corner Bookstore where the tickets were distributed and certain series had to be repeated by popular demand. John Amory tirelessly led the Lowell Institute for more than 40 years before naming his son, Augustus, as his replacement. See also Lowell family First Families of Boston Lowell Institute Lowell, Massachusetts Kirk Boott References 1. Lowell, Delmar. (1899) The Historic Genealogy of the Lowells of America from 1639 to 1899, Rutland VT: The Tuttle Company. ISBN 978-0-7884-1567-8. 2. Greenslet, Ferris. (1946) The Lowells and Their Seven Worlds, Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-89760-263-3. 3. M., Rosenberg, Chaim. Legendary locals of Lowell, Massachusetts (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/854956846), ISBN 9781467100489. OCLC 854956846 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/854956846). 4. Bay State Monthly tp://www.gutenberg.org/files/15925/15925-h/15925-h.htm#h2H_4_0006),1 Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 5. Everett, Edward. (1840) A Memoir of Mr. John Lowell, delivered Dec 31, 1839 at the Introduction to the Lectures on His Foundation at the Odeon, Boston: Little Brown Preceded by Trustee of Lowell Institute Succeeded by John Lowell, Jr. 1836-1881 Augustus Lowell Retrieved from"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Amory_Lowell&oldid=902512233' This page was last edited on 19 June 2019, at 10:25 (UTC). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Amory_Lowell 3/18/2020 Bromley Park: The Withering of a Garden Square - Jamaica Plain Historical Society Page 1 of 6 Distorical AND 1987 Bromley Park: The Withering of a Garden Square In 1871 John Amory Lowell transformed his influential family's Roxbury, Massachusetts, estate, Bromley Vale, into a groundbreaking garden square residential development named Bromley Park. Though demolished in 1953 to make way for the city-owned Bromley-Heath housing complex in Jamaica Plain, Bromley Park stood for nearly eighty years as a powerful and fascinating example of how nature and dense private housing could be interwoven in urban design. Several blocks of brick townhouses surrounded more than twenty thousand square feet of green space. HIGH AND SQ ST 35 https://www.jphs.org/victorian-era/2019/7/26/bromley-park-the-withering-of-a-garden-squ... 3/18/2020 Bromley Park: The Withering of a Garden Square - Jamaica Plain Historical Society Page 2 of 6 Bromley Park was intended to accommodate six blocks of small townhouses surrounding a common garden area. Planned by John An Blain Distorica built between 1871 and 1873, the design sought to integrate natural, open SOCIETY urban housing. Map from the 1895 Q Atlas of the City of Boston, Boston propel OTHER EDEN OF by G.W. Bromley & Co. Courtesy of The David Rumsey Map Collection. 1987 Shady trees, expansive lawns, and wrought iron fences graced the three common areas, which provided a naturalistic oasis for the middle- and working-class immigrant Bromley Park community. This largely forgotten garden square illuminates how Lowell's desire to provide residents with an experience of nature intersected with the need for adequate housing in an evolving industrial city. After Old Colony Railroad expanded its tracks through Bromley Vale in 1870, Lowell decided to move from his estate in the industrializing neighborhood to a new estate in Brookline named Sevenells. In determining how to subdivide Bromley Vale, Lowell turned to an urban design form that he knew well from his extensive travels abroad. Garden squares originally developed in London in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Consisting of lush gardens bordered by closely spaced but architecturally refined townhouses, London garden squares constituted peaceful bastions of privilege and wealth separated from the city's chaotic mix of residents of different classes. Historical examples in Boston originated with Charles Bulfinch, whose 1793 Tontine Crescent located just south of the Boston Common consisted of a semicircular row of townhouses surrounding a small garden plot. During the mid- nineteenth century builders created similar developments in Boston, including Beacon Hill's Louisburg Square and the South End's Worcester, Chester, and Union squares Lowell himself once lived in a now-lost garden square called Pemberton Square. These garden squares joined Boston's other renowned nineteenth-century public park projects, such as the Public Garden and Emerald Necklace, in demonstrating a new appreciation for creating green spaces to uplift residents and reform the urban environment. https://www.jphs.org/victorian-era/2019/7/26/bromley-park-the-withering-of-a-garden-squ... 3/18/2020 Bromley Park: The Withering of a Garden Square - Jamaica Plain Historical Society Page 3 of 6 Bromley Park never housed Boston's elite. With this real estate venture, Lowell plain designed a much larger and denser Mistorical garden square that reflected the neighborhood's transformation fro Erland to a busy residential and industrial zone. Roxbury and Jamaic 1987 nce pastoral agricultural towns that supplied Boston with produce, had attracted wealthy families like the Lowells who established estates there in the early to mid-nineteenth century showcasing some of the finest landscape gardening and horticultural practice of the day. By the early 1870s these bucolic paradises yielded to the pressures of urbanization and industrialization with breweries, tanneries, chemical works, and myriad other industries built along the nearby Stony Brook. Expanded mass transportation routes leading out of Boston drew diverse groups of middle- and lower-middle class white- and blue-collar workers to the area. Other working class residents used the emerging streetcar system to escape the overcrowded and dilapidated downtown tenements. Lowell, a leader of the Boston Associates textile mill owners, had helped to design the cities of Lowell and Lawrence north of Boston, and had ample experience in shaping industrial and residential growth through architecture and planning. Furthermore, through his philanthropic activities, Lowell was well acquainted with the working-class housing developments in London designed by English reformer Octavia Hill. These progressive residential designs challenged often unsanitary and congested living conditions by constructing model tenements that provided open space, fresh air, and natural light. At Bromley Park, Lowell combined the garden square with a novel approach to philanthropic housing for the working class. The fluctuating demographics and occupancy rate of Bromley Park provide a vivid snapshot of social change. In 1880, English immigrant Samuel Miller rented 21 Bromley Park and lived there with his wife and a Nova Scotian housekeeper. Miller had a white collar job with the Industrial Aid Society, a poverty prevention organization. Sixty-one people lived in the block of nine townhouses the Millers called home and except for one Irishman, all the residents were born in New England, Nova Scotia, or England. They worked in a range of occupations such as lawyers, machinists, traders, store clerks, and streetcar operators. When the Thomas Plant Shoe Company set up shop next to Bromley Park in 1899 the makeup of residents changed considerably. Initially a modest operation, the factory expanded quickly. By 1915, it encompassed an area nearly equivalent to all https://www.jphs.org/victorian-era/2019/7/26/bromley-park-the-withering-of-a-garden-squ... 3/18/2020 Bromley Park: The Withering of a Garden Square - Jamaica Plain Historical Society Page 4 of 6 of Bromley Park. Before the expansion, Bromley Park's green spaces afforded a bit plain of tranquility within the city; after th Historical the din of machines and reek of leather pervaded the neighborhood THE EDEN OF AMERICA 1987 By 1900 the number of residents in Miller's home had increased from three to eighteen people. John Canavan, a forty-year-old Irish painter, his wife, and their seven APPLANT man FACTORY children shared the small house with (JANAICA AIN MASS nine lodgers, eight of whom worked The introduction and expansion of the for the shoe company. By 1910 the Thomas Plant Shoe Company altered nine houses along this block held a Bromley Park's social and architectural character. Although the garden square had total of ninety-three residents. First- always housed people from a range of and second-generation Irish and backgrounds, the massive shoe factory German immigrants predominated, established Bromley Park as a working-class though Englishmen, Canadians, neighborhood. Scanned image of postcard Russians, and Armenians joined them. from Jamaica Plain Historical Society Despite Bromley Park's growing archives. density, its central green spaces continued to serve as a common area in which to hold neighborhood gatherings and festivals. Bromley Park's urban square and townhouses contrasted sharply with the three- deckers, freestanding wood-frame houses, and small private yards that were the norm in the dense suburbs of Roxbury and Jamaica Plain. By 1950, many of the park's townhouses had fallen into disrepair, neglected by absentee landlords. While some residents did own and renovate their units, the City of Boston designated the neighborhood blighted and proceeded to demolish Bromley Park and several adjacent blocks as part of midcentury urban renewal efforts. The Bromley-Heath public housing development rose from the rubble. John Amory Lowell envisioned Bromley Park as a philanthropic architectural strategy to improve housing options and integrate nature into Boston's urban landscape. While the city's larger urban parks and reservations have been well studied and justly celebrated, more modest attempts, such as Lowell's, to find a balance between residential density and open space, merit a closer look. Bromley https://www.jphs.org/victorian-era/2019/7/26/bromley-park-the-withering-of-a-garden-squ. 3/18/2020 Bromley Park: The Withering of a Garden Square - Jamaica Plain Historical Society Page 5 of 6 Park may no longer exist, but its rise and fall offer a compelling illustration of the social and economic change that ao plain Mistorical AM Boston's dynamic growth and influenced both the natural and ma BOTTEE cape of the city. Q DATE AME EDEN OF AMERICA AND 1987 "The Withering of a Garden Square," by Aaron Ahlstrom, Ph.D. student, Boston University, American and New England Studies. Historic New England Magazine, Fall, 2016. Used courtesy of Historic New England. Production assistance provided by Jean MacDonald. Rewerder. St Park g ribotl lwed prior to of its th from in G https://www.jphs.org/victorian-era/2019/7/26/bromley-park-the-withering-of-a-garden-squ... 3/18/2020 The Lowells of Boston and the Founding of University Extension at Harvard Michael Shinagel HARVARD UNIVERSITY ince this year marks the centennial of University Extension at S Harvard, as dean I thought this was an opportune time, after years of extensive research, to document how this unique educational institution came into being and why it became associated with Harvard University. I began my research on this subject more than a quarter century ago, when John Lowell, trustee of the Lowell Institute, kindly gave me permission to have access to the Lowell Institute archives housed in the Boston Athenaeum. In the past year, mindful of the approaching cen- tennial, I set to work diligently on the manuscript of the history that was published recently as "The Gates Unbarred": A History of University Extension at Harvard, 1910-2009. The title of the history, "The Gates Unbarred," derives from Seamus Heaney's memorable "Villanelle for an Anniversary," which he composed to celebrate the sesquitricentennial of Harvard University in the fall of 1986. The final stanza reads: Begin again where frost and tests were hard. Find yourself or founder. Here. Imagine A spirit moves, John Harvard walks the yard, The books stand open and the gates unbarred. I had initially planned to title my history Harvard After Dark, with perhaps an appropriately suggestive and lurid cover to make the book a sensational and scandalous best seller, but, happily, my Extension School © 2009 Michael Shinagel, Dean of Continuing Education and University Extension, and Senior Lecturer on English, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 46 CONTINUING HIGHER EDUCATION REVIEW, Vol. 73, 2009 THE LOWELLS OF BOSTON senior colleagues dissuaded me from my fantasy and I settled on "The Gates Unbarred" as the distinctive feature of the ready access to Harvard Yard by the community as characteristic of our remarkable evening academic program. Moreover, my former Harvard English Department friend and colleague Seamus Heaney gave his blessing to my use of his poem in the Harvard Extension School history. The Lowell family has played a prominent role in the history of Boston, and they are often regarded as synonymous with the phrase "Boston Brah- min," a term coined, incidentally, by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., who in 1860 wrote an article in the Atlantic Monthly magazine on "The Brahmin Caste of New England" to characterize the region's social and cultural elite whose sons attended Harvard. Soon Boston Brahmin gained currency as a shorthand expression for Yankee families of great wealth and prestige, if not also social exclusivity, as in the popular poem by John Collins Bossidy "A Boston Toast": And this is good old Boston, The home of the bean and the cod, Where the Lowells talk only to the Cabots And the Cabots talk only to God. In his Atlantic Monthly article, Dr. Holmes defined "the Brahmin caste of New England" as an "aristocracy" that "by the repetition of the same influences, generation after generation, has acquired a distinct organization and physiognomy." In tracing the órigin of University Extension at Harvard, one ultimately is led to John Lowell, Jr., who was born to Francis Cabot Lowell and Han- nah Jackson in 1799 in Boston. John, Jr., as he was called, had been named for his grandfather, the patriarch John Lowell (1743-1802) who had married Susanna Cabot (1754-1777). His father Francis Cabot Lowell, had gradu- ated from Harvard College in1793 and at the age of 36 traveled to England for several years to study first hand the textile industry and to memorize, clandestinely, the details of the British power looms. He returned to Boston in 1813 and soon established in Waltham the first textile mill in the United States that combined all the operations of converting raw cotton into finished cloth in one mill building, a revolutionary process of technology that became a prototype of the American factory system and soon made a vast fortune for the Lowells, including the naming of the city of Lowell in their honor. CONTINUING HIGHER EDUCATION REVIEW, Vol. 73, 2009 47 THE LOWELLS OF BOSTON Like the Lowell men before him and after him, John, Jr. matriculated at Harvard, but poor health and depression forced him to leave Harvard after two years. His inheritance from his father enabled Lowell to become a merchant and he soon made his own fortune in the textile industry. He mar- ried a cousin, Georgina Amory, when he was 25, and he had two daughters. His happiness was blighted in 1830 when his wife died of scarlet fever and within two years his daughters, aged five and two, also died. Despite the demands of his business and the domestic tragedies he endured, John Lowell, Jr. was infused, like his fellow Boston Brahmins, with a sense of noblesse oblige. He was a founding member of the Boston Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in 1830, an initiative in adult education that had Daniel Webster as its first president. In 1833 John Lowell, Jr. made his cousin and best friend, John Amory Lowell, executor of his estate and trustee of his businesses as he set sail from New York on a trip around the world to recover from his family tragedy. Before setting sail, however, he drafted a will that in the event of his death, one half of his estate be given to the Boston Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge to subsidize their public lectures for the benefit of the citizens of Boston. John Lowell kept a detailed journal during his world tour and he also hired a Swiss artist, Charles Gabriel Gleyre, to accompany him and to record highlights of their travels by his sketches, water colors, and oils On the first of April 1835, Lowell was ill with fever and in a weakened condition when he sat on the ruins of a palace on the banks of the Nile River in Luxor, Egypt, to write at length to his cousin John Amory Lowell his revised will that would become the endowment for the Lowell Institute of Boston. He stipulated in his detailed will that half of his wealth be put in trust SO that the income be used for the following: The maintenance and support of Public Lectures to be delivered in said Boston upon philosophy, natural history, and the arts and sciences for the promotion of the moral and intellectual and physical instruction or education of the citizens of the said city of Boston. It is also provided that the said trustee or trustees shall appoint the persons by whom and the subjects on which the said lectures shall be delivered. In drafting his final will Lowell was influenced by his membership in the Boston Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge five years earlier, and 48 CONTINUING HIGHER EDUCATION REVIEW, Vol. 73, 2009 THE LOWELLS OF BOSTON he wanted the public lecture courses to be free for those of meager means and of minimal expense ("the value of two bushels of wheat") to those who could afford it for the "abstruse" or "erudite" longer courses. "On the appointment and duties of the trustee," he was concerned that there be an established line of succession, SO that "each trustee shall appoint his own successor within a week after his accession to his office," and "in selecting a successor the trustee shall always choose in preference to all others, some male descendant of my Grandfather John Lowell." The income of the trust would provide the trustee with a "reasonable sum" as compensation "to be paid annually" as approved "by the trustees of the Boston Athenaeum," and the trustee would keep a complete record of lecturers, subjects taught, salaries paid, and other activities connected with the trust and deliver it on the first day of January to the trustees of the Boston Athenaeum. What was truly remarkable about John Lowell, Jr.'s final will was the clarity of his vision in establishing the trust with half of his estate and the detailed blueprint he drew for the lecturers, the subjects of the lectures, the role of the trustee, and the dedication to promoting "the prosperity of [his] native land, New England" through public education. Although in ill health and depressed, he could sit in the Palace of Luxor and envision how his benefactions would have an enduring effect on the life of Boston. Toward the end of his will he wrote: The trustee shall require of every person attending the lectures to be neatly dressed and of an orderly behavior. The popular courses always, and the others when practi- cable, are designed for females as well as males. In an age when women were denied educational opportunities, John Low- ell, Jr., on the banks of the Nile River in 1835, made certain that they were included in his prescient vision of adult education in the city of Boston After drafting his historic last will and testament, and mailing it off to his cousin John Amory Lowell, John Lowell, Jr. would have less than a year to live. His travels eventually took him to India, but he was fatally ill when his British steamer landed in Bombay on February 10, 1836. He died within three weeks of reaching shore on March 4, but news of his death did not reach the Lowell family in Boston until July. He died just two months shy of his thirty-seventh birthday, yet his letter establishing a lecture series in per- petuity for the citizens of Boston assured him a measure of immortality. CONTINUING HIGHER EDUCATION REVIEW, Vol. 73, 2009 49 THE LOWELLS OF BOSTON According to John Lowell, Jr.'s eulogist, Edward Everett, in a speech delivered at the official inauguration of the Lowell Institute at the Odeon on December 31, 1839, the munificent sum of $250,000 "generously set apart by him for this purpose is, with the exception of the bequest of the late Mr. Girard of Philadelphia, the largest, if I mistake not, which has ever been appropriated in this country, by a private individual, for the endowment of any literary institution." The first trustee of the Lowell Institute, John Amory Lowell, was some- thing of a prodigy, entering Harvard College in 1811 at the age of 13 and spending his freshman year rooming in the home of President Kirkland, with Edward Everett as his tutor. Everett would go on to become governor of Massachusetts and eventually president of Harvard (1846-49). Lowell's sophomore roommate was John P. Bigelow, later to become mayor of Bos- ton. After graduating from Harvard, Lowell became a highly successful businessman, establishing a reputation as a banker, treasurer of several cotton mills, a member of the Harvard Corporation, and, of course, the first trustee of the Lowell Institute. After settling the estate of John Lowell, Jr., John Amory Lowell had a quarter of a million dollars for the Lowell Institute, which provided him with an annual budget of $18,000. In 1840, the first full year of operation, the Lowell Institute sponsored three public lecture series on science and on religion. The public interest in these initial lecture series is evident from the following contemporary account of one of the lecturers: So great was his popularity, that on the giving out of tickets for his second course, on chemistry, the following season, the eager crowd filled adjacent streets and crushed in the windows of the "Old Corner Book Store," the place of distribution, SO that provision for this had to be made elsewhere. To such a degree did the enthusiasm of the pub- lic reach at that time in its desire to attend these lectures, that it was found necessary to open books in advance to serve the names of subscribers, the number of tickets being distributed by lot. Sometimes the number of applicants for a single course was eight to ten thousand. The lectures were presented at the Odeon until 1846, when they migrated to the Tremont Temple, then to Marlboro Chapel, and eventually to Hun- tington Hall at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 50 CONTINUING HIGHER EDUCATION REVIEW, Vol. 73, 2009 THE LOWELLS OF BOSTON Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the Lowell Institute had established a remarkable record of providing educational opportunities for an eager public in Greater Boston: more than 430 lecture series or 4,400 free lectures on science, religion, literature, and art by the leading authori- ties in these fields. The list of lecturers reads like a Who's Who, with names like Charles Lyell in geology, Henry Adams and Jared Sparks in American history, Asa Gray in botany, Mark Hopkins in religion, Louis Agassiz in the sciences, Cornelius C. Felton in classical civilization, William Dean Howells and James Russell Lowell in literature, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. in medicine, William James in psychology, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and A. Lawrence Lowell in government, When Harriette Knight Smith was preparing her History of the Lowell Institute at the end of the nineteenth century, she asked Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, shortly before his death, "How do you estimate the influence which the Lowell Institute has had upon the intellectual life of the country?" He replied, "When you have said every enthusiastic thing that you may, you will not have half filled the measure of its importance to Boston-New England-the country at large." He concluded, "No nobler or more helpful institution exists in America than Boston's Lowell Institute." John Amory Lowell died November 13, 1881, but before his death he received many honors for his distinguished career, including an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Harvard University, election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, presidency of the Boston Athenaeum, and major roles in the administration of the Museum of Fine Arts and the Massachusetts Historical Society. But the service that was closest to his heart, and that he discharged with dedication and determination, was his historic role as the first trustee of the Lowell Institute for 42 eventful and productive years. Augustus Lowell became trustee of the Lowell Institute upon his fa- ther's death. He had attended Boston Latin School and Harvard College but was an indifferent student He did excel, however, in business, direct- ing banks and heading cotton textile companies to create a family fortune far in excess of his father's. Unlike his father and several generations of Lowells before him, Augustus did not become a member of the Harvard Corporation; he became a member of the MIT Corporation in 1873 and served faithfully in that capacity for nearly 25 years. As the second trustee of the Lowell Institute, Augustus Lowell con- tinued the practice established by his father of selecting the ablest Lowell CONTINUING HIGHER EDUCATION REVIEW, Vol. 73, 2009 51 THE LOWELLS OF BOSTON lecturers he could find. He was not constrained by family modesty, however, to invite his two sons to deliver series of lectures: Percival Lowell, an as- tronomer and the eldest, in 1894 gave six lectures in a series titled "Japanese Occultism," and in 1895 another series, "The Planet Mars." Abbott Lawrence Lowell, a lecturer in the department of government at Harvard, gave a course of lectures titled "The Governments of Central Europe." In choosing his successor, Augustus sensed that Percival would be too involved in his scientific work to serve effectively as trustee, and he accordingly decided that his second son, a lawyer and an academic, would be the more appro- priate choice, a decision he set down in writing as early as 1881. (Augustus Lowell served ably as the second trustee for 19 years, act- ing as a transitional figure between John Amory Lowell and A. Lawrence Lowell. His great success lay in the world of business where he was able to amass a vast fortune estimated at seven times the worth of his father's. He had five children, two sons and three daughters. He impressed upon his sons a Boston Brahmin sense of noblesse oblige. They were independently wealthy, he informed them, and therefore they "must work at something that is worthwhile, and do it very hard," as Lawrence Lowell later recalled Augustus Lowell's youngest daughter, Amy was to achieve national rec- ognition as a poet and critic, matching the eminence of her two brothers. Augustus Lowell's success as a paterfamilias complemented his success in business. The early success of MIT owed much to the vision, money, and administrative acumen of Augustus Lowell as well. /In 1900 Augustus Lowell died and his son Lawrence succeeded him as the third trustee of the Lowell Institute at the age of forty-four He had graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School before embark- ing on his legal practice, but eventually he shifted his interest to the study of government and began writing books on the subject: Essays on Government (1889), and Governments and Parties of Continental Europe (1896). His writ- ings attracted the attention of President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard, and in 1900 he extended to Lowell an appointment as professor of the science of government. Lowell abandoned his law career and devoted himself to his academic career, teaching Government 1 to hundreds of Harvard students and writing The Government of England, which established his reputation as a scholar. Well before he became president of Harvard, Lowell's annual reports on behalf of the Lowell Institute reveal his evolving vision for "University Extension." In his annual report for 1906-07 he stated: 52 CONTINUING HIGHER EDUCATION REVIEW, Vol. 73, 2009 John Amory Lowell - Wikipedia Page 1 of 3 WIKIPEDIA John Amory Lowell Hon. John Amory Lowell (November 11, 1798 - October 31, 1881) was an American businessman and philanthropist from Boston. He became the sole trustee of the Lowell Institute when his first cousin, John Lowell, Jr. (1799-1836), the Institute's endower, died. (Lowell 1899, pp 117-118) [1] Contents Family Career Lowell Institute See also References Hon. John Amory Lowell 1798-1881 Family John Amory, the second child of John Lowell, Jr (1769-1840) and Rebecca Amory (1771-1842), was among the first generation of Lowells to be born in Boston, and the fifth generation to be born in America. His father maintained a well-established law firm in the city, and three years after John Amory's birth, retired for reasons of his failing health. After retiring in 1801, the elder Lowell spent much of his time and wealth patronizing the burgeoning horticultural society in Boston, SO much SO that he became known to his friends and family as "The Norfolk Farmer." John Amory Lowell's paternal grandfather, also named John Lowell (1743-1802) but referred to as "The Old Judge," was a Federal Judge appointed by President George Washington and is considered to be the founding father of the Boston Lowells. (Greenslet 1946) [2] Like his father and grandfathers before him, Lowell would be the fourth member in his family line to graduate from Harvard College in 1815, at the age of 17. After spending an extended time traveling through Europe and then establishing himself as a successful merchant in Boston, Lowell married his first wife, Susan Cabot Lowell (1801-1827), a daughter of his uncle, Francis Cabot Lowell. [3] Together, they would have two children, Susan Cabot and John. Lowell's wife died during childbirth in 1827. Their son, John, would be appointed to the U.S. District Court in 1865 by President Abraham Lincoln, and in 1878, appointed to the U.S. Circuit Court by President Rutherford B. Hayes. John Amory's grandson, James Arnold Lowell, would also go on to become a Federal Judge. Lowell's wife, Susan Cabot, who was a great-granddaughter of Edward and Dorthy (Quincy) Jackson, would connect their children and their descendants to those of the Holmeses of Boston, a family that includes poet Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and U.S. Supreme Court justice and Civil War hero, Hon. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Amory_Lowell 8/13/2019 John Amory Lowell - Wikipedia Page 2 of 3 With his second wife, Elizabeth Cabot Putnam (1807-1881), Amory fathered a son and three daughters. Augustus, Elizabeth Rebecca, Ellen Bancroft, and Sara Putnam. Augustus Lowell would become a very successful business man and eventually succeed Lowell as the second trustee of the Lowell Institute. John Amory's grandchildren, through Elizabeth Cabot, included author and astronomer Percival Lowell, Harvard President Abbott Lawrence Lowell, and poet Amy Lowell. Career In 1835 and 1838, John Amory became the first Treasurer for both Merrimack Manufacturing Company and Boott Cotton Mill, textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts. (3) And in 1857, he became Director of The Winnipiseogee Lake Cotton and Woolen Manufacturing Company. All positions his son, Augustus, would succeed to within the same companies. (Bay State Monthly 1884) [4] Merrimack Manufacturing Co., Lowell was a Fellow of Harvard College (1837-1877), a Fellow of Lowell, Massachusetts the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the Linnean Society of London. Later, in 1851, Harvard would honor John Amory with an LLD. Lowell Institute The trust-or Lowell Institute, as it came to be known-had an unusual mode of governance: a single trustee who was empowered to appoint his successor and who was, in the language of John Lowell, Jr.'s will, to "always choose in preference to all others some male descendant of my grandfather, John Lowell, provided there be one who is competent to hold the office of trustee, and of the name of Lowell." (Everett 1840) [5] Despite this odd restriction (or perhaps because of it), the Institute proved to be an extraordinarily innovative philanthropic force. Under John Amory, its first trustee, [3] the Institute flourished. Lowell was both a man of extraordinary financial acumen and a man of high intellect. The list of Lowell Lecturers during his tenure was a veritable pantheon of the most internationally celebrated figures in science, literature, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology, including Britain's most celebrated geologist, Sir Charles Lyell, Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz, and novelists Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray. The lectures were SO immensely popular that crowds crushed the windows of the Old Corner Bookstore where the tickets were distributed and certain series had to be repeated by popular demand. John Amory tirelessly led the Lowell Institute for more than 40 years before naming his son, Augustus, as his replacement. See also Lowell family First Families of Boston Lowell Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Amory_Lowell 8/13/2019 John Amory Lowell - Wikipedia Page 3 of 3 Lowell, Massachusetts Kirk Boott References 1. Lowell, Delmar. (1899) The Historic Genealogy of the Lowells of America from 1639 to 1899, Rutland VT: The Tuttle Company. ISBN 978-0-7884-1567-8. 2. Greenslet, Ferris. (1946) The Lowells and Their Seven Worlds, Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-89760- 263-3. 3. M., Rosenberg, Chaim. Legendary locals of Lowell, Massachusetts (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/854956846). ISBN 9781467100489. OCLC 854956846 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/854956846). 4. Bay State Monthly htp://www.gutenberg.org/files/15925/15925-h/15925-h.htm#h2H_4_0006), Vol. /, No. 3, March, 1884 5. Everett, Edward. (1840) A Memoir of Mr. John Lowell, delivered Dec 31, 1839 at the Introduction to the Lectures on His Foundation at the Odeon, Boston: Little Brown Preceded by Trustee of Lowell Institute Succeeded by John Lowell, Jr. 1836-1881 Augustus Lowell Retrieved from"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Amory_Lowell&oldid=902512233" This page was last edited on 19 June 2019, at 10:25 (UTC). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Amory_Lowell 8/13/2019 Bromley Park: The Withering of a Garden Square - Jamaica Plain Historical Society Page 1 of 6 Distorical BUTTER US 1987 Bromley Park: The Withering of a Garden Square In 1871 John Amory Lowell transformed his influential family's Roxbury, Massachusetts, estate, Bromley Vale, into a groundbreaking garden square residential development named Bromley Park. Though demolished in 1953 to make way for the city-owned Bromley-Heath housing complex in Jamaica Plain, Bromley Park stood for nearly eighty years as a powerful and fascinating example of how nature and dense private housing could be interwoven in urban design. Several blocks of brick townhouses surrounded more than twenty thousand square feet of green space. HIGHT AND SQ. ST https://www.jphs.org/victorian-era/2019/7/26/bromley-park-the-withering-of-a-garden-squ.. 8/13/2019 Bromley Park: The Withering of Ourden Squar - Jamaica Pain Historical Society Page 2 of 6 Bromley Part mediaday six (small townhouses surrounding a common garden area. Planned by bnile between 1871 and 1873. i design sought to integrate or d' housing. Map from the 180C Atlas of the City of Boston I propel by or Bromley & Co. Courtesy of The David Rumsey Map 1987 Shady trees, expansive lawns, and wrought iron fences graced the three common areas, which provided a naturalistic oasis for the middle- and working-class immigrant Bromley Park community. This largely present forgotten garden square Elluminates how Lowell's desire to provide residents with an experience (if natur. intersected with the need for adequate housing in an evolving member city, After Old Colony Railwood c) panded its tracks the migh Bromley Vale in 1870, Lowell decided to move from bis estate in the industrizizing neighborhood to a new estate in Brookline named Sever ells. In determining how to subdivide Bromley Vale, Lowell turned to an ulban design for in that be knew well from his extensive travels abroad Garden squares originall veloped in London in the seventeenth and eighu eath centuries Consisting of lash gardens bordered by closely spaced but archite totally refined townhouse London garden squares constituted peaceful basebus 1 privillge and wealth " parated from the city's chaotic mix of residents of different classes. Historical examples ir Box original ted wit Bulfinch, whose 1793 Tontine Crescent located just south of the Boston Common consisted of a Bromley Park: The Withering of a Garden Square - Jamaica Plain Historical Society Page 3 of 6 Bromley Park never housed Boston's elite. With this real estate venture, Lowell Mistorical designed a much larger and denser garden square that reflected the neighborhood's transformation fro Gerland to a busy residential and industrial zone. Roxbury and Jamaic 1987 nce pastoral agricultural towns that supplied Boston with produce, had attracted wealthy families like the Lowells who established estates there in the early to mid-nineteenth century showcasing some of the finest landscape gardening and horticultural practice of the day. By the early 1870s these bucolic paradises yielded to the pressures of urbanization and industrialization with breweries, tanneries, chemical works, and myriad other industries built along the nearby Stony Brook. Expanded mass transportation routes leading out of Boston drew diverse groups of middle- and lower-middle class white- and blue-collar workers to the area. Other working class residents used the emerging streetcar system to escape the overcrowded and dilapidated downtown tenements. Lowell, a leader of the Boston Associates textile mill owners, had helped to design the cities of Lowell and Lawrence north of Boston, and had ample experience in shaping industrial and residential growth through architecture and planning. Furthermore, through his philanthropic activities, Lowell was well acquainted with the working-class housing developments in London designed by English reformer Octavia Hill. These progressive residential designs challenged often unsanitary and congested living conditions by constructing model tenements that provided open space, fresh air, and natural light. At Bromley Park, Lowell combined the garden square with a novel approach to philanthropic housing for the working class. The fluctuating demographics and occupancy rate of Bromley Park provide a vivid snapshot of social change. In 1880, English immigrant Samuel Miller rented 21 Bromley Park and lived there with his wife and a Nova Scotian housekeeper. Miller had a white collar job with the Industrial Aid Society, a poverty prevention organization. Sixty-one people lived in the block of nine townhouses the Millers called home and except for one Irishman, all the residents were born in New England, Nova Scotia, or England. They worked in a range of occupations such as lawyers, machinists, traders, store clerks, and streetcar operators. When the Thomas Plant Shoe Company set up-shop next to Bromley Park in 1899 the makeup of residents changed considerably. Initially a modest operation, the factory expanded quickly. By 1915, it encompassed an area nearly equivalent to all https://www.jphs.org/victorian-era/2019/7/26/bromley-park-the-withering-of-a-garden-squ 8/13/2019 Bromley Park: The Withering of a Garden Square - Jamaica Plain Historical Society Page 4 of 6 of Bromley Park. Before the expansion, Bromley Park's green spaces afforded a bit plain of tranquility within the city; after th Distorical the din of machines and reek of leather pervaded the neighborhood THE EDEN OF 1987 By 1900 the number of residents in Miller's home had increased from three to eighteen people. John Canavan, a forty-year-old Irish painter, his wife, and their seven PLANT rator FACTORY children shared the small house with BASS) nine lodgers, eight of whom worked The introduction and expansion of the for the shoe company. By 1910 the Thomas Plant Shoe Company altered nine houses along this block held a Bromley Park's social and architectural character. Although the garden square had total of ninety-three residents. First- always housed people from a range of and second-generation Irish and backgrounds, the massive shoe factory German immigrants predominated, established Bromley Park as a working-class though Englishmen, Canadians, neighborhood. Scanned image of postcard Russians, and Armenians joined them. from Jamaica Plain Historical Society archives. Despite Bromley Park's growing density, its central green spaces continued to serve as a common area in which to hold neighborhood gatherings and festivals. Bromley Park's urban square and townhouses contrasted sharply with the three- deckers, freestanding wood-frame houses, and small private yards that were the norm in the dense suburbs of Roxbury and Jamaica Plain. By 1950, many of the park's townhouses had fallen into disrepair, neglected by absentee landlords. While some residents did own and renovate their units, the City of Boston designated the neighborhood blighted and proceeded to demolish Bromley Park and several adjacent blocks as part of midcentury urban renewal efforts. The Bromley-Heath public housing development rose from the rubble. John Amory Lowell envisioned Bromley Park as a philanthropic architectural strategy to improve housing options and integrate nature into Boston's urban landscape. While the city's larger urban parks and reservations have been well studied and justly celebrated, more modest attempts, such as Lowell's, to find a balance between residential density and open space, merit a closer look. Bromley https://www.jphs.org/victorian-era/2019/7/26/bromley-park-the-withering-of-a-garden-squ... 8/13/2019 Bromley Park: The Withering of a Garden Square - Jamaica Plain Historical Society Page 5 of 6 Park may no longer exist, but its rise and fall offer a compelling illustration of the plain Distorical social and economic change that ac Boston's dynamic growth and influenced both the natural and ma Sports cape of the city. ONE AMERIC G 1987 "The Withering of a Garden Square," by Aaron Ahlstrom, Ph.D. student, Boston University, American and New England Studies. Historic New England Magazine, Fall, 2016. Used courtesy of Historic New England. Production assistance provided by Jean MacDonald. f in Su https://www.jphs.org/victorian-era/2019/7/26/bromley-park-the-withering-of-a-garden-squ... 8/13/2019