Painting of The Merrimack River by Alvin Fisher
Alvin's Fisher's 1833 painting of the Pawtucket Dam under construction shows the beginning of the dramatic changes in Lowell's early landscape.
Lowell, Massachusetts was one of the first and most important industrial cities in America. In the 1820s, wealthy men from Boston began building a new city on the Merrimack River. They constructed massive factories that were soon producing more cotton and wool than all but the largest mills in Britain.
Baker Library, Harvard