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Mill Power documents the making of a national park that changed the concept of what a national historical park could be.
For a time in the 1800s, Lowell was Massachusetts's cosmopolitan, must-see second city. The city's industrial model was as high-tech then as Silicon Valley is today. It drew the attention of luminaries like Charles Dickens, Congressmen Davy Crockett and Abraham Lincoln, feminist sociologist Harriet Martineau, and abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
This insider's account of the creative, bold community-driven process to establish the park explains why today Lowell National Historical Park is renowned as "the partnership park." The park's establishment was an integral piece of an urban revival strategy that has made Lowell the subject of scores of newspaper articles, magazine profiles, TV and radio reports, scholarly papers, and book chapters.
List of contents
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Lightning Strikes Twice
Part One: The Intentional City
Pawtucket and Wamesit
"Wonderful Machine"
Waterpower
Mile of Mills
First Blood of the North
Battered Hive
Neighborhood Nations
Running on Empty
Part Two: Urban Laboratory
Model City
Mogan Speaks
Revitalization
Living History: David McKean
College Town
Part Three: Making the Park
"Lowell Has Done It"
A National Park Stands Apart
Stairway to Park-dom
From Alternative School to Urban Cultural Park
The Park Bill Becomes Law: A Staff Diary
An Act Establishing a Park
Building the Park: First Moves
Taking Shape
Realizing the Idea
The Canalway and Beyond
Into the Twenty-first Century
Yellowstone and Lowell
Part Four: Bricks and Mortar, Then and Now
Part Five: The Economics of Heritage
Urban Destruction
Fear Not Preservation
Adaptive-Reuse Economics
Lowell: By the Numbers
Heritage Reclamation: Public-Private Sectors, Investment and Development
"The Long View"
Preservation Tax Credit Tool
Stand-off at the Dam
Two Cases: Market Mills and Hamilton Canal District
High-Tech Hive
Public-Private Partnership
Creative Place-making
Gathering the Lowell Honey
Part Six: Telling the Story
If the Falls Could Speak
A Counter-Narrative
"The Danger of a Single Story"
The Power of Water
Riding the Paul Moody
Walk This Way: A Canal Hike
Mill Work
Moulin Rouge
The City as a Classroom
The Everywhere School
Tsongas Industrial History (and Science) Center
Lowell Folk Festival
Traditions Connect Us
Cultural Affairs
Lowell Summer Music Series
Sculpture Trail
Kerouac Comes Home
Part Seven: Stewardship and Leadership
Youth Stewardship
Public Matters
A Note about the Author
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
By Paul Marion
