Place:Lawrence, Massachusetts

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Lawrence, Massachusetts
City
North Canal
North Canal
Flag of {{{official_name}}}
Flag
Official seal of {{{official_name}}}
Seal
Motto(s): 
Industria (Latin)
"Industry"
Location in Essex County, Massachusetts.
Location in Essex County, Massachusetts.
Lawrence is located in Massachusetts
Lawrence
Lawrence
Location in the United States
Lawrence is located in the United States
Lawrence
Lawrence
Lawrence (the United States)
Coordinates: [ ⚑ ] : 42°42′25″N 71°09′49″W / 42.70694°N 71.16361°W / 42.70694; -71.16361
CountryUnited States
StateMassachusetts
CountyEssex
RegionNew England
Settled1655
Incorporated1847
Incorporated (city)1853
Founded byEssex Company
Named forAbbott Lawrence
Government
 • TypeMayor–council
 • MayorBrian De Peña
 • City councilJeovanny A. Rodrigueze
(Council President)
Stephany Infante
(Vice-President, District E)
Celina Reyes
(at-large)
Ana Levy
(at-large)
Fidelina Santiago
(District A)
Wendy Luzon
(District B)
Gregory Del Rosario
(District C)
Vivian Marmol
(District D)
Marc LaPlant
(District F)
Area
 • Total7.43 sq mi (19.24 km2)
 • Land6.93 sq mi (17.95 km2)
 • Water0.50 sq mi (1.29 km2)
Elevation
16 ft (5 m)
Population
 (2020)
 • Total89,143
 • Density12,863.35/sq mi (4,966.73/km2)
Time zoneUTC−5 (Eastern)
 • Summer (DST)UTC−4 (EDST)
ZIP Codes
01840–01843
Area code(s)351/978
FIPS code25-34550
Websitewww.cityoflawrence.com

Lawrence is a city located in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, on the Merrimack River. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 89,143.[2] Surrounding communities include Methuen to the north, Andover to the southwest, and North Andover to the east. Lawrence and Salem were the county seats of Essex County, until the state abolished county government in 1999.[3] Lawrence is part of the Merrimack Valley.

Manufacturing products of the city include electronic equipment, textiles, footwear, paper products, computers, and foodstuffs. Lawrence was the residence of the poet Robert Frost for his early school years; his essays and poems were first published in the Lawrence High School newspaper.[4] Lawrence is also the birthplace of composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein in 1918, and singer Robert Goulet in 1933.

History

Indigenous history

Native Americans lived along the Merrimack River for thousands of years before European colonization of the Americas. Evidence of farming at Den Rock Park and arrowhead manufacturing on the site where the Wood Mill now sits have been discovered.[5]

At the time of contact in the early 1600s, the Pennacook or Pentucket had a presence north of the Merrimack, while Massachusett, Naumkeag, and Agawam controlled territory south of the river.[6] The territory which would later be aggregated into the city of Lawrence was purchased from Pennacooks Sagahew and Passaquo in 1642 for the English settlement of Haverhill, and from Massachusett sachem Cutshamekin in 1646 as a post-hoc payment for the lands surrounding the English settlement of Andover (modern-day North Andover center).[6]

Founding and rise as a textile center

See also: 1922 New England Textile Strike
Washington Mills in Lawrence (1868), by Winslow Homer
Map of Lawrence, 1876
Ambassador Abbott Lawrence, by George Peter Alexander Healy
Massachusetts National Guardsmen with fixed bayonets surround a parade of strikers during 1912 Lawrence textile strike

Europeans first settled the Haverhill area in 1640, colonists from Newbury following the Merrimack River in from the coast.[7] The area that would become Lawrence was then part of Methuen and Andover. The first settlement within present-day city limits came in 1655 with the establishment of a blockhouse in Shawsheen Fields, now South Lawrence.

The future site of the city (formerly parts of Andover and Methuen), was purchased by a consortium of local industrialists. The Water Power Association members: Abbott Lawrence, Edmund Bartlett, Thomas Hopkinson of Lowell, John Nesmith and Daniel Saunders, had purchased control of Peter's Falls on the Merrimack River and hence controlled Bodwell's Falls the site of the present Great Stone Dam. The group allotted fifty thousand dollars to buy land along the river to develop.[8]: 11  In 1844, the group petitioned the legislature to act as a corporation, known as the Essex Company, which incorporated on April 16, 1845. The first excavations for the Great Stone Dam to harness the Merrimack River's water power were done on August 1, 1845.[8]: 17  The Essex Company would sell the water power to corporations such as the Arlington Mills, as well as organize the construction of mills and build to suit. Until 1847, when the state legislature recognized the community as a town, it was called interchangeably the "New City", "Essex" or "Merrimac".[8]: 23  The post office, built in 1846, used the designation "Merrimac". The city was incorporated in 1853, and named for Abbott Lawrence.

Canals were dug on both the north and the south banks to provide power to the factories that would soon be built on its banks as both mill owners and workers from across the city and the world flocked to the city in droves; many were Irish laborers who had experience with similar building work. The work was dangerous: injuries and even death were common.[9]

Bread and Roses Strike of 1912

Main article: History:1912 Lawrence textile strike

The Pemberton Mill collapse occurred on January 10, 1860, in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The five-story textile mill, built in 1853, was a major employer, particularly for Irish immigrants, many of whom were women and children. At the time of the collapse, around 600–800 workers were inside, though exact numbers vary. The official death toll was 88, with estimates of 116–145 deaths and hundreds injured, many permanently disabled. The disaster was one of the deadliest industrial accidents in U.S. history. Investigations pinned the collapse on substandard construction, specifically defective cast-iron columns that were too weak to support the mill’s weight. Poor oversight, cost-cutting by owners, and overloading the structure with heavy machinery exacerbated the issue. The mill was known to vibrate heavily during operation, a warning sign ignored.[10] As immigrants flooded into the United States in the mid to late 19th century, the population of Lawrence abounded with skilled and unskilled workers from several countries. Protesting conditions, in 1912 they walked out of the mills. The action, sometimes celebrated as the Bread and Roses Strike, was one of the more important, widely reported, labor struggles in American history.[11]

The Industrial Workers of the World (the "One Big Union", the "Wobblies") defied the common wisdom that a largely female and ethnically divided workforce could not be organized, and the strike held through two bitterly cold winter months. The young 15-year mill hand Fred Beal, who was drawn by the experience into a lifetime of labor organizing, recalls that contrary to expectations, it was the most recent immigrant groups, "the Italians, Poles, Syrians [Lebanese] and Franco-Belgians", who "kept it alive.[12]

After hundreds of the strikers' hungry children had been sent to sympathetic families in New York, New Jersey, and Vermont, and the U.S. Congress was induced to hold hearings, the mill owners decided to settle, giving workers in Lawrence and throughout New England raises of up to 20 percent.[13] However, as a young Massachusetts Senator, John F. Kennedy was later to record, in the decades that followed the mill owners moved their capital and employment out of Lawrence and the region to the non-union South.[14]

Post-War history

Lawrence was a great wool-processing center until that industry declined in the 1950s. The decline left Lawrence a struggling city. The population of Lawrence declined from over 80,000 residents in 1950 (and a high of 94,270 in 1920) to approximately 64,000 residents in 1980, the low point of Lawrence's population. Much of the population relocated to nearby Methuen.

Urban redevelopment and renewal

Merrimack River at Lawrence
Aerial view of Merrimack River and Lawrence, 2010

Like other northeastern cities suffering from the effects of post-World War II industrial decline, Lawrence has often made efforts at revitalization, some of them controversial. The Lawrence Redevelopment Authority and city officials utilized eminent domain for a perceived public benefit, via a top-down approach, to revitalize the city throughout the 1960s. Known first as urban redevelopment, and then urban renewal, Lawrence's local government's actions towards vulnerable immigrant and poor communities, contained an undercurrent of gentrification which lies beneath the goals to revitalize Lawrence. There was a clash of differing ideals and perceptions of blight, growth, and what constituted a desirable community. Ultimately the discussion left out those members of the community who would be directly impacted by urban redevelopment.[15]


Lawrence also attempted to increase its employment base by attracting industries unwanted in other communities, such as waste treatment facilities and incinerators. From 1980 until 1998, private corporations operated two trash incinerators in Lawrence. Activist residents successfully blocked the approval of a waste treatment center on the banks of the Merrimack River near the current site of Salvatore's Pizza on Merrimack Street.{{Citation needed|date=November 2009} Recently the focus of Lawrence's urban renewal has shifted to preservation rather than sprawl.

Events of the 1980s and 1990s

Immigrants from the Dominican Republic and migrants from Puerto Rico began arriving in Lawrence in significant numbers in the late 1960s, attracted by cheap housing and a history of tolerance toward immigrants. In 1984, tensions between remaining working-class whites and increasing numbers of Hispanic youth flared into a riot, centered at the intersection of Haverhill Street and Oxford Street, where several buildings were destroyed by Molotov cocktails and over 300 people were arrested.[16][17]

Lawrence saw further setbacks during the recession of the early 1990s as a wave of arson plagued the city. Over 200 buildings were set alight in eighteen months in 1991–1992, many of them abandoned residences and industrial sites.[18] The Malden Mills factory burned down on December 11, 1995. CEO Aaron Feuerstein decided to continue paying the salaries of all the now unemployed workers while the factory was being rebuilt.[19]

A sharp reduction in violent crime starting in 2004[20] and massive private investment in former mill buildings along the Merrimack River, including the remaining section of the historic Wood Worsted Mill—to be converted into commercial, residential and education uses – have lent encouragement to boosters of the city. One of the final remaining mills in the city is Malden Mills. Lawrence's downtown has seen a resurgence of business activity as Hispanic-owned businesses have opened along Essex Street, the historic shopping street of Lawrence that remained largely shuttered since the 1970s.Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter has terminated with signal "24".

  • Maurice B. Dorgan (1918), Lawrence yesterday and today: 1845–1918, Dick & Trumpold, OCLC 10625548 
  • Benjamin F. Arrington (1922), "City of Lawrence", Municipal history of Essex County in Massachusetts, New York: Lewis historical publishing company, OCLC 1619460, https://archive.org/stream/municipalhistory02arri#page/n59/mode/2up 
  • Maurice B. Dorgan, History of Lawrence, Massachusetts: With War Records. Lawrence, MA: Maurice B. Dorgan, 1924.
  • "Ethnic tensions in Lawrence" (Archive). WGBH-TV. March 28, 1991.
  • Peter A. Ford (2000). "'Father of the Whole Enterprise': Charles S. Storrow and the Making of Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1845–1860". Massachusetts Historical Review 2. 
  • Urban redevelopment of Lawrence, MA a retrospective case study of the Plains Neighborhood by Pernice, Nicolas M., M.S. 2011.
  • Barber, Llana. Latino City: Immigration and Urban Crisis in Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1945–2000 (U of North Carolina Press, 2017), xiv, 325 pp.

Template:Lawrence, Massachusetts Template:Massachusetts Template:Essex County, Massachusetts Template:Greater Boston Template:Northeast Megalopolis Template:Massachusetts county seats


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  1. ↑ "2020 U.S. Gazetteer Files". United States Census Bureau. https://www2.census.gov/geo/docs/maps-data/data/gazetteer/2020_Gazetteer/2020_gaz_place_25.txt. Retrieved May 21, 2022. 
  2. ↑ "U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: United States". U.S. Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/lawrencecitymassachusetts,US/PST045219. 
  3. ↑ "Find a County". National Association of Counties. http://www.naco.org/Counties/Pages/FindACounty.aspx. 
  4. ↑ Lathem, Edward Connery; Thompson, Lawrance Roger (1966). Robert Frost and the Lawrence, Massachusetts, High School Bulletin; the beginning of a literary career. New York: Grolier Club. 
  5. ↑ Maurice B. Dorgan, Indian History and Traditions (1918)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Perley, Sidney (1912). The Indian land titles of Essex County, Massachusetts. The Library of Congress. Salem, Mass. : Essex Book and Print Club. http://archive.org/details/indianlandtitles00perl. 
  7. ↑ Joseph Sidney Howe, Historical sketch of the town of Methuen: from its settlement to the year 1876 (1876), p.4
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Jonathan Franklin Chesley Hayes, History of the City of Lawrence (1868)
  9. ↑ Skulski, Ken. The History of Lawrence Massachusetts, Volume 2, page 7.
  10. ↑ "The Fall of the Pemberton Mill". The New York Times. April 18, 1886. https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9902E6DC1638E533A2575BC1A9629C94679FD7CF. 
  11. ↑ Klein, Christopher (26 November 2019). "The Strike That Shook America" (in en). https://www.history.com/news/the-strike-that-shook-america. 
  12. ↑ Beal, Fred Erwin (1937). Proletarian journey: New England, Gastonia, Moscow.. New York: Hillman-Curl. pp. 52. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b332369&view=1up&seq=11&skin=2021. 
  13. ↑ Watson, Bruce (2005). Bread & Roses: Mills, Migrants, and the Struggle for the American Dream. New York: Penguin Group. p. 12. 
  14. ↑ Kennedy, John F. (1954-01-01). "New England and the South" (in en). https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1954/01/new-england-and-the-south/376244/. 
  15. ↑ Lua error: Internal error: The interpreter has terminated with signal "24".
  16. ↑ "Crackdown by police cools Lawrence riots". Spokane Chronicle (Spokane, Washington): p. 4. August 11, 1984. https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=M8USAAAAIBAJ&pg=5550,2277710&dq=lawrence+riots+1984&hl=en. 
  17. ↑ "Two Nights of Rioting Bring a Curfew to Lawrence Mass.". The New York Times: p. 4. August 10, 1984. https://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/11/us/two-nights-of-rioting-bring-a-curfew-to-lawrence-mass.html. 
  18. ↑ McGhee, Neil (August 24, 1992). "Arson epidemic continues in Massachusetts town". National Underwriter Property & Casualty-Risk & Benefits Management (The National Underwriter Company). http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-12533408.html. 
  19. ↑ 60 Minutes: The Mensch Of Malden Mills
  20. ↑ "Lawrence, Massachusetts mayor faces the wrath of residents - DominicanToday.com". http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/local/2011/10/17/41306/Lawrence-Massachusetts-mayor-faces-the-wrath-of-residents. 
  21. ↑ InTown Mall demolition begins today, making way for college health technologies building, by Keith Eddings, Eagle-Tribune, 3 January 2012
  22. ↑ "InTown Mall Comes Tumbling Down". Newsroom – Northern Essex Community College. 2012-01-04. http://departments.necc.mass.edu/newsroom/2012/01/04/intown-mall-comes-tumbling-down/. 
  23. ↑ Allen, Scott; Ryan, Andrew (January 21, 2008). "150 left homeless from Lawrence fire". The Boston Globe (Boston, Massachusetts). http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/01/fire_engulfs_do.html. 
  24. ↑ Kirk, Bill (14 February 2010). "Lawrence fiscal crisis prompts talk of bankruptcy, receivership". The Eagle-Tribune. North Andover, MA. http://www.eagletribune.com/local/x1412996113/Lawrence-fiscal-crisis-prompts-talk-of-bankruptcy-receivership. 
  25. ↑ Taylor, Kate (2019-02-09). "Elizabeth Warren Formally Announces 2020 Presidential Bid in Lawrence, Mass." (in en-US). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/09/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-2020.html. 
  26. ↑ "'How did this happen?': Gas blasts set homes ablaze, triggering chaos in Massachusetts". Washington Post. September 13, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/09/13/multiple-gas-explosions-set-more-than-homes-ablaze-across-three-communities-north-boston/. 
  27. ↑ Dorothy Truman (Winter 1986). "The Museum of American Textile History: Archival Sources for Business History". Business History Review 60. 
  28. ↑ 28.00 28.01 28.02 28.03 28.04 28.05 28.06 28.07 28.08 28.09 28.10 28.11 28.12 28.13 28.14 28.15 28.16 28.17 28.18 28.19 28.20 28.21 Sampson 1883. sfn error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFSampson1883 (help)
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 29.2 29.3 Britannica 1910.
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 "US Newspaper Directory". Chronicling America. Washington DC: Library of Congress. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/search/titles/results/?state=Massachusetts&city=Lawrence&rows=50&sort=date. 
  31. ↑ Davies Project. "American Libraries before 1876". Princeton University. http://www.princeton.edu/~davpro/databases/index.html. 
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 Lawrence Public Library Special Collections. "Queen City Massachusetts (blog)". http://queencityma.wordpress.com/. 
  33. ↑ Peter M. Molloy (Winter 1980). "Nineteenth-Century Hydropower: Design and Construction of Lawrence Dam, 1845–1848". Winterthur Portfolio 15. 
  34. ↑ A Sketch of the Mills of the American Woolen Company, American Woolen Co., 1901, OCLC 3286127 
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 35.2 35.3 35.4 35.5 35.6 35.7 35.8 Merrill 1894.
  36. ↑ Ford 2000.
  37. ↑ Pacific Mills (1918), The manufacture, dyeing, printing, and finishing of textiles, Lawrence, Mass, OCLC 15206587 
  38. ↑ Massachusetts Register for the year 1855. Boston : George Adams. 1852. https://archive.org/stream/massachusettsreg1855bost#page/n9/mode/2up. 
  39. ↑ Ballou's Pictorial. Boston, Mass. : M.M. Ballou. 1855. https://archive.org/stream/ballouspictorial0708ball#page/356/mode/2up. 
  40. ↑ Arlington Mills, 1865–1925, Norwood, Mass: Priv. print. by the Plimpton Press, 1925 
  41. ↑ The Arlington Mills, Boston: Press of Rockwell and Churchill, 1891 
  42. ↑ 42.0 42.1 Hurd 1888.
  43. ↑ "History of the Lawrence Public Library". Lawrence Public Library. http://www.lawrencefreelibrary.org/About2.html. 
  44. ↑ "Duck Bridge, Spanning Merrimack River on Union Street, Lawrence, Essex County, MA". Historic American Engineering Record (Library of Congress). https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ma1422/. 
  45. ↑ 45.0 45.1 45.2 Dorgan 1918.
  46. ↑ 46.0 46.1 William H. Wallace (October 1961). "Merrimack Valley Manufacturing: Past and Present". Economic Geography 37. 
  47. ↑ "Timeline". Encyclopedia of Strikes in American History. Routledge. 2015. ISBN 978-1-317-45707-7. https://books.google.com/books?id=xmVsBgAAQBAJ&pg=PR17. 
  48. ↑ "Lawrence Municipal Airport". http://www.lawrencemunicipalairport.com/. 
  49. ↑ Lawrence History Center. "Lawrence History Timeline". http://www.lawrencehistorycenter.org/timeline. 
  50. ↑ "Recycling old housing: Volunteers rehab vacant property", Boston Globe, March 8, 1992 
  51. ↑ Jay Atkinson (February 2012). "Lawrence, MA: City of the Damned". Boston Magazine. http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/2012/02/city-of-the-damned-lawrence-massachusetts. 
  52. ↑ "Meet the Mayors". Washington, DC: United States Conference of Mayors. http://usmayors.org/meetmayors/mayorsatglance.asp. 
  53. ↑ "Eagle Tribune". March 23, 2012. http://www.eagletribune.com/local/x1437237125/UPDATE-Laboy-apologizes-gets-90-days-in-jail-for-fraud. 
  54. ↑ Bidgood, Jess (May 29, 2012). "New York Times". https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/us/a-massachusetts-city-tries-to-change-its-image.html. 
  55. ↑ 55.0 55.1 55.2 Cole, Donald B. (1963). Immigrant City: Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1845–1921. the University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-0876-8. https://archive.org/details/immigrantcitylaw00cole. 
  56. ↑ 56.0 56.1 56.2 56.3 56.4 56.5 56.6 56.7 56.8 Skulski, Ken; Dengler, Eartha; Khalife, Katherine (1995). Lawrence, Massachusetts. Dover, NH: Arcadia Pub. ISBN 0-7524-0229-3. https://archive.org/details/lawrencemassachu00deng. 
  57. ↑ "Lucie's Legacy: History of Lawrence, MA - Immigrant Communities". lucieslegacy.blogspot.co.uk. 2013-01-18. http://lucieslegacy.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/history-of-lawrence-ma-immigrant.html. 
  58. ↑ 58.0 58.1 McCaffery, Robert Paul, "Islands of Deutschtum: German-Americans in Manchester, New Hampshire and Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1870–1942". New German–American Studies, Vol 11. Peter Lang, 1996.
  59. ↑ 59.0 59.1 59.2 59.3 Municipal History of Essex County in Massachusetts, Tercentenary Edition, Benj. F. Arrington, Editor-in-chief, Volume II 1922 Lewis Historical Publishing Company New York
  60. ↑ Festa of Saints Alfio, Filadelfo, and Cirino
  61. ↑ St. Anthony's Maronite Church website
  62. ↑ "PolishRoots - PAHA Articles". http://www.polishroots.org/paha/polish_farmers_workers.htm. 
  63. ↑ Municipal History of Essex County in Massachusetts, Tercentenary Edition, Benj. F. Arrington, Editor-in-chief, Volume II 1922 Lewis Historical Publishing Company New York.
  64. ↑ Quarter-centennial history of Lawrence, Massachusetts: With portraits and biographical sketches of ex-mayors, the board of may... [database on-line]. Provo, UT: The Generations Network, Inc., 2005. Original data: Wadsworth, H. A. Quarter-centennial history of Lawrence, Massachusetts: With portraits and biographical sketches of ex-mayors, the board of mayor and aldermen for the present year, other leading officials, and a representation of business and professional men. Lawrence, Mass.: H. Reed, Lawrence Eagle Steam Job Print. Office, 1878
  65. ↑ "Scenes from a Parish" Mass Humanities, Spring 1995
  66. ↑ Betances, Yadira (December 26, 2006). "Protestant congregations eyeing vacant Catholic church properties". Eagle-Tribune. http://www.eagletribune.com/homepage/local_story_360094509?keyword=leadpicturestory+page=0. 
  67. ↑ "Lawrence – Lawrence – Ancestry & family history – ePodunk". epodunk.com. http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genealogyInfo.php?locIndex=2999. 
  68. ↑ Den Rock Park Trail Guide
  69. ↑ "Census of Population and Housing". Census.gov. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census.html. 
  70. ↑ "City and Town Population Totals: 2020−2022". United States Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2020s-total-cities-and-towns.html. 
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