Lowell Lecture
Mill Talk: Back to Nature - The Boston Associates and the Landscape of 19th-century Massachusetts
Date & Time
Oct. 20, 2021 at 7 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Location
Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation
Located in the Historic Francis Cabot Lowell Mill
Park in the Embassy Theatre Lot — GPS "42 Cooper Street, Waltham"
154 Moody Street Waltham, MA 02453
Driving Directions
Speaker(s)
Kate Viens is the Director of Education at the Charles River Museum.
Kate received her PhD from Boston University in American and New England Studies in 2020.
Presenting Organization
Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation
Topics
Contact
Bob Perry (director@charlesrivermuseum.org, 7818935410)
In city after city today, we struggle to catch a glimpse of the natural landscape. Roads float above the rise and fall of the land, and rivers are hidden by the commercial buildings, factories, and housing that line their banks. In the words of historian Robert F. Dalzell, this is the world the Boston Associates made. Yet scholars overlook the extent to which these capitalists were, themselves, products of the pre-industrial agrarian landscape. Whether they rode horseback through bucolic villages or felt the gale winds of a sailing voyage, they formed ideas of nature that persisted even as they found ways to exploit the region's resources in the service of industry.
Join this Mill Talk to learn how, even as the Boston Associates were building mills, canals, and railroads, nature remained for them a source of respite and wonder.