Charles Dickens and the Lowell Mill Girls

Cover design of the "Lowell Offering."
From Lowell: The story of an industrial
City, National Park Service handbook,
1992

The State Library of Massachusetts owns originals and reprints of The Lowell Offering, a publication by female mill workers or “mill girls” from Lowell. The mill workers wrote essays, poetry and fiction for the monthly magazine which was published from 1840-1845. Another publication about working in the Lowell mills is: Loom and spindle: or, Life among the early mill girls: with a sketch of "The Lowell offering" and some of its contributors. This book was written by Harriet Hanson Robinson in 1898 and it is about her experiences working in the Mills starting at the age of 10 in 1935. It is among other publications the library has about the Lowell Mills and its will workers.

Harriet Hanson Robinson.
From The Belles of New
England, by William Moran, 2002

The Boston Globe recently featured an article (12/15/2013) about Charles Dickens reading and borrowing passages from the Lowell Offering, especially stories about ghosts, and turning them into A Christmas Carol. The two researchers Natalie McKnight, an English professor and a dean at Boston University and Chelsea Bray, a former BU undergraduate and current Boston College Graduate student came up with this theory. The two plan to publish their argument in a book about Dickens in Massachusetts. 

Some argue that A Christmas Carol was taken from the story of Lazarus in the bible or from Dickens own The Pickwick Papers. However, McKnight feels that A Christmas Carol is closer to The Lowell Offering in tone, structure, and theme. The article also points out that it was common in that time period to borrow from other people and not credit them.

The State Library has books by or about Charles Dickens. Books about Dickens visit to Massachusetts in 1842 include: 

• Dickens days in Boston: a record of daily events
• Report of the dinner given to Charles Dickens, in Boston, February 1, 1842
• Quozziana: or, Letters from Great Goslington, Mass., giving an account of the Quoz dinner, and other matters  

The latter is a satire on the dinner given in Boston to Charles Dickens in 1842.

Other books by or about Dickens include: 

• The letters of Charles Dickens
• Dickens as an educator
• The Dickens encyclopaedia: an alphabetical dictionary of references to every character and place mentioned in the works of fiction, with explanatory notes on obscure allusions and phrases
• Dickens's dictionary of London, 1879 : an unconventional handbook 
• Pen photographs of Charles Dickens's readings: Taken from life 

Naomi Allen
Reference Librarian

Massachusetts Real Estate Atlases Now Online

The State Library recently completed the scanning of forty-five real estate atlases covering communities throughout Massachusetts. These atlases are now available online through the library’s institutional repository and its Flickr site. This is part of a grant-funded project to digitize the approximately 200 real estate atlases in the State Library’s collection. The items that are now available include a statewide atlas and municipal volumes that cover cities and towns throughout the Commonwealth, from Attleboro to Pittsfield.

The image on the top detailing the area where the Mystic River and Chelsea Creek flow into Boston Harbor is from the 1892 Atlas of Massachusetts published by Geo. H. Walker & Co.

These atlases are a useful tool for genealogists, architectural consultants, and those researching the history of their homes, as they provide information about property boundaries, plot size, ownership and building shapes and materials. The image below, taken from the City atlas of Lowell, Massachusetts (published by G. M. Hopkins in 1879) illustrates properties, including mills and other industry along the Concord River in Lowell.

Some of the atlases also include drawings of prominent homes, schools and other important buildings. An example of this is the residence of Wm. Whiting found in the 1884 Atlas of Holyoke City, Massachusetts published by Geo. H. Walker & Co.

The Massachusetts real estate atlas digitization project, to be completed by the summer of 2013, has been developed with federal funds provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and administered by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.