It is safe to say a that week in Lowell, Mass., livingthe life of a 19th century textile mill worker does not exactly sound like anappealing vacation to the majority of the American public – United Stateshistory teacher Pat Thorburn may be one of the few exceptions.
Last winter, while researching the Lowell textilemills for class, Thorburn stumbled upon a program sponsored by the NationalEndowment for the Humanities (NEH), which provides a $750 stipend for classroomteachers and librarians to participate in weeklong workshops in historicallysignificant locations.
“I just followed a link which talked about a programthey had for teachers and I tried out (applied),” Thorburn said.
Thorburn was accepted into two programs, the first ofwhich concentrated on Lowell and the Industrial Revolution. The Lowell textilemills in the 1830s were one of the first to hire a predominantly femaleworkforce, where laborers worked under sometimes harsh conditions for 73-hourwork weeks.
“I would not want to be an 1830s farmhouse wife –that’s what I learned,” Thorburn said.
From Aug. 2-7, Thorburn and fellow history enthusiastsfrom around the country spent their mornings in the classroom and afternoons inthe field, engaging in activities such as making supper by the fire, operatinga loom and manipulating canals to create power from a water turbine – thefactories were originally hydro-powered.
“The worst part of the week was doing work over thatstupid fire because it was so ridiculously hot. I don’t know how people didit,” Thorburn said, who was “in charge of making the fried cucumbers.”
Overall, Thorburn was thrilled with his experience atLowell.
“I was able to take all these topics I taught beforelike the transcendentalists, Lowell girls, Tariff of Abominations and slavery,and tie it all together into one story,” Thorburn said. “I already knew whatthese things were, but I couldn’t connect them as well as I can now.”
This winter Thorburn plans on applying forthe summer programs at Pear Harbor and Ellis Island.