Students Collaborate with National Park Service and Tsongas Industrial History Center
Image by Courtesy Photo
07/13/2023
By Marlon Pitter
Drawing from the city’s role in the Industrial Revolution, students in an Introduction to Labor Studies class gained firsthand experience in telling the story of labor in Lowell.
The class, co-taught by Labor Education Program Director Elizabeth Pellerito and Labor Educator Pamela Whitefield, visited the Boott Cotton Mills Museum in February to set the foundation for the coursework. Current exhibits at the museum, which is part of Lowell National Historical Park, include “Lowell: Visions of Industrial America” and “Child Labor: Documentary Photography and the Quest for Reform.”
The students were tasked with creating their own ideas for exhibits to add to the museum. Some students chose to highlight underrepresented voices, draw personal connections to their own lives or families, or bridge the gap between the past, present and future of labor.
They presented their ideas to Tsongas Industrial History Center and National Park Service staff as well as Boott Cotton Mills Museum curators as part of their final projects, with the potential to have them incorporated into a new exhibit this fall.
“The opportunity for the students to have some input on what a final exhibit might look like was pretty exciting,” said Whitefield. “It was a really fun project to work on, and their curatorial staff … were wowed by some of them.”
Image by Marlon Pitter
National Park Service ranger Frank Clark ’87, who led the students on a tour of the museum, said their fresh perspectives shed new light on ways to tell a more well-rounded story of Lowell’s labor history.
“We often hear the voice of the white politician,” said Clark. “We don't hear the voice of the Black or Brown worker. Where are those voices, and where can they be told, and how can we tell them? And again, how does that connect to how things are being done today?”
Senior public health major Allison Wood envisioned a more equitable “post-work” society in her presentation, in which people across various industries and income levels would be able to work fewer hours to earn a living wage.
“With the focus of the class on labor, I thought that it would be important to consider the future of what labor could look like if we did the best for everybody,” she said.
For Wood, the experience of visiting the museum brought to life the material she learned during the course.
“It really benefited my education to (get) out of the classroom and get a very real look at how things (were) in Lowell and how that shaped how things are today,” she said.
Image by Marlon Pitter
The course has featured service-learning opportunities with the museum or history center for small groups of students since 2011. However, Pellerito and Whitefield expanded the partnership to include the entire class for the first time this spring. Pellerito said their collaboration continues to be a positive experience for students.
“In the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution in the United States, it's definitely great to be able to draw on that history when we do labor education, both for undergraduates and for workers in the community,” she said. “We feel very lucky to have that relationship.”