Boarding House to Beacon Hill – A Women’s History Month Special Program and Tour

Release date:      Immediate                                                      

Contact(s):          Phil Lupsiewicz    

Phone number:    978 275-1705   

Date:                  March 3, 2017 

Release code:    17-12

Boarding House to Beacon Hill –
A Women’s History Month Special Program and Tour

Lowell, MA – Join rangers from two National Park sites in Massachusetts – Lowell National Historical Park and Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site – 

for a special program in honor of Women’s History Month and Lowell Women’s Week. Boarding House to Beacon Hill will explore how the lives of two very different women, Frances (Fanny) Appleton Longfellow (daughter of mill financier Nathan Appleton) and Lucy Larcom (mill girl and daughter of a boarding house keeper), were affected by the booming textile industry in the early 1800s. Using their words and objects from National Park Service collections, the program will explore the similarities and differences between growing up as the daughter in an elite Boston Brahmin family and working as a mill girl in the City of Spindles. 

The program will be offered on Saturday, March 11^th at 2:30 p.m. in the Mill Girls and Immigrants Exhibit located inside the Mogan Cultural Center at 40 French Street, Lowell, MA. The program is free and no reservations are required. In celebration of Fannie Appleton’s  200^th birthday, the Mill Girls and Immigrants Exhibit will also feature a temporary exhibit highlighting her life and some of her personal belongings from the Longfellow House museum collections. The temporary exhibit will be on display Wednesday, March 8^th through Sunday, March 12^th. The Mill Girls and Immigrants exhibit is always free, and will be open Wednesday-Sunday from 1:30 to 5 p.m. starting on March 8^th. 

The program will also be offered on Saturday, March 18^th at Longfellow House- Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site at 105 Brattle Street in Cambridge at 2:30 p.m. The Longfellow House program is free, but due to space limitations, reservations are required. To reserve your place, please call (617) 876-4491.

For more information on both national parks, please visit www.nps.gov/lowe or www.nps.gov/long. 

For more information on Lowell Women’s Week, taking place this year from March 8^th-12^th, visit www.LowellWomensWeek.org. 

-NPS-