Lecture Series

1843: Mrs. Larcom, Lowell Mills Boardinghouse Keeper

A performance by Kate Carney

Tuesday, November 29, 2005 at 8:00 p.m.

Kate Carney, in costume and character as "Mrs. Lois Larcom, Lowell Mills Boardinghouse Keeper", invites us into her Lawrence Corporation house to hear stories in an historical role-playing experience set in Lowell MA, 1843. Listeners hear how the factory girls have made Lowell famous, making good money for females, sending some of it home, attending classes and lectures and publishing "The Lowell Offering", a literary journal. After having been lured to Lowell by the promise of a living wage, their pay is now dwindling, and they are working 13 hour days in dangerous, unhealthy conditions. The girls think things are going down hill fast.

Everything's changing in Lowell. Mrs. Larcom never spoke up before -- but the newly-independent factory girls are speaking up, a girl's hair just got caught in a loom and she can't make ends meet. Listeners exchange questions and answers with this hospitable housemother who asks "What is happening to the promise of Lowell?" It's a spell-binding story as fresh as today's headlines.

Kate Carney, MA, actor, storyteller and coach, has performed her historical characters throughout the Northeast, and has toured nationally and internationally. Before founding the educational theatre company Heroic Women You Can Talk To, she performed on network TV, in Boston and New York theatres and in feature films Her show Annie Sullivan, Teacher was selected and performed at the International Women Playwrights Conference.

The lecture will be held at the Smith Museum, adjacent to the Jason Russell House. Admission is free and seating is unreserved. The lecture will take place at 8:00 p.m. with doors open at 7:30. Wheelchair access is at the Jason Terrace entrance. Directions