LAWRENCE — Preserving local history is only one part of what the Lawrence Heritage State Park Center does for the city.
The center, located at 1 Jackson St., highlights the different waves of Lawrence history. While its scope includes the mill girls in the mid-1800s and the Bread and Roses strikes for better work conditions and wages, it also showcases modern history in the city.
“Our story tells the history of a lot of people,” said Jonas Stundzia, the first president of the Friends of the state park.
Stundzia said a lot of Lawrence’s history reflects the history of what was happening in the rest of the United States at the time.
The building itself is a piece of the mill history in Lawrence. It was once a dormitory for Mill Girls, the 14- to 18-year-old daughters of farmers sent to the city to work for two to four years at a time before returning to their homes.
Rich Padova, one of the summer tour guides and a professor of history at Merrimack Community College, said the building housed approximately 100 girls at a time, each working 12 hour days and making only $5 a week.
The mills became known throughout the country, and even the world, for producing worsted fabric, a type of wool cloth used to make suits. At the end of the 1890s, Lawrence was the largest producer of worsted wool cloth in the world.
As immigration to America from European countries like Ireland, England, Canada, Italy, Poland and Germany boomed, mill jobs were in high demand, with immigrants saying they would work more hours for less money than the mill girls before them.
“They came here looking for a better life,” said Padova.
“Though the work was hard, it’s not like they had the option to go back. They did the best with what they had.”
Padova said one of his ancestors had come to Lawrence from Italy, and he ended up not only working in the mills but opening his own variety story.
This was a way to achieve financial freedom, Padova said, adding that many immigrants came to this country looking for a new opportunity.
Lawrence got its nickname, City of Immigrants, because population records surged during the early 1900s, reaching the highest population number in the city’s history in 1920, at 94,270.
Throughout the rest of the 1900s, the population declined drastically until 1980, hitting the all-time low of 64,000.
Padova and Studzia both said this is important because the center was founded as part of Gov. Michael Dukakis’s Gateway City initiative.
The center preserves history to remind the people of Lawrence that this city has always been one open to immigrants, a place for those to work hard and achieve their version of the American Dream.
Padova said it’s up to small, local organizations like his to highlight the community now and to keep the history of what it always has been.
“If we don’t preserve our history, who will?” said Padova.