What is this township to me? Why should I care or give a damn? I can’t even name one famous and great U.S. president, who launched his successful career as a hard-working, ambitious mill rat on the Merrimack River weaving exquisite textiles for the country’s clothing industry?
When I read about Hawthorne, Thoreau and Emerson, naturally, I am carried away spiritually by the true grit, enthusiasm and love that these American authors extolled in their works of art, their visionary concepts and their elevating and heart-felt affirmation of the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that we, Americans, all enjoy. But where is there life, liberty and happiness in the city’s sordid, tightly packed, gray, tenement blocks and the stinking poverty seen on Moody, Austin, Cabot and Race streets?
The soot-covered, four-story, red-brick factory buildings located on Appleton, Upper Middlesex and XX streets only promise the laborer a temporary stay from destitution, through a meager pay envelope for his/her tedious, 50 to 60 hour-long stints of dangerous work per week. Then, these same grimy wage-slaves are sent back home for, maybe, a Sunday afternoon, spent with their spouses, children, aunts and uncles plus an occasional grandmother and grandfather.
All these festive activities are naturally highlighted with ample portions of pork, beef or fish stews – haddock and cod, usually – served with mugs of coffee for the adults and chocolate-milk for the kiddos. Sometimes, the coffee might be laced with a shot of bourbon, to ward off any onset of illness. There were often recurring bouts of illness – colds, sniffles, headaches and, yes, heartaches – in Lowell, when these relatives gathered to celebrate. Then, everyone must always remember to leave some room in their respective stomachs, for the cakes and apple pies freshly drawn from the mom’s oven. Finally, a cold glass of beer was needed to wash down the repast.
Is this America, the Land of Milk and Honey? Why did those beautiful, human dreams of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness become drenched in the sweatshops of industrial, New England capitalism with its distinctive, textile flavored fabrics?
When I walk down old cobblestone roads of the 1830s, now covered over with a macadamized, black glaze of summer gooey tar, strangely enough, I fail to be spiritually elevated and transported by the moving words and the home-spun wisdom, of Emerson, Thoreau and Hawthorne. How am I, Paul E. Bolduc, connected to their ideals, their hopes, and their most fervent aspirations?
The town of Concord is but a twenty-mile, tree-lined drive from the city limits of Lowell, and yet that distance could be measured as several thousand miles if we were to determine similarities and differences by the nature of the local architecture, historical monuments, general educational level, typical economic status, career opportunities and the personal viewpoints of the residents in these two locations.
The Concord-Cambridge Transcendentalists of the 1830 to the 1850 period celebrated the unique opportunities available to strong-willed men and women of this vibrant, fertile land. Ralph Waldo Emerson impressed us with these thoughts:
“What lies behind us and what lies before us, are tiny matters
compared to what lies within us.”
Not to be outdone, Emerson’s friend, Henry David Thoreau, informed us that:
“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.”
and that
“Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.”
Finally, Nathaniel Hawthorne, a friend to both Thoreau and Emerson, added that:
“This dull river has a deep religion of its own; so, let us trust, has the
dullest human soul, though, perhaps, unconsciously.”
These lofty, patriotoc thoughts capture the freedom of spirit, the can-do attitude, which somehow became my guiding, spiritual signposts while living my young life in the city. Yet, where does anyone busily shopping for groceries, galoshes and underwear in Kearney Square’s many retail shops ever reflect upon this moving inheritance from our trusted forbearers of 130 years ago?
When do the busily bobbing spindles of industrialized machinery, now mechanically vomiting up flapping yards of precious, cotton linen cloth, ever elevate the human spirit of the man/woman behind the angrily, clanking wheels and gears? How do the beautiful, American concepts of life, liberty and happiness survive through this no-man’s-land of bleak, oily machinery? What type of sweatshop would have truly fulfilled the lofty, personal goals of our Transcendentalist authors? What present-day career choices might best approximate that of a well-lived life? The answers are not clear.
In our common history as a nation, we have seen slave labor practices imposed on black laborers by successful, Southern cotton farmers during the antebellum years. These harsh, marketplace practices meshed quite nicely with the needs of the industrialized, textile-weaving entrepreneurs in New England. As a result of such mass production of cotton fabrics, America’s economic standing in the world leaped to the notice and envy of other nations – the Brits, in particular.
But, what does the vision of many, ocean-going freighters leaving American ports loaded with the copious output of several sooty, red-brick factories from Lowell, Lawrence and Haverhill have to do with the happiness of illiterate, poorly-fed, poverty-stricken, farm laborers from New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine, who are seeking a better existence in a fair and equitable marketplace? To use a popular phrase, from the world of psychologists, there is much cognitive dissonance, in this economic picture of the “good life”.
Maybe, my best hope is to never end up as an example of the wasted life, but to simply move onto other pastures, like those awaiting me in State College, Pennsylvania? Of course, real life offers few guarantees, but I am certainly tempted to see what surprises and neat consequences just might open up for me, with this change of venue. After all, our Uncle Lucien, the U.S. Army colonel to first enter the liberated, Dachau Death Camp in Bavaria, made a similar choice decades before, and he remains my most respected and accomplished family member.
Perhaps, I simply need to strap on some much-needed courage, and stop vacillating?
[ENDE]