Lawrence and the 1912 Bread and Roses Strike

Incorporated in 1847 on the banks of the Merrimack River, Lawrence, Massachusetts, was the final and most ambitious of New England's planned textile-manufacturing cities developed by the Boston-area entrepreneurs who helped launch the American Industrial Revolution. With a dam and canal system to generate power, by 1912 Lawrence led the world in the production of worsted wool cloth. The Pacific Cotton Mills alone had sales of nearly $10 million and had mechanical equipment capable of produc...