Content area
Full Text
The Lowell Experiment: Public History in a Postindustrial City. By Cathy Stanton. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006. xvi, 299 pp. Cloth, $80.00, isbn 1-55849-546-0. Paper, $24.95, isbn 1-55849-547-9.)
This study of the transformation of the Lowell mills from derelict factories to revenue-generating heritage site offers a thorough account of one of the most influential public history projects ever undertaken in the context of the postindustrial urban landscape.
Superbly narrated by Cathy Stanton, an adjunct faculty member at Tufts University and the Union Institute, The Lowell Experiment examines in admirable detail a preservation and interpretation project that spans four decades, involving hundreds of actors and the expenditure of millions of dollars of public and private money. The challenge for Stanton is formidable. She must balance the history of Lowell, Massachusetts, with the history of efforts to save it, while accounting for the contrapuntal effects of...