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At the beginning of the 20th century, Worcester was one of the largest inland industrial cities in the world. The city boasted a diverse manufacturing base that drew immigrants from all over the globe. At this time, the postcard was a valuable and inexpensive way for friends and families to keep in touch with one another. The vintage postcards in Worcester show cherished recreation and leisure time in the city and highlight public places such as Elm Park. This book evokes memories of a simpler, slower-paced city.
Near the beginning of the twentieth century, thousands of Polish immigrants embarked upon the American Dream in Worcester as the city's lowest-paid mill workers. Slowly, they carved out their own "Polonia," with Millbury Street as the center. By the 1920s, Worcester's Polish community had built a parish with the largest parochial school in the county, established several civic associations, and become an influential group in the city's economy and ethnic composition. The Polish Community of Worcester celebrates the resilient and patriotic spirit of Worcester's Polonia from 1870 through 1970, with rare photographs from private collections and family albums.
Known as "the golden era," the period from 1880 to 1920 brought unbridled growth, prosperity, and national note to the second largest city in Massachusetts. Worcester's population increased by more than one hundred twenty thousand people in this forty-year period, and the city produced the greatest variety of manufactured goods in the country. Worcester: 1880-1920 captures the expansion of the city through the images that feature a variety of subjects, such as the erection of the three-decker buildings in the early working-class neighborhoods, the construction of the new Union Station, and the vitality of the downtown stores and marketplaces. These photographs, most of which have been taken from glass-plate negatives, chronicle the rapid growth of a diverse economy fueled by an expanding multiethnic community.
Includes "Statistical tables compiled from the annual returns of the railroad companies of the state."