| This analytic paper documents the evolution of the Lowell Textile School into the Lowell Technological Institute in order to examine the increased diversity of higher education institutions in the nineteenth century and the dynamics that promoted the university form as the twentieth century ideal for so many of these schools.;There are six chapters in this paper. Chapter One, The Textile Industry and the City It Created, establishes the social and economic context of the creation of a textile school in Lowell. Chapter Two, Higher Education and Democracy, delineates the development of diversity of higher education responses to the Industrial Revolution in America. Chapter Three, Beating the Drum for a School, traces the political and philosophical debate that produced the textile schools. Chapter Four, Beginning the School, explores the establishment of the school and its emerging constituencies. Chapter Five, School of Aspirations, examines the changing role of faculty and the purpose of higher education. Chapter Six, Responding to Change, discusses the departure from textile education and the resulting diffusion of the curriculum.;The Conclusion argues that while institutions such as Lowell were creations of the elevation of utilitarian skills to college level subjects, they later became an arena between the business expectations of trained workers and the individual's interest in education for social and economic mobility. The limited support of the textile industry for the school eventually weakened the industry's influence. Consequently, the influence of the faculty's academic disciplines and the interests of students dominated the institution's evolution. |
