| Lawrence, Massachusetts, a city twenty-six miles north of Boston, was an important commercial and industrial center in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was coined the "Immigrant City" early in its existence because it became home to thousands of new immigrants from Ireland, French and English Canada, Germany, and England during the period from 1845 to 1880, and later Southern and Eastern Europeans from 1880 until the 1920s. It gained national attention as the site of the famous "Bread and Roses" industrial strike in 1912.; This paper will mainly focus on the serious changes that took place in the city during the period of 1950 to 1972. Lawrence's physical and ethnic landscapes were dramatically changed by incoherent federal urban policy, the collapse of the northern industrial economy, high unemployment, a white ethnic exodus into nearby suburbs, and increasing tensions between the remaining white community and the emerging Latino population by the 1960s and '70s. This study will also examine how these factors shaped the Greater Lawrence area, in particular the nearby towns of Methuen, Andover, and North Andover.; In addition, the paper will consider the historical development of federal urban policy, as well as the implementation of urban renewal in the city of Boston to highlight how other areas dealt with same issues facing the Immigrant City. |
