Lawrence History Center

08/25/2026

Joe Manning caption: George Driscoll (right), 14 or 15, Lawrence, Massachusetts, November 1910.

THE LEWIS HINE PROJECT: STORIES OF THE LAWRENCE CHILDREN

By Joe Manning (https://tinyurl.com/47zxux3e)

WE CONTINUE WITH OUR FINAL STORY - GEORGE DRISCOLL (1896 or 1897—1980):

In November 1910, Lewis Hine took about 15 photographs in Lawrence, most of child workers at Pacific Mills. He would return to the city to take another 55 pictures the following September.

Pacific Mills was built in Lawrence in 1853, by the Essex Company, and enlarged over the years to five buildings covering an area of 700,000 square feet. The first president of the company was Abbot Lawrence. The city is named after him. The company started as a producer of women’s dress clothing, and expanded in the 1890s, to include the manufacture of calicos and other products. It is now the home of over 60 businesses, including craftsmen and the manufacture of fur fabrics for the entertainment industry.

In his caption, Hine did not tell us which boy was George Driscoll. But I managed to locate one of George’s great-nephews, who positively identified George as the boy on the right. Unfortunately, I have not been able to identify which one Mike is, or the identities of the unnamed boys. The great-nephew did not know George, and knew only that he worked as a chef and lived for a time in Boston. So I had to rely entirely on census and military records, and newspaper archives. His obituary did not list a spouse or children among the survivors. George Joseph Driscoll was born in Lawrence on February 28, 1896 or 1895, depending on which records you go by. His parents were Laurence Driscoll, a native of Prince Edward Island; and Margaret Driscoll, born in Massachusetts. Laurence came to the US in 1883. They married in 1892. George and his twin sister Margaret were the second and third of seven children. Laurence worked for many years as a water inspector for Pacific Mills. In 1900, they were living in a rented house at 7 Dana Street, which was built in 1860. It is still there. George’s mother died about 1938, and his father died in 1943. According to the 1920 census, George was still living with his parents, and still worked at Pacific Mills. But after 1920, I was unable find much information on where he lived. He does not appear in the 1930 census, or in any city or town directories. According to his 1942 draft registration, he lived in Worcester, and worked for Ernest Secino in Fitchburg. The archives of the Fitchburg Sentinel show that Secino was the owner of a restaurant called Castle Arms, so it’s likely that George was a chef there. George died on August 5, 1980, at the age of 84 or 85. He was a patient at Tewksbury State Hospital. His residence was given as 7 Dana Street, Lawrence. The great-nephew told me that there is no one else in the family who would know anything more about him.

More at: https://lawrencehistory.org/lhcexhibits/lewishine/driscoll

08/24/2026

Just a handful of chances left this season to watch Lawrence History Center board member Brian Sheehy play vintage baseball with Essex Base Ball Organization!

Take a beautiful drive to Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newbury, MA to enjoy this alone, with friends, or with your family.

"The Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm is a 231-acre historic site featuring a rare c. 1690 stone manor house, farm animals, and open landscape. Managed by Historic New England, it highlights centuries of regional agriculture, diverse family histories, and open-air community events."

08/24/2026

Our neighbors in Methuen, The Friends of the Searles Estate, are looking for volunteers to help clean up the magnificent mansion!

If you're available on Thursday, August 27, 2026 at 10:00 AM, see below for information.

Hey friends and neighbors!

Want to check out the inside of the Historic Searles Estate while helping us spruce it up? We’re hosting a cleaning party on Thursday, August 27th at 10:00 AM to get everything looking beautiful for our big September tour.

Quick Details

When: Thursday, August 27th @ 10:00 AM

Where: Edward F. Searles Estate (indoors)

What: Dusting, wiping, and prepping the space

Bring your favorite dust rag and some elbow grease!

Want to help out? Drop a comment below if you can make it!

Thanks so much for helping out—we appreciate you!

08/24/2026

Joe Manning caption: Wilfred Valliere (right), 15 yrs old, Lawrence, Massachusetts, September 1911

THE LEWIS HINE PROJECT: STORIES OF THE LAWRENCE CHILDREN
By Joe Manning (https://tinyurl.com/47zxux3e)

WE CONTINUE WITH WILFRED VALLIERE (1896—1978):

When 9-year old Wilfred J. Valliere moved with his parents and seven siblings from New Hampshire to Lawrence in 1905, he was about to witness the creation of what some called the “eighth wonder of the world.” Along the Merrimack River, William Wood built the Wood Mill, at that time the largest mill in the world. Covering almost 30 acres, it was nearly a third of a mile long. It opened in 1906.

By 1911, as Lewis Hine documented, 15-year-old Wilfred was among thousands of workers, mostly women and children, on the front lines of the textile industry. History tells us that he probably had already been toiling there for three or four years, subjected, for 10 or 12 hours a day, to the deafening noise of machines and the lint-filled air that passed through his lungs. Four months after he posed for this picture, he was caught up in the Bread & Roses Strike. It seldom occurs to most Americans who grew up in the last half of the 20th century that for Wilfred, his tumultuous life was pretty routine for most immigrant families 100 years ago.

In 1892, Wilfred’s parents, Quebec natives Alfred Valliere and Georgiana Leclerc, married in Somersworth, New Hampshire. He was 23 and she was 18. Alfred was a loom fixer, most likely at the Great Falls Manufacturing Company, a large complex of mills along the Salmon Falls River. Wilfred was born in Somersworth on July 8, 1896, one of at least 12 children. The family moved to Lawrence in 1905, and Alfred continued to work as a loom fixer. They lived in a rented three-decker house at 79 Margin Street. His mother died in childbirth in 1915. The child, Clarence, survived, and died on January 6, 2012, at the age of 96.

Wilfred married Bertha Beauchesne in 1916. They lived at 170 Salem Street in Lawrence, a multi-family house that was built in 1888, according to city records. Wilfred worked at the Witherell & Dobbins shoe factory in Haverhill. By 1920, they had moved to 172 Bailey Street, where Lionel, the first of five children, was born. Shortly after, they moved to 114 Farnham Street, where Wilfred ran a soda bottling business and small grocery store.

That’s where son, Wilfred Jr., was born. I located him after I obtained his father’s obituary. His father, then a resident of Salem, New Hampshire, passed away on April 21, 1978. He was 81 years old. When he stared at Lewis Hine’s camera, he never would have dreamed that, 100 years later, the Wood Mill would become the home of over 200 apartments called Monarch Lofts.

The following are excerpts from my interview with son Wilfred Valliere Jr.:

“I was born on October 24, 1923. My parents were living at 114 Farnham Street, in South Lawrence. My mother’s name was Bertha Beauchesne. My father owned a bottling plant in Lawrence. It bottled Orange Crush. I’ve got a bottle of it in my refrigerator right now, though the current vintage is not as good. Before that, he worked in the shoe mills in Lawrence. When I was about six or seven years old, my father placed an advertisement for the bottling plant in the Lawrence business book, and he put my picture in the ad.”

“The bottling plant was on the ground floor of a three-decker house. It was in the back, and we had a small grocery store in the front. We lived on the second floor, and then we had a third floor that we called the attic. My grandfather lived with us for a while. He was a great baker. He made all the bread for the family, and he also worked in the bottling plant. My mother ran the store. About 1930, the landlord wanted the property, so we had to move. So my father couldn’t keep his bottling business. We moved to Methuen and bought a house at 31 Perley Street. He went back to work for a shoe mill, and then wound up being a distributor for several bottling companies and for the Wise Potato Chip company.”

“I didn’t know that my father worked in the mills when he was young, until I saw the photograph. I wish I had known that way back, so I could have talked to him about it, and about the Bread & Roses Strike. His mother died in childbirth when he was still young (1915). I don’t think that he graduated from high school, but he was a very smart man. He took some courses in night school. He and my mother did the books for the company, so he was good with numbers.”

“I went as far as my junior year. When I was 16, I got a job in a clothing store in Lawrence. I worked for various businesses. In 1963, I started a wholesale hosiery business and did that for thirty years. I lived most of my adult life in Springfield, Mass.” “In their later years, my parents sold the house at 31 Perley Street to a family member and bought a small mobile home in Salem, New Hampshire. My father died of congestive heart failure. In my view, he was a great man.”

More at: https://lawrencehistory.org/lhcexhibits/lewishine/valliere

08/23/2026

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT for all using AI to create flyers: This is the Lawrence, MA skyline. The Ayer Mill Clock in the background; Bell Tower at 60 Island Street in the foreground.

Note: Lowell City Hall is in Lowell, MA; Big Ben is in London, UK... not Lawrence, MA 🤣🤣🤣

Happy Sunday!

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The Ayer Mill Clock Tower as seen from the Stone Mill, taken back in 2021 (Photo by Robert Lussier)

08/23/2026

We love this photograph taken in the 1990s by Tom Delisle at the Feast of the Three Saints in Lawrence, MA. Can you tell us who is pictured (left to right, first and last names)?

UPDATE (L - R): Marina Santos, Eda Concepcion (now Ramos), Carmen Claudio, Ramonita "Monin" Santiago, ?, Isa Maria Flores

08/23/2026

Today marks one year of missing our dear friend and colleague Kathy Flynn (Apr 8, 1946 — Aug 23, 2025).

Shortly after Kathy passed, the LHC Board of Directors named her Researcher Emerita and established the Kathleen S. Flynn Research Fellowship in her honor.

The inaugural fellowship has been awarded to LHC volunteers Marie Boyd and Betsy Brien.

Please join us on Saturday, September 26, 2026 at our Annual Meeting at which they will present:

“A Look Inside the Essex County Jail Records (1854-1970s)”

Built in 1853, the Essex County Jail in Lawrence, Massachusetts, operated for more than a century before closing in the 1980s and being demolished in the late 1990s. In 1997, records dating from 1854 through the 1970s were rescued from destruction and transferred to the Lawrence History Center, where they have since been preserved and organized. In this lecture, Kathleen S. Flynn Research Fellows Marie Boyd and Betsy Brien explore the daily life and operations of the jail through prisoner records, ledgers, annual reports, financial documents, library records, and other archival materials.

*** Presentation will include rare footage from inside the jail before it was razed! ***

Footage digitization funded, in part, by the Lawrence Cultural Council, the Catherine McCarthy Memorial Trust Fund, the Charles G. Pringle Foundation, and The White Fund.

In tandem with Essex National Heritage Area Trails & Sails Weekends.

More at https://www.facebook.com/share/1PS8qreLJo/

08/23/2026

Joe Manning caption: Michael Devine (standing directly underneath the outstretched hand of boy who is making a clownish face), 14 years old, Lawrence, Massachusetts, September 1911

THE LEWIS HINE PROJECT: STORIES OF THE LAWRENCE CHILDREN
By Joe Manning (https://tinyurl.com/47zxux3e)

WE CONTINUE WITH MICHAEL DEVINE (1896—1974):

Lewis Hine took many photographs like this one. Since he used a 5 x 7 view camera with a very slow shutter speed, he had to make his best effort to get the children to stand still; otherwise, those who moved would appear blurry. He wasn’t able to get into the Lawrence mills, so he caught the children on their lunch break, or as they reported for work or left to go home.

Hine was exposing child labor because he strongly disagreed with it, but he wanted to show that his subjects were real people, not just poster kids to be pitied. He didn’t want us to forget that even though they worked very long hours, and working conditions were often brutal and dangerous, they had another life when they went home. Though that life was surely a struggle by today’s standards, many of these children nevertheless had stable and loving families, went to church regularly, and played with friends.

In 1911, Lawrence was populated with immigrants from about 100 nationalities, predominantly Irish, Italian, Eastern European, and French Canadian. In this picture, Hine gave us the names of 13 of the children. With a bit of research, I was able to establish the correct spelling of each of those names. Gopen (Gopoian) was Armenian; Stonge (St. Onge) and Davois were French Canadian; Black and Greenfield were Russian Jews; Gangi and Quatirtto (Quarterone) were Italian; and Michael Devine was Irish. They worked in the same mills and lived in the same general neighborhood. Four months later, when the Bread & Roses Strike broke out, workers marched and sang together despite their cultural differences.

Though Hine gave us the names (and addresses), he didn’t point out who was who, giving me the daunting task of trying to figure that out myself. In the case of Michael Devine, I got lucky. I found a niece, Monica Sharpe, who recognized him immediately.

Michael Francis Devine was born in Lawrence on November 28, 1896, and died on September 23, 1974, at the age of 77. Ms. Sharpe was very fond of him. Instead of doing an interview, she sent me a detailed and affectionate summary of his life.

“My name is Monica Sharpe. I am the niece of Michael Devine. I am also his Goddaughter. Michael’s father Patrick was born in County Mayo, Ireland in 1871, and came to the USA in 1893. He worked as a laborer on the railroad in the late 1800s, and as a fireman in the mills in the 1900s. He died in 1945. Mary Donnelly Devine (Michael’s mother) was born in County Cork, Ireland in October of 1872, and came to the USA in 1891. She died in 1925. They both could read and write English. They had seven children.”

“Michael was the oldest of the seven children. He was born in November (28th) 1896, on Oak Street in Lawrence. His mother’s two brothers, James and Michael, and her cousin Mary Lyons lived with them. Michael attended public school until he had to work in the mills. He later served in WWI and was in the Merchant Marine. When the mills closed, Uncle Mike was 55, so he took a job delivering for a liquor distributor, and later a job as a store clerk in a friend’s package store. He always worked. Until he was 55, Uncle Mike and (his brother) Uncle Jim lived together as bachelors. When I was 10, they moved in with my family at 5 Garfield Street in Lawrence. In December of 1955, my sister Mary died, and a year later we moved to Philips Street where Uncle Mike lived with us until he died of heart failure at the age of 77.”

“He was a quiet, gentle man who always doffed his hat when passing a Catholic Church. He frequented Fenway Park where he enjoyed the Red Sox. He played a local card game called 45s, and liked 500 Rummy. He enjoyed his friends, reading the daily news, and his great-nieces and nephews. He always had a candy “stash” and some loose change for them. He taught us all how to drive. He’d take us in to the 4:00 a.m. Sunday Mass at the Boston Arch Street Shrine after a night of cards with friends. We often went to Charlestown (Mass) or Brooklyn (NY) to visit cousins. Radio City Music Hall, the Christmas windows, Boston Common at Christmas, the Swan Boats, and Montreal, were delights we never would have had as children without Uncle Mike.”

More at: https://lawrencehistory.org/lhcexhibits/lewishine/devine