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| Arthur Chalifoux |
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| Idas Joseph Crepeau |
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| Joseph Allard |
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| Josephat Adams |
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| Albert Duquette |
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| Richard Fitzgerald |
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To see all nine Eclipse Mill photos on the Library
of Congress website, click the link below and enter NORTH ADAMS in the search box.
Library of Congress website
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Lewis Hine visited the Eclipse Mill in North Adams, and several
cotton mills in neighboring Adams in the last week of August, 1911. He had just traveled down from Eastport, Maine, after
spending a week investigating child labor in the fish canneries. Immediately after leaving North Adams, he headed to Winchendon,
Massachusetts. Many of my stories on this website are about the Eastport and Winchendon children. Hine named six of the children
altogether in the nine photos he took in North Adams, and I have managed to track down stories for each of them.
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| Eclipse Mill, circa 1910, source of photo unknown. CLICK TO ENLARGE |
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| Eclipse Mill, circa 1910, source of photo unknown. CLICK TO ENLARGE. |
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The Eclipse Mill was the home of
many industries. Among the most notable were the Hoosac Cotton Mill, in the early 1900s; X-Tyal Corporation, Hunter Outdoor
Products, and finally Sprague Electric Company, from the 1950s to the 1980s; and the Delftree Corporation, which was a major
grower and supplier of shittake mushrooms for nearly 25 years, before scaling back its operations in 2004. They occupied the
building with the sawtooth roof on the south side of the street. That building, built in 1902, is now the home of NOAMA, a
developing complex of art spaces and other ventures. The building on the north side, built in the middle 1800s, is now condominiums
and loft space for artists. At one time, there were two prominent elevated walkways above Union Street (Rt. 2) connecting
the two buildings. The last one was torn down in 1985.
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| Demolition of elevated walkway, 1985. Photo courtesy of North Adams Transcript. CLICK TO ENLARGE. |
The north building sits along the Hoosic River, just below
a large dam that generated water power for the mill. Until flood chutes were built in the 1950s, the river was the cause of
several destructive floods in the 20th century, badly damaging many of the houses on Front Street, just across
the river from the mill. In the late 1800s and early-to-middle 1900s, the neighborhood surrounding the mill was populated
mostly by French-Canadian immigrants. They remain the most represented nationality in the city.
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| Eclipse Mill and flood chute as seen from above the dam, 2002. CLICK TO ENLARGE. |
On the 100th anniversary
of Lewis Hine's visit to the Eclipse Mill, the Ralph Brill Gallery at the former mill (now artists' lofts) opened an exhibit
about life in the early 1900s for child mill workers at the Eclipse. The exhibit, called "The Mill Children," has
partnered with an ambitious Community Service Learning program at area public schools. I am proud to be a contributor to this
exhibit. More information can be seen at the two links immediately below, including poems by North Adams
ninth-grade students about the lives of "The Mill Children."
The Mill Children exhibit
The Mill Children poems
More information about North Adams, including many photos of the city
Back to Index Of Stories
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