Historic Preservation, July-September, 1975



Historic Preservation, July-September, 1975

Amoskeag

Millyard

Remembered

Randolph Langenbach

When they hear the term industrial archaeology most people conjure up images of pick-and-shovel digging in the woods for bits of evidence of a fledgling technology. It seems strange, therefore, to apply it to something so massive, so recent and, technologically, so sophisticated as that which only So years ago was the world's largest textile plant, but such is the case with the Amoskeag Millyard in Manchester, N. H.

The Amoskeag Manufacturing Company began building its mills and laying out the new town of Manchester, N. H., in 1838. Manchester began as one of a constellation of similarly planned towns, but as its founding corporation grew in size, it gained distinction for the design of the Millyard and corporation-owned workers' housing. Because all development was controlled by a single corporation, the Millyard was planned in a far more orderly fashion than was the first and most famous of the group of cities, Lowell, where many separate corporations existed, all responsible for their own planning. Moreover, the corporation showed a level of taste and concern for the quality of the environment in its plans for the Millyard and the city which, beginning during the early days when paternalism was often necessary to attract enough workers to the city, continued in Manchester as a tradition long after the arrival of the immigrant workers had made it unnecessary and after planning had degenerated in most of the other New England textile towns into short-term solutions based merely on expediency.

The Amoskeag Millyard consisted until 1968 of several parallel rows of mills and related structures bordering on two canals which flowed in a gentle S curve for more than a mile before spilling back into the river. The canals did more than provide power. They were landscaped by the corporation to provide a tree-lined border between the workers' housing and the large mills. The long row of mills was highlighted with a series of individually designed bell towers. The entire complex which was compared in 1902 by one British visitor to the "ancient colleges" of Oxford and Cambridge, achieved an extraordinary unity of design, from the layout of the complex down to the smallest detail.

Now too old to be regarded by most people as a viable part of a modern city, but not yet old enough to be considered antique, the Amoskeag Millyard has existed since the liquidating of the corporation in 1936 in a kind of limbo, unknown outside the area and unwanted by present-day Manchester. Beginning in 1968, the wave of demolition under an urban renewal project has stripped the Millyard of its canals, several of its largest and oldest mills and all of the canal buildings-the long, curved structures most responsible for tying the mass of buildings together into a unified urban design. The architectural distinction of the remaining mills and boarding houses and the belated controversy over the urban renewal project have been partly responsible for the isolated, but important, rehabilitation of a mill tower and several blocks of housing. But the unity of design in the Millyard as a whole has been destroyed.

The importance of the Millyard design comes not from the creative effort of any one person, but rather from the unusual care and design competence exercised by a series of corporation planners and leaders throughout a period spanning several generations. In other words, the distinction of the Millyard design lies in craftsmanship rather than in art. The corporation plan ners exercised unusual care in each design decision, not only for how something would work but also for how it would look. This occurred in a company which showed a hard-nosed approach in most of its other business policies consistent with its almost century-long prosperity.

The most important difference between the original design of the Amoskeag Millyard and the current urban renewal plan for the site is that the renewal plan is not founded on any respect or love for the urban environment. To believe, as the economic consultants for urban renewal did, that "the Millyard will never be an asset from an aesthetic point of view" is to deny any chance of making positive use of the existing historical fabric.

In its original form, the central, and oldest, part of the Millyard would have made an ideal campus for the new branch of the University of New Hampshire. Not only was this possibility eliminated by the demolition, but the space in the canal build ings, which had already provided a site for the birth of a good number of healthy new businesses, was destroyed.

Justification for the urban renewal plan has been based on the belief that the former employees of the Amoskeag Company would like to see this symbol of their past hard life expunged from the city. However, interviews have revealed quite the opposite. Industrial laborers are no more likely to see their own backgrounds as having been degraded than are any other societal groups. Identification of the mills with a degrading existence just does not fit their perception of their own past, irrespective of any particular hardship.

Although much has been lost in Manchester already, the issues raised in the controversy over the urban renewal plan are still very much alive. All over New England, 19th-century mills are becoming recognized as potentially valuable resources for vital new projects of many different types. In North Adams, Mass., for example, the tradition of machine-oriented craftsmanship is being revitalized in a creative project reutilizing an old textile printworks. In Boston, the mammoth former Chickering Piano factory has been converted into apartment-studios for artists and craftsmen. Without the stimulus provided by the character of the buildings, these and other similar projects probably would have never been possible.

In Manchester itself, interest in the industrial past is increasing. A large restaurant has opened in a former cotton warehouse and people are beginning to appreciate what remains of the Millyard. This is important as the remaining mills and workers' houses still constitute one of the outstanding early industrial complexes in New England.

This fall, the results of my six-year historical and archaeological study of the Millyard will be presented in an exhibition to be shown first at the Currier Gallery of Art in Manchester, N.H. (from September 19 to November 10). The exhibit will feature not only photographs taken before the demolition and historical documentary material, but also artifacts salvaged from the mills during their demolition. Included will be doors, windows, gates, architectural hardware and a two-story cast-iron staircase. Almost all of this material was designed and fabricated in the Millyard itself (the company had its own foundry and did all of its own contracting).

The exhibition, which will coincide with the National Trust annual meeting in Boston, should help to restore some of the pride Manchester should have for its past by showing the importance of the Millyard's design and history, and also should stimulate preservation and pride in other cities with valuable industrial heritage.

Randolph Langenbach is a designer and architectural photographer living in Cambridge, Mass. His project of studying and photographing 19th-century factories has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In addition to the exhibition, a book is in preparation.

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