"The history of textiles is fundamentally a story about international commerce in goods and ideas. It is therefore a story about exploitation as well as exchange, social disruption as well as entrepreneurship, violence as well as aesthetics. --Laurel Thatcher Ulrich The Fall of the Pemberton Mill A true story from America's history of exploitation, social disruption, and violence When the Pemberton Mill collapsed in 1860 in Lawrence, MA, nearly a hundred workers were killed--crushed or burned alive. Three hundred were injured. Most of the casualties were immigrant women and children, many from Ireland. Who was responsible? An inquest jury pointed to the architect-engineer charged with supervising the construction. But there were also his assistant, who was the boss on site, and the principal owner's brother-in-law, whose decision to save a few dollars led to the use of defective support pillars. And then there was one of the five brothers for whom the young city had been named. He embezzled 80 million in 21st century dollars. None of these men was ever to stand trial. There were no protests from Pemberton Mill employees. The deaths of these "machine servants" were of no immediate consequence. America's Industrial Revolution rolled on.

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