Pawtucket Rhode Island is one of those rare New England mill towns that has been able to successfully weather (at least in part) the vicissitudes of economic change, holding onto an industrial base for more than two centuries, since its origins as an important textile manufacturing center. This is not to say that the city has been immune to the kind of economic downturn experienced by the old mill towns. In the last few years in fact, it has lost some of its economic anchors such as the famous toy manufacturer Hasbro, who had been in Pawtucket for more than 100 years.
Well before European settlers established the Blackstone River Valley as a center of industry and commerce in the late 18th century, the river’s abundant supply of fish supported populous settlements of native Americans that flourished along its banks. By the 1920s, Pawtucket was a prosperous mill town, but the New England Textile Strike of 1922, followed only a few years later by the onset of the Great Depression, would trigger an economic decline from which the town has never fully recovered. Despite this decline however, Pawtucket’s population that peaked above 81,000 people in 1950, is still at above 75,000 as of 2020.
© Gordon Webster
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