Lowell

Lowell, Abbott Lawrence, 1856-1943, American educator, president of Harvard (1909-33), b. Boston, grad. Harvard (B.A., 1877; LL.B., 1880); brother of Percival Lowell and Amy Lowell. He practiced law in Boston for 17 years and joined the Harvard faculty in 1897 as a lecturer in political science, becoming a professor in 1900. In 1909 he succeeded Charles W. Eliot as president. As Eliot had developed the graduate schools of Harvard, Lowell turned his attention to the undergraduate college. To combat specialization, he introduced (1914) a modification of the elective system, established (1917) the requirement of a general examination in their major subject for candidates for the bachelor's degree, and instituted (1917) the tutorial system for upper classmen. He also put into operation (1931), in seven new residence halls along the Charles River, his "house plan," whereby, through residential units like those in English universities, he hoped to secure the advantages of intellectual and social cohesion. Lowell is remembered for his spirited defense of academic freedom and for his advocacy of American participation in the League of Nations. His presidency saw a period of tremendous physical growth at Harvard and the reorganization of the finances of the university. His writings include Essays on Government (new ed. 1969), Public Opinion and Popular Government (1913, repr. 1969), Conflicts of Principle (1932), Biography of Percival Lowell (1935), and What a University President Has Learned (1938, repr. 1969).

Lowell, Amy, 1874-1925, American poet, biographer, and critic, b. Brookline, Mass., privately educated; sister of Percival Lowell and Abbott Lawrence Lowell. In 1912 she published A Dome of Many-Colored Glass, a volume of conventional verse. The next year she went to England, where she met Ezra Pound and became identified with the imagists. After Pound abandoned the group, she became its leader and champion, publishing a three-volume anthology entitled Some Imagist Poets (1915, 1916, 1917). Lowell's own poetry is particularly notable for its rendering of sensuous images. Her experiments with polyphonic prose, a free-verse form that combines prose and poetry, are considered unsuccessful. Among her volumes of poetry are Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914), Men, Women, and Ghosts (1916), Can Grande's Castle (1918), What's o'Clock (1925; Pulitzer Prize), East Wind (1926), and Ballads for Sale (1927). Her best-known poems are "Patterns" and "Lilacs." Lowell's perceptive and dynamic criticism includes Six French Poets (1915) and Tendencies in Modern American Poetry (1917). Her most ambitious work is her two-volume biography of Keats (1925).

Lowell, Francis Cabot, 1775-1817, pioneer American cotton manufacturer, b. Newburyport, Mass.; son of John Lowell (1743-1802). A merchant in Boston, he traveled (1810) to England, where he studied closely the new machinery used in the textile industry of Lancashire. Upon his return, with the aid of Paul Moody, he designed and constructed the first power loom in America, which had important improvements over its English prototypes. With Patrick T. Jackson (his brother-in-law), Nathan Appleton, and others, he formed the Boston Manufacturing Company and at Waltham, Mass., built the first factory in America to perform all the operations involved in converting raw cotton into cloth. He succeeded in having a duty on cotton incorporated into the tariff law of 1816. Lowell, Mass., founded after his death, was named for him.

Lowell, James Russell, 1819-91, American poet, critic, and editor, b. Cambridge, Mass. He was influential in revitalizing the intellectual life of New England in the mid-19th cent. Educated at Harvard (B.A., 1838; LL.B., 1840), he abandoned law for literature. In 1843 he started a literary magazine, the Pioneer, which failed after two issues. The next year Lowell married Maria White, an ardent abolitionist and liberal, who encouraged him in his work. Lowell's Poems (1844, 1846), A Fable for Critics (1848), The Vision of Sir Launfal (1848), and The Bigelow Papers (1848; 2d series, 1867) brought him considerable notice as a poet and critic. The best remembered of these are The Bigelow Papers, political and social lampoons written in Yankee dialect, which established his reputation as a satirist and a wit. The first of these two series of verses expressed opposition to the Mexican War, and the second supported the cause of the North in the Civil War. In 1855, Lowell became professor of modern languages at Harvard, a position he held until 1876. In addition to teaching, he served as first editor (1857-61) of the Atlantic Monthly and later (1864-72) of the North American Review. In his later writings he turned to scholarship and criticism. Collections of his essays and literary studies appeared as Fireside Travels (1864), Among My Books (1870; 2d series, 1876), and My Study Windows (1871). In 1877 he was appointed minister to London, where he remained until 1885. While abroad Lowell did much to increase the respect of foreigners for American letters and American institutions; his speeches in England, published as Democracy and Other Addresses (1887), are among his best work. Lowell's letters (ed. by C. E. Norton, 2 vol., 1893) and New Letters (ed. by M. A. De Wolfe Howe, 1932) remain valuable for their shrewd and lively comments on public affairs and the literary activities of his generation.

Lowell, John, 1743-1802, American jurist, b. Newburyport, Mass. He became (1762) a lawyer and later served in the provincial assembly (1776, 1778), in the state constitutional convention (1779-80), and in the Continental Congress (1782-83). Lowell was a member (1784) of the commission that settled the New York-Massachusetts boundary dispute, and after 1789 he held several major judicial posts. He was a founder of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was the father of Francis Cabot Lowell and John Lowell (1769-1840).

Lowell, John, 1769-1840, American political writer, b. Newburyport, Mass.; son of John Lowell (1743-1802). He practiced law, but devoted most of his time to supporting his Federalist views in newspapers and pamphlets. Mr. Madison's War (1812) was his most effective piece of writing.

Lowell, Percival, 1855-1916, American astronomer, b. Boston, grad. Harvard, 1876; brother of Abbott Lawrence Lowell and Amy Lowell. He visited Korea and Japan, where he acted as counselor and foreign secretary to the Korean Special Mission to the United States and wrote several books about East Asia. Becoming interested in astronomy, he established (1894) the Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff, Ariz., and devoted himself to making personal observations. It was his belief that Mars was inhabited and that the striations on the Martian surface were artificial waterways. He also contended that there was a planet beyond Neptune (seemingly confirmed in 1930 by the discovery of Pluto, but Pluto is now regarded as a dwarf planet). From 1902 he was nonresident professor of astronomy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Among his many writings on astronomy are Mars and Its Canals (1906) and The Genesis of Planets (1916).

Lowell, Robert (Robert Traill Spence Lowell 4th), 1917-77, American poet and translator, widely considered the preeminent poet of the mid-20th cent., b. Boston, grad. Kenyon College (B.A., 1940). A grandnephew of James Russell Lowell, in 1940 he converted to Roman Catholicism and married the writer Jean Stafford. During World War II he served a jail sentence as a conscientious objector. He taught at Boston Univ. and at Harvard. His second wife (1949-72) was the novelist and critic Elizabeth Hardwick.

Lowell's poetry is individualistic and intense, rich in symbolism and marked by great technical skill. His later work indicates a philosophic acceptance of life and the world. His Life Studies (1959) is a frank and highly autobiographical volume in verse and prose, one of the first and most influential works of what is widely called "confessional" poetry. Lowell often used his life as raw material for his verse, writing, for instance, of his family, his relationships with his wives, and his frequent bouts of depression and madness. Among his other poetry collections are Lord Weary's Castle (1946; Pulitzer Prize), For the Union Dead (1964), Near the Ocean (1967), Notebook: Nineteen Sixty-Seven to Nineteen Sixty-Eight (1969), The Dolphin (1973; Pulitzer Prize), Day by Day (1977), and Last Poems (1977). His translations include Racine's Phèdre (1969), Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound (1969), and miscellaneous European verse, collected as Imitations (1961). His dramatic adaptation of Melville's story "Benito Cereno" is part of Lowell's trilogy of plays, The Old Glory (1968).

Lowell, city (1990 pop. 103,439), a seat of Middlesex co., NE Mass., at the confluence of the Merrimack and Concord rivers; settled 1653, set off from Chelmsford 1826, inc. as a city 1836. High-technology computer industries have developed there; other manufactures include electronic and electrical equipment, textiles, rubber products, chemicals, machine parts, foodstuffs, shoes, and plastics. The city grew after textile mills were built at Pawtucket Falls, and it became one of the major textile centers of the country. The Boott Cotton Mills Museum, several "mill girl" boardinghouses, and the town's historic canal system are preserved in the Lowell National Historical Park, which also traces 19th-century industrial development (see National Parks and Monuments (table)); the American Textile History Museum is adjacent. A campus of the Univ. of Massachusetts is in Lowell. The city has several fine parks, and James Whistler's birthplace is preserved. Charles Dickens visited Lowell in 1842 and described it in American Notes.

Mason, Lowell, 1792-1872, American composer and music educator, b. Medfield, Mass. While working as a bank clerk in Savannah, Ga., he helped compile an anthology that was published as The Boston Handel and Haydn Society's Collection of Church Music (1822). He went to Boston to direct the music in three churches, added music to the curriculum of Boston public schools, and, with George J. Webb, founded (1832) the Boston Academy of Music, where he introduced the principles of Pestalozzi in the teaching of music. He arranged many hymns and composed 1,210 of his own, including "Nearer, My God, to Thee," "My Faith Looks Up to Thee," and "From Greenland's Icy Mountains."

Lowell Mason had four sons, all active musically. The two eldest, Daniel Gregory and Lowell, formed a publishing company in New York City. Lowell, the third son, Henry, and Emmons Hamlin founded Mason & Hamlin, a firm that first made organs and later made pianos. The youngest son, William Mason, 1829-1908, b. Boston, was a distinguished concert pianist and teacher. He studied in Europe with Liszt and others. With Theodore Thomas he organized a chamber-music ensemble that did much to interest Americans in chamber music. He wrote Memories of a Musical Life (1901).

The son of Henry Mason, Daniel Gregory Mason, 1873-1953, b. Brookline, Mass., was important as a composer, writer, and lecturer. He studied with John K. Paine at Harvard and with D'Indy in Paris. In 1905 he joined the faculty of Columbia, where he was professor of music from 1929 to 1940. His writings include Music in My Time (1938) and The Quartets of Beethoven (1947). Among his compositions are the festival overture Chanticleer (1928); three symphonies, of which the third, known as Lincoln Symphony (1936), is outstanding; and chamber music.

(born March 13, 1855, Boston, Mass., U.S.—died Nov. 12, 1916, Flagstaff, Ariz.) U.S. astronomer. He was born into a distinguished Boston family. In the 1890s he built a private observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., to study Mars. He championed the now-abandoned theory that intelligent inhabitants of a dying Mars had constructed a planetwide system of irrigation. He thought that the so-called canals of Mars (see Mars, canals of) were bands of cultivated vegetation dependent on this irrigation. Lowell's theory, long vigorously opposed, was finally put to rest by images received from the U.S. Mariner spacecraft. His prediction of a planet beyond Neptune and his organization of a search for it contributed to the discovery of Pluto in 1930.

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(born March 13, 1855, Boston, Mass., U.S.—died Nov. 12, 1916, Flagstaff, Ariz.) U.S. astronomer. He was born into a distinguished Boston family. In the 1890s he built a private observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., to study Mars. He championed the now-abandoned theory that intelligent inhabitants of a dying Mars had constructed a planetwide system of irrigation. He thought that the so-called canals of Mars (see Mars, canals of) were bands of cultivated vegetation dependent on this irrigation. Lowell's theory, long vigorously opposed, was finally put to rest by images received from the U.S. Mariner spacecraft. His prediction of a planet beyond Neptune and his organization of a search for it contributed to the discovery of Pluto in 1930.

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(born Feb. 22, 1819, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.—died Aug. 12, 1891, Cambridge) U.S. poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He received a law degree from Harvard but chose not to practice. In the 1840s he wrote extensively against slavery, including the Biglow Papers (1848), satirical verses in Yankee dialect. His other most important works are The Vision of Sir Launfal (1848), a long poem on the brotherhood of mankind; and A Fable for Critics (1848), a witty evaluation of contemporary authors. After his wife's death in 1853, he wrote mainly essays on literature, history, and politics. A highly influential man of letters in his day, he taught at Harvard, edited The Atlantic Monthly and The North American Review, and served as minister to Spain and ambassador to Britain.

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(born April 7, 1775, Newburyport, Mass., U.S.—died Aug. 10, 1817, Boston) U.S. businessman. Born into a prominent Massachusetts family, Lowell closely studied the British textile industry while visiting Britain. With Paul Moody he devised an efficient power loom and spinning apparatus. His Boston Manufacturing Co. in Waltham (1812–14) was apparently the world's first mill in which were performed all operations converting raw cotton into finished cloth. His example greatly stimulated the growth of New England industry. Lowell, Mass., is named for him.

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(born Feb. 9, 1874, Brookline, Mass., U.S.—died May 12, 1925, Brookline) U.S. critic and poet. Born into the prominent Lowell family of Boston, she devoted herself to poetry at age 28 but published nothing until 1910. Her first volume, A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass (1912), was succeeded by Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914), which included her first poems in free verse and what she called “polyphonic prose.” She became a leader of Imagism and was noted for her vivid and powerful personality and her scorn of conventional behaviour. Her other works include Six French Poets (1915), Tendencies in Modern American Poetry (1917), and John Keats, 2 vol. (1925).

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City (pop., 2000: 105,167), northeastern Massachusetts, U.S. Settled in 1653 as East Chelmsford, it became a major centre of cotton-textile manufacturing in the 19th century. It was renamed for industrialist Francis Lowell and was incorporated as a town in 1826. In the 20th century it began losing textile manufacturing to southern states, and it diversified into other industries. The Lowell National Historical Park (established 1978) commemorates the first textile mills in the U.S. It is the birthplace of the artist James McNeill Whistler and the seat of the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

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(born Feb. 22, 1819, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.—died Aug. 12, 1891, Cambridge) U.S. poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He received a law degree from Harvard but chose not to practice. In the 1840s he wrote extensively against slavery, including the Biglow Papers (1848), satirical verses in Yankee dialect. His other most important works are The Vision of Sir Launfal (1848), a long poem on the brotherhood of mankind; and A Fable for Critics (1848), a witty evaluation of contemporary authors. After his wife's death in 1853, he wrote mainly essays on literature, history, and politics. A highly influential man of letters in his day, he taught at Harvard, edited The Atlantic Monthly and The North American Review, and served as minister to Spain and ambassador to Britain.

Learn more about Lowell, James Russell with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born April 7, 1775, Newburyport, Mass., U.S.—died Aug. 10, 1817, Boston) U.S. businessman. Born into a prominent Massachusetts family, Lowell closely studied the British textile industry while visiting Britain. With Paul Moody he devised an efficient power loom and spinning apparatus. His Boston Manufacturing Co. in Waltham (1812–14) was apparently the world's first mill in which were performed all operations converting raw cotton into finished cloth. His example greatly stimulated the growth of New England industry. Lowell, Mass., is named for him.

Learn more about Lowell, Francis Cabot with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Feb. 9, 1874, Brookline, Mass., U.S.—died May 12, 1925, Brookline) U.S. critic and poet. Born into the prominent Lowell family of Boston, she devoted herself to poetry at age 28 but published nothing until 1910. Her first volume, A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass (1912), was succeeded by Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914), which included her first poems in free verse and what she called “polyphonic prose.” She became a leader of Imagism and was noted for her vivid and powerful personality and her scorn of conventional behaviour. Her other works include Six French Poets (1915), Tendencies in Modern American Poetry (1917), and John Keats, 2 vol. (1925).

Learn more about Lowell, Amy with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Lowell may refer to:

Places

In the United States:

• Lowell, Arkansas
• Lowell, Florida
• Lowell, Indiana
• Lowell, Bartholomew County, Indiana
• Lowell, Maine
• Lowell, Massachusetts
• Lowell National Historical Park
• Lowell, Michigan
• Lowell, North Carolina
• Lowell, Ohio
• Lowell, Seneca County, Ohio
• Lowell, Oregon
• Lowell, Vermont
• Lowell (town), Wisconsin
• Lowell, Wisconsin, a village within the Town of Lowell
• Lowell Point, Alaska
• Lowell Township, Michigan
• Lowell Township, MinnesotaElsewhere:
• Lowell (lunar crater)

Persons

As a surname

• The Lowell family, a prominent family name in England and America
• Abbott Lawrence Lowell, lawyer, historian, philanthropist, and former President of Harvard University
• Amy Lowell, poet, critic, publisher, and sister of Abbott Lawrence and Percival Lowell
• Andrea Lowell, actress and model
• Augustus Lowell, businessman, philanthropist, and father of Percival, Abbott Lawrence, and Amy Lowell
• Carey Lowell, actress and wife of actor Richard Gere
• Charles Russell Lowell, Sr., Unitarian pastor, son of The Old Judge, father of James Russell, and great-great grandfather of Robert Lowell
• Charles Russell Lowell, Union General and American Civil War hero
• Charlie Lowell, keyboardist for Jars of Clay
• Chris Lowell, actor
• Delmar R. Lowell, pastor, Civil War veteran, and genealogist
• Edward Jackson Lowell, author and father of Guy Lowell
• Francis Cabot Lowell (businessman) (1775–1817), businessman and co-founder of Lowell, Massachusetts
• Francis Cabot Lowell (judge) (1855–1911), U.S. Congressman and Federal Judge
• Guy Lowell, architect and landscape designer
• James Russell Lowell, poet, critic, publisher, abolitionist, Harvard professor, and foreign diplomat
• Joan Lowell, actress and newspaper reporter
• John Lowell, aka The Old Judge, U.S. Federal Judge appointed by President George Washington
• John Lowell, Jr. (lawyer), aka The Boston Rebel, Federalist lawyer and son of The Old Judge
• John Lowell, Jr. (philanthropist), son of Industrialist Francis Cabot Lowell and founder of the Lowell Institute
• John Amory Lowell, businessman and philanthropist
• John Lowell (judge), U.S. Federal judge and son of John Amory Lowell
• Josephine Shaw Lowell, sister of American Civil War hero Robert Gould Shaw, first woman to hold a public office in New York City, and wife of Gen. Charles Russell Lowell
• Maria White Lowell, poet, abolitionist, and wife of James Russell Lowell
• Mike Lowell, baseball player for the Boston Red Sox
• Norman Lowell, founder of the extreme-right Maltese political party, Imperium Europa
• Percival Lowell, author, astronomer, founder of Lowell Observatory, and brother of Amy and Abbott Lawrence Lowell
• Ralph Lowell, businessman, philanthorpist, and founding force behind Boston's WGBH public television
• Robert Lowell, poet and lecturer
• Scott Lowell, actor

As a given name

• Hurricane Lowell, the name given to three tropical cyclones in the Eastern Pacific Ocean
• Sir Cuthbert Lowell Ackroyd, 1st Baronet, of the Ackroyd Baronetcy of Dewsbury and Lord Mayor of London (1955–56)
• Godfrey Lowell Cabot, businessman and philanthropist
• Julian Lowell Coolidge, mathematician
• Abbott Lowell Cummings, noted Yale architectural historian
• Lowell Bergman, investigative reporter and television news magazine producer
• Lowell English, USMC Maj. General
• Lowell Fulson, blues guitarist
• Lowell Ganz, television producer and screenwriter
• Lowell George, songwriter, guitarist and late member of the band Little Feat
• Lowell Lo Koon Ting, songwriter, singer, actor
• Lowell Lewis, Chief Minister of Montserrat
• Richard Lowell Madden, television personality and interior decorator aka Christopher Lowell
• Lowell Mason, gospel composer
• Lowell Palmer, MLB pitcher
• Lowell Perry, NFL player, coach, and sports comentator.
• William Lowell Putnam, banker, lawyer, and philanthropist
• Lowell Smith, pioneer airman
• Lowell Thomas, newsman, radio and newsreel host best known as the man who made Lawrence of Arabia
• Lowell Thomas, Jr., film and television producer, Alaskan Senator, and Alaskan Lt. Governor.
• Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., former US Representative, Senator and Connecticut Governor
• Ava Lowle Willing, Philadelphia socialite and ex-wife of John Jacob Astor IV

As a fictional name

• Christopher Lowell, stagename for Richard Lowell Madden, interior designer and TV host
• Elizabeth Lowell, penname for Ann Maxwell, popular romance writer
• Lowell Mather, character on TV sitcom Wings played by actor Thomas Haden Church

Institutions in the United States

In Arizona

• Lowell Observatory, telescope, FlagstaffIn California
• Lowell High School (Whittier, California), high school, Whittier
• Lowell High School (San Francisco), high school, San FranciscoIn Indiana
• Lowell High School (Lowell, Indiana), high school, Lowell In Massachusetts
• Lowell Institute, educational foundation, Boston
• Lowell Line, train line, Boston
• Lowell House, Harvard undergrad dormitory, Cambridge
• Lowell Devils, hockey team, Lowell
• Lowell High School (Lowell, Massachusetts), high school, Lowell
• Lowell Sun, newspaper, Lowell
• University of Massachusetts Lowell university, LowellIn Michigan
• Lowell High School (Michigan), high school, Lowell In Oregon
• Lowell High School (Lowell, Oregon)