A curse on ye, ye millionaires, Who sit at home in your easy chairs,
And crack your nuts and sip your wine, While I wail over this son of mine!
January 10, 1860, is yet another day for the workers in the Pemberton Mill in Lawrence,
Massachusetts. Christmas holidays are gone, and the long working hours are back.
There are more than 600 people inside the mill - men, women, and even children. Entire families are
employed. With 50 cents per day wages, all hands welcome the work to put the food on the table.
For the children of mid-19th century New England, there’s no playtime,
only twelve-hour shifts. We’re in the gloomy ages of the Industrial Revolution, and things
are going to get even darker on this day. Around 5 p.m., the buzzing sound of spindles
and looms is disrupted by a thundering noise coming from the south wing of the building as if
an earthquake was shaking the mill. Before any of the workers inside realises what’s going on, the
floor sinks beneath their feet. All of a sudden, the entire building collapses on their heads.
The crumbling lasts for a few seconds before silence prevails under the pile of bricks,
timber, and iron. Only here and there, a cry for help breaks through. Hundreds of workers
are buried underneath what just moments ago was a busy mill. To their misfortune,
it was only the beginning of the worst industrial disaster in the history of the United States.
Pemberton Mill was just one of many mills in the industrial area of the small town of
Lawrence near Boston, Massachusetts. In six buildings, there were more than 900
workers employed. Most of them were Irish immigrants working for the lowest wages.
In the ownership of respectable industrialists George Howe and David Nevin Sr., the Mill earned
an enormous profit, primarily because of low wages and the extensive work output. There were 2,700
spindles, and 700 looms housed inside the main building which was constructed only 17 years ago,
but many considered such a large amount of machinery too heavy. And indeed it was.
That fateful day, workers were making a machine rearrangement on one of the
floors. Nothing unusual, as spindles and looms were constantly arriving. The rest of the mill
was busy as usual. But, again, nothing implied a tragedy was about to happen.
Then, at 4:43 p.m., out of nowhere, the floor at the fourth level at the southern corner
of the building gave in. Under the heavy load of the machinery, the entire floor collapsed.
Tons of iron fell, causing one after another floor to collapse.
Like a house of cards, the 280-foot-long (85 meter) and 84-feet-wide(26 meter) building
tumbled down. The collapse lasted just a couple of seconds. A passerby recalled walking by the
mill and admiring its grandeur. After he passed barely thirty yards, he heard a loud crash,
turned back, and saw just a mass of ruins on the spot where the building used to be.
Inside, workers had no idea what struck them. The entire mill construction with
tons of machinery fell upon their heads. The chances of surviving the collapse were minimal.
Yet, moments after the dust settled, people started coming out of the wreck. Many of
them were injured, their limbs broken, and their faces covered in blood. Miraculously,
some of them were intact. A boy, covered in dust, emerged from beneath the pile of timber without
a scratch. He calmly walked out on the street, lit his pipe, and strolled away from the scene.
The deadly silence that followed the collapse was interrupted by frantic cries. Unfortunately,
many more workers trapped by the building remnants and machinery could not get out on
their own. Nobody knew how many people were buried underneath it; each second was essential to them.
Workers from the nearby buildings rushed to the rescue, helped by those who survived the collapse
with bruises only. The alarm was sounded and raised the attention of the entire town. Citizens
of the peaceful Lawrence never experienced any calamity, let alone a disaster of such
a scale. Nevertheless, they all rushed to help. In perfect discipline, rescuers removed barrier
after barrier working their way into the inner part of the ruins. Cries for help and groans of
the dying pushed them to work beyond their power. It was only thanks to their superhuman effort that
a good deal of those trapped avoided certain death. Scores of them, however, ended up with
severe injuries. Unfortunately, some workers couldn’t be rescued. A heavy load pressed their
bodies, and their death was unavoidable. One of whom was a girl named Mary Bannon. Realising she
was about to die, she asked a friend to pass her paycheck on to her dad and say goodbye for her.
There were a lot more dead bodies pulled up. As the rescuers kept clearing the debris,
the probability of finding more survivors was lower. It didn’t stop them, though. As long
there was the slightest chance of saving a living soul, they were ready to dig.
The effort to save as many lives as possible lasted for four hours.
Every moment, a new survivor was dug out, or a body was recovered. Those recognised by their
friends or family were taken home, regardless of their injuries. Others were taken to the City
Hall. Then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, at 9:30 p.m., a whole new tragedy struck the site.
--------------------------- A diligent effort of a small army of rescuers
was suddenly interrupted by a loud cry: “Fire!”. While clearing the ruins, someone accidentally
knocked over an oil lantern and ignited the cotton waste and wood splinters. Inside the
wreckage were tons of cotton waste and timber soaked with oil dripping from broken machines.
The fire spread like rapidly before the eyes of surprised and helpless rescuers. The agonizing
cry of despair of those trapped beneath the ruins grew louder, mixed with the screams of horrors of
those who witnessed this terrifying scene. Racing with the raging fire, brave rescuers
kept dragging out people. Unfortunately, it was a futile effort as the fire was
swallowing the ruins at an unimaginable speed. Among the trapped when the fire broke out was
an overseer Maurice Palmer, urging his friends to save him before the fire reached him. Alas,
as the fire was sweeping around with the rescuers unable to dig him out, Maurice Palmer decided to
prevent the horrible death in flames. He managed to release one of his hands, drew his knife and
slid it across his throat. In a cruel twist of fate, Maurice’s friends succeeded in rescuing
him from the wreck before the fire reached them, but the poor fellow died of his wounds.
The Lawrence Fire Brigade was quick to arrive at the scene. Eleven streams connected to hydrants
at the nearby Washington mill were trying to extinguish the blaze. Late after the fire
broke out, a steam fire engine from Manchester arrived to help. Throughout the whole night,
the firefighters fought the flames while rescuers tried to dig out the few who could yet be saved.
It was all in vain, though. The mass of cotton waste, timber and oil made the
fire uncontrollable. Crys faded one by one in the darkness and engulfing flames. The
dawn revealed the scene of desolation and death. Nevertheless, the firefighters and
rescuers were still persistent in recovering at least the remains of their fellow citizens.
The last of the ruins had been examined on January 20, ten days after the collapse. All bodies,
except those completely burned, were recovered. While some were found in nearly perfect condition,
others were horribly disfigured or mutilated. All the time, at the scene, were family members of the
killed, waiting for the bodies of their beloved ones to be taken out from the ruins. However,
the disaster attracted many visitors from other towns and cities who poured into town for several
days to witness the tragedy. Bizarrely, they were collecting relics from the scene of the disaster.
A contemporary report records, “a gentleman from St. Louis was procuring a large bundle,
taking not only burned fragments of clothing found upon the victims, spindles and yarn from the
general mass of ruins, but even a part of a brick, and the mortar which came from its surface.”
Out of estimated 670 workers inside the mill, 307 escaped unhurt, 159 were slightly injured, and 116
were severely wounded. Eighty-eight workers lost their lives in the collapse and the ensuing fire.
It is believed that the final death toll was higher, reaching 145 dead workers since many
severely injured had succumbed to their wounds at home. The tragedy deeply shocked the citizens of
the small town of Lawrence. The working community, however, had their grief mixed up with the feeling
of anger. The working conditions in Pemberton Mill, as well as in others, were inhumane.
They knew very well what the inquiry was yet to discover. The building was destined to collapse.
A jury in charge of the official inquiry into the disaster summoned many witnesses,
including mill workers, overseers, and people engaged in building the mill. The latter testified
that they complained to the architect that walls were insufficient for a building of such size.
The bricks were laid using low-quality mortar, the walls were not thick enough,
and they had large windows that further weakened the entire construction.
On the east side of the building, there were no towers or projections to support the construction,
even though it was a general custom. The lack of these caused the building to incline that way,
falling about 85 feet (26 meters) toward the east. The inquiry further discovered that the
hollow-cast iron pillars which supported the flooring and timbers had casting defects.
So unstable was the building that workers claimed it rocked and swayed when all the
machines were operating, especially when the looms happened to be synchronized.
When chief engineer Charles H. Bigelow was summoned by the jury to explain why the mill
was built using low-quality materials, he blamed the owners, whom he claimed
to be responsible for buying and approving the material, including the iron castings.
When the mill was built in 1853, it belonged to different owners - John A. Lowell and his
brother-in-law J. Pickering Putnam. The two financed the building of a mill at the cost
of $850,000. At the time, it was an actual fortune, and the two financiers did their
best to finish the building as soon as possible and cut the expenses wherever
they could. The result was weak construction, yet sufficient to meet the demands of the business.
However, in 1857, Lowell and Putnam sold the mill to George Howe and David Nevins, Sr.,
wealthy New England merchants, industrialists, and investors. Eager to boost the mill's profit,
the new owners brought more machines. At the time of the disaster, there were 2,700 spindles,
and 700 looms in operationl. It was a heavy load for a building of such weak construction. Yet,
it brought its owners an annual profit of $1,500,000. It was a good bargain for the
risk of having a building collapse. On the day of the disaster,
the south end of the fourth story simply gave in under a load of machinery and
pulled down the entire building structure. However, the inquiry found no one to be
guilty. Neither the investors who used low-quality materials to build the building, the architect in
charge of building the mill, nor even the owners who overloaded it with heavy machinery. Such
was the America of the Industrial Revolution era. One of the owners, David Nevins Senior,
bought out his partner and built a new mill at the site. The business went on as usual.
On the other hand, the disaster did call for more rigid rules for the construction
of industrial facilities. It also stirred the workers’ consciousness about the importance of
safety standards in industrial workplaces. The Pemberton Mill Disaster warned them
that the greed of wealthy industrialists went far beyond their health, wealth and even their lives.
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