The Mill Girls of New England are an iconic feature of early American industry. More than being a symbol of industrialization, they were the first industrial workforce in the U.S. These working women contributed to the growth of the American industrial economy, challenged the idea that women couldn’t be “breadwinners” and were actively involved in early workers rights movements and trade unions.

Tour length: 45 minute

It is a FREE TOUR which will explore a limited section of our exhibits.

Should you wish to stay and tour the remainder of the Museum, we ask that you please pay our regular admission

Vacation Week: Take Flight!

Join us for a high-flying adventure where history meets modern technology! This hands-on program is designed specifically for young innovators ready to master the skies.

Program Details

• Who: Children Ages 9 and Up

• When: April 24, 2026

• Time: 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM

• Where: Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation

• Activities:

  • Drone Piloting: Learn the basics of flight and take the controls of a drone.

  • Aero-Design: Use engineering principles to design, make, and fly your own custom paper airplanes.

  • Innovation Challenges: Discover how historical industrial breakthroughs paved the way for modern aviation.

Plan Your Visit

• Location: 154 Moody Street, Waltham, MA.

• Parking: Free street parking and nearby paid lots/garages are available.

• Accessibility: The museum features a wheelchair-accessible entrance, parking, and restrooms.

• Admission: General museum admission is $5.00 for children and teens (ages 6-17).

  Charles River Museum +1

Don't just watch history—make it fly!

The Mill Girls of New England are an iconic feature of early American industry. More than being a symbol of industrialization, they were the first industrial workforce in the U.S. These working women contributed to the growth of the American industrial economy, challenged the idea that women couldn’t be “breadwinners” and were actively involved in early workers rights movements and trade unions.

Tour length: 45 minute

It is a FREE TOUR which will explore a limited section of our exhibits.

Should you wish to stay and tour the remainder of the Museum, we ask that you please pay our regular admission

Gallery Tour: Manufacturing the Modern World

Explore the history of American ingenuity with this new tour, a guided experience that provides an overview of the museum’s collection, highlighting transformative advancements in manufacturing, precision engineering, and industrial technology. 

Visitors will learn about the revolutionary textile machines of the early factory system, the world-class craftsmanship of Waltham watchmaking, and tools and inventions that shaped the modern age.

The Mill Girls of New England are an iconic feature of early American industry. More than being a symbol of industrialization, they were the first industrial workforce in the U.S. These working women contributed to the growth of the American industrial economy, challenged the idea that women couldn’t be “breadwinners” and were actively involved in early workers rights movements and trade unions.

Tour length: 45 minute

It is a FREE TOUR which will explore a limited section of our exhibits.

Should you wish to stay and tour the remainder of the Museum, we ask that you please pay our regular admission

2nd SHIFT Concert: Willy Porter

Tickets $30

Guitar-driven grit, soul, silence and muscle– at times electrifying, dynamic—Porter’s voice blends and fuses with his fret work.

willyporter.com

Some folks are lucky to find what they love to do at an early age and quietly settle in for the long haul expanding and developing their work over the arc of a lifetime. Willy Porter is one of those artists. He has followed his own path to explore the sacred language that music truly is. 30 years after his solo recording debut, he continues to reach further into his guitar & pen while stretching the form of what his own music can be. He recently released his 13th full length album, The Ravine, in September 2023.

A largely self-taught musician, Porter began treating audiences to his brand of guitar playing and wry storytelling in the late ‘80’s while living in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1990, he released his first full-length independent album, The Trees Have Soul, and the touring life has flowed steadily ever since.

Mill Talk: 29 Mill Villages - and More

Presented by Steve Dunwell

Free to the Public
REGISTRATION REQUIRED

Ashton, Forestdale, Peacedale, Cabotville, Hopedale, Uxbridge, Millville and Slatersville, of course. Along our New England rivers there are more than a hundred small factory villages. Following familiar patterns, they are each unique and fitted to their location. Skipping the big ones (Lowell, Amoskeag, Biddeford), this is the story of the little ones - often isolated in a rural setting, now partially digested into suburban sprawl.

Origins, utopian dreams, hard-luck realities and decay are all part of the story. Waltham started this way, as did nearby Dedham, both on the Charles River.

Author and Photographer Steve Dunwell has been to most of them and tells us about his favorites, with surprising insights.

Author bio:

STEVE DUNWELL makes photographs of New England – its architecture, landscape, and industry – for publications, for collectors, and for advertising. He has published 17 photo books, and manages Back Bay Press.

Textile industry history has always been a primary interest, starting with an intensive documentary immersion in the world of New England mills in the 1970s. That work was published as “The Run of the Mill’ in 1978. He has kept up that interest, photographing around and inside various mills in our region. One part of that work features portraits of mill workers, entitled “With These Hands,” shown recently at the Museum of Work and Culture, Woonsocket, RI, and at the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation, in 2018.

Steve lives in Boston.

The 2026 Official Rube Goldberg Machine Contestⓒ  Regional Qualifier Event

Watch the contestants throughout the day! Included with Museum Admission

Sign up to participate in the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest

SOLD OUT! Mill Talk: Failing Forward: The Critical Role of Failure in Creating Successful Rube Goldberg Machines

presented by Zach Umperovitch, the world’s leading authority on all things Rube Goldberg

REGISTRATION FOR THIS THIS MILL TALK HAS SOLD OUT

This Mill Talk explores how failure functions not as a setback, but as an essential tool in the design and construction of successful Rube Goldberg Machines. Drawing on experience from Zach’s own contraptions, the presentation examines the iterative process behind complex chain-reaction systems, highlighting how misfires, breakdowns, and unexpected outcomes inform engineering decisions, improve reliability, and foster creative problem-solving. Through real-world examples, the talk will illuminate how embracing trial and error leads to more robust designs, sharper critical thinking, and a deeper understanding of mechanical systems, offering insights relevant to engineers, educators, and anyone interested in the creative process behind purposeful complexity.

Speaker Bio: Zach Umperovitch is the world’s leading authority on all things Rube Goldberg - the intricate and whimsical devices that perform simple tasks in the most complex and entertaining ways. With a passion for chain reactions, Zach has turned his expertise into a career, helping create extraordinary machines for major brands like Google, Red Bull, Disney, and Sonic.

Sign up to participate in the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest!

2nd SHIFT Concert: Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light

Tickets $25

Bookish bite. Sharp harmonies. Songs about saints, scientists, and stubborn women.

rachelsumnermusic.com

Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light are a Boston-based string band making music that blends folk tradition with feminist storytelling, poetic detail, and just enough grit. At the center is Sumner’s songwriting—rooted in history, myth, and personal reckoning—carried by close harmonies, upright bass, acoustic guitar, and fiddle. The trio features Kat Wallace on fiddle and vocals and Mike Siegel on upright bass and vocals, whose playing brings both tension and tenderness to the sound.

Their sound is spare and intimate, sometimes eerie, sometimes sweet, always intentional. They call it Femericana—sharp-edged Americana with a splash of feminine rage.

Sumner has performed at the Library of Congress, where five of her original songs are now archived, and was a 2024 winner of the Kerrville New Folk competition. Her song “Radium Girls (Curie Eleison)” struck a nerve—streamed over 300,000 times and picked up by dancers, theater directors, and deep listeners who saw themselves in its story. It’s been tattooed on arms, sung in audition rooms, and carried into classrooms and protests. The kind of song people hold onto.

Gallery Tour: Manufacturing the Modern World

Explore the history of American ingenuity with this new tour, a guided experience that provides an overview of the museum’s collection, highlighting transformative advancements in manufacturing, precision engineering, and industrial technology. 

Visitors will learn about the revolutionary textile machines of the early factory system, the world-class craftsmanship of Waltham watchmaking, and tools and inventions that shaped the modern age.

Mill Talk: From Electronic Waste to Opportunity - How Refurbished Technology Can Close the Digital Divide

a conversation with Dylan Zajac Founder and Executive Director of Computers 4 People,

FREE to the Public
REGISTRATION REQUIRED

In this conversation, Dylan Zajac will explore where old electronics really end up, the environmental and social costs of e-waste, and how Computers 4 People is building a scalable model to turn discarded technology into opportunity.

The discussion will cover digital equity, sustainability, and what it takes to create systems that work at a national scale, followed by audience Q&A.

The Mill Girls of New England are an iconic feature of early American industry. More than being a symbol of industrialization, they were the first industrial workforce in the U.S. These working women contributed to the growth of the American industrial economy, challenged the idea that women couldn’t be “breadwinners” and were actively involved in early workers rights movements and trade unions.

Tour length: 45 minute

It is a FREE TOUR which will explore a limited section of our exhibits.

Should you wish to stay and tour the remainder of the Museum, we ask that you please pay our regular admission

2nd SHIFT Concert: Ward Hayden & Greg Hall

Tickets $25

Two-fifths of the multi-award-winning band, Ward Hayden and the Outliers prove that it's not the numbers that count, but the music.

Ward Hayden has fronted his band The Outliers for nearly a decade (and longer before that as Girls, Guns, and Glory). Greg Hall has been a part of that outfit for over half of that. Here the two present a leaner, simpler arrangement that still spares not a thing in the quest for soulful, heartfelt country. Especially when their voices join together, the duo proves that it's not the numbers that count, but the music.

You can hear for yourself on their Bandcamp release, "Restless", or, better yet, come see in person March 12th

Mill talk: Chelsea Clock Company: 146 Years of Boston Clockmaking

presented by Patrick Mont, Curatorial Fellow at the Willard House & Clock Museum

This event has SOLD OUT

The clockmaking tradition carried out by Chelsea Clock Company traces it’s roots back to the founding of the Harvard Clock Company in 1880 by Joseph Eastman. This talk will trace the evolution of the Boston style marine clock from it’s humble beginnings as a gauge clock through to the modern day manufacturing of these storied clocks.

Chelsea survives today as the last American clock company still in operation and one of a few manufacturing mechanical clock movements in world today.

With many important ties to Waltham, this talk is sure to appeal to the interest of local clock & watch enthusiasts alike.

Speaker Bio:
Patrick Mont is an avid student of the Boston school of clockmaking. He is a Chelsea factory-trained clockmaker where he served as Director of Repair & Restoration. Presently, he is a Curatorial Fellow at the Willard House & Clock Museum in Grafton, Mass, where is he studies Massachusetts horology in the earlier era of hand-crafted clocks. He serves on the board of the American Watchmakers-Clockmakers Institute, is President of the Massachusetts Watchmakers-Clockmakers Association and was a recipient of the David Gow Memorial Scholarship for Clockmaking.

The Mill Girls of New England are an iconic feature of early American industry. More than being a symbol of industrialization, they were the first industrial workforce in the U.S. These working women contributed to the growth of the American industrial economy, challenged the idea that women couldn’t be “breadwinners” and were actively involved in early workers rights movements and trade unions.

Tour length: 45 minute

It is a FREE TOUR which will explore a limited section of our exhibits.

Should you wish to stay and tour the remainder of the Museum, we ask that you please pay our regular admission

Industry and Innovation Tour: Manufacturing the Modern World A Gallery Tour

Explore the history of American ingenuity with this new tour, a guided experience that provides an overview of the museum’s collection, highlighting transformative advancements in manufacturing, precision engineering, and industrial technology. 

Visitors will learn about include the revolutionary textile machines of the early factory system, the world-class craftsmanship of Waltham watchmaking, and tools and inventions that shaped the modern age.

Mill Talk: How To Fuel an Industrial Revolution-Coal and the Energy Economy of Boston, 1820-1970

presented by Thomas Speight

FREE to the public
REGISTRATION REQUIRED

This talk will discuss the use of coal as a fuel for industry, utilities and domestic life in metropolitan Boston between roughly 1820 and 1970, including the core years of the Industrial Revolutions. During this period, coal accounted for the majority of Boston’s energy supply, and provided energy to Boston’s homes, factories, foundries, power plants, shipyards and other operations. Coal also fed the city’s multiple gasworks, which provided street lighting and domestic and industrial fuel, and supplied power to both the water and sewage pumping stations.

This heavy reliance on coal also created significant quality of life issues for Boston residents, and resulted in one of the nation’s first smoke abatement laws (Chapter 651 of the Acts of 1910).

Speaker Bio

Thomas Speight has twenty years’ experience in the environmental field as a consultant and regulator, including approximately fifteen years with a primary focus on assessment and remediation of contaminated sites. He is a Massachusetts Licensed Site Professional and a Certified Hazardous Materials Manager, and a member of the Society for Industrial Archaeology. He is a coauthor of Manufactured Gas Plant Remediation: A Case Study (CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 2018), with Allen W. Hatheway.

2nd SHIFT Concert: Winterpills

Tickets $25

Season Tickets available
Save $25 on all five shows

winterpills.com

Formed in the fog of the timeline around the fall of the Twin Towers, the death of Elliott Smith, the peak influence of Pitchfork and the dawn of the iPod, the members of Winterpills met and began making music in the old-fashioned winter of 2003 in the shambolic Northampton, MA music scene. They gleefully stumbled upon their sound: Flora Reed and Philip Price’s harmonies and “heartrending” songwriting (so says No Depression), Dennis Crommett’s tender shoegaze guitar, Dave Hower’s unclassifiable drumming, and later on Max Germer’s moonlit bass feel. "Winterpills gradually builds elegant arrangements... While the gathered instruments offer some solace, the songs stay haunted,“ wrote Jon Pareles in the New York Times.

Winterpills opening our 2026 Spring Season will be a musical blessing of the best kind.

The Mill Girls of New England are an iconic feature of early American industry. More than being a symbol of industrialization, they were the first industrial workforce in the U.S. These working women contributed to the growth of the American industrial economy, challenged the idea that women couldn’t be “breadwinners” and were actively involved in early workers rights movements and trade unions.

Tour length: 45 minute

It is a FREE TOUR which will explore a limited section of our exhibits.

Should you wish to stay and tour the remainder of the Museum, we ask that you please pay our regular admission

The Mill Girls of New England are an iconic feature of early American industry. More than being a symbol of industrialization, they were the first industrial workforce in the U.S. These working women contributed to the growth of the American industrial economy, challenged the idea that women couldn’t be “breadwinners” and were actively involved in early workers rights movements and trade unions.

Tour length: 45 minute

It is a FREE TOUR which will explore a limited section of our exhibits.

Should you wish to stay and tour the remainder of the Museum, we ask that you please pay our regular admission

The Mill Girls of New England are an iconic feature of early American industry. More than being a symbol of industrialization, they were the first industrial workforce in the U.S. These working women contributed to the growth of the American industrial economy, challenged the idea that women couldn’t be “breadwinners” and were actively involved in early workers rights movements and trade unions.

Tour length: 45 minute

It is a FREE TOUR which will explore a limited section of our exhibits.

Should you wish to stay and tour the remainder of the Museum, we ask that you please pay our regular admission

Tips and donations are encouraged, but not required.

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED! We are looking for more people to volunteer to help repair goods, help with administration, or help direct people where to go. I will send an initial email to volunteers later this week.

FAQ: https://www.walthamrc.org/faq
Volunteer sign up: https://www.walthamrc.org/volunteer
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/walthamrc

Industry and Innovation Tour: Manufacturing the Modern World A Gallery Tour

Explore the history of American ingenuity with this new tour, a guided experience that provides an overview of the museum’s collection, highlighting transformative advancements in manufacturing, precision engineering, and industrial technology. 

Visitors will learn about include the revolutionary textile machines of the early factory system, the world-class craftsmanship of Waltham watchmaking, and tools and inventions that shaped the modern age.

Collaboratory Public Workshop: Laser Engraving

FREE to the public
REGISTRATION REQUIRED

All workshops start at 1:00 pm and last around 90 minutes. These are all Level 1 workshops, so you do NOT need any prior experience with the topic.

Ever wonder how they get images and text on keychains, jewelry, and other objects? This workshop introduces participants to using the laser cutters and laser engravers at the Charles River Collaboratory.  Under the guidance of experienced youth leaders, attendees learn safety protocols, laser settings (power and speed), and basic design techniques to create engraving projects.  You will learn to use the dual-fiber and blue laser in the Collaboratory.  Future sessions will show you how to create your own designs and use the more powerful cutting lasers.

This session should last around 90 minutes