Blue Collar 101: Water, Sewer, and the Hidden Infrastructure of a City

A discussion with a representative of the Mass. Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development’s Division of Apprentice Standards

FREE to the Public
REGISTRATION REQUIRED

What actually happens when you turn on a tap or flush a drain in any given city? Who maintains the pipes, fixes the breaks, and keeps one of America's oldest urban areas supplied with clean water around the clock?

For the second session of Blue Collar 101, we're bringing together workers from the Boston Water and Sewer Commission, the public agency responsible for delivering clean water to the city of Boston and removing wastewater from it. BWSC skilled tradespeople will walk us through what the job actually looks like: the tools, the problem-solving, the physical demands, and the career pathways into this essential public work.

We will also once again host a representative of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development's Division of Apprentice Standards into career development options available through the Commonwealth, whether you are a new graduate or mid-career changer interested in the trades and industrial work.

This is a panel conversation for the general public and those curious about the skilled workforce that keeps our cities functioning. Expect honest, ground-level discussion about what it means to maintain infrastructure that cannot fail, how the work is learned, and what most Bostonians never see because it happens underground. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, alongside public agencies, unions, and educational institutions, is prioritizing the importance and future of our industrial labor force.

Blue Collar 101 is a public education series based at the Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation. At a moment when conversations about workforce development and the future of work often happen without workers in the room, this program starts from a different premise: the people who build, maintain, and repair the physical world are experts, and their knowledge deserves a public platform.

This will be the first of a recurring series of events, each spotlighting a different trade or type of industrial work, including those that keep our electrical grid powered, water flowing, transit systems running on time, and our modern world functioning around us.

SOLD OUT Mill Talk: The Invention of Rum: A View from Massachusetts

presented by Jordan B. Smith

THIS EVENT HAS SOLD OUT

FREE to the Public
REGISTRATION REQUIRED

Jordan B. Smith presents a new story of how rum was invented, made, sold, and consumed in the Atlantic world, and how that expansive story structured life and labor in colonial Massachusetts. He'll introduce you to a commodity that transformed cultures of making and drinking in large part due to its ubiquity and affordability. Moreover, he argues, rum’s emergence as the quintessential Atlantic commodity tied together myriad innovations to inspire a broader reimagining of what commodities were and how they were made. This talk builds on Jordan’s 2025 book, The Invention of Rum: Creating the Quintessential Atlantic Commodity.

Speaker Bio:

Jordan B. Smith teaches early American and Atlantic history at Widener University, where he is an associate professor of history and the pre-law advisor. He is the author of The Invention of Rum: Creating the Quintessential Atlantic Commodity (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025). Jordan received his BA in History from Carleton College and his MA and PhD from Georgetown University. His essays have appeared in Early American Studies, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, and Commonplace. Jordan and his family live in South Philadelphia.

Mill Talks at the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation are free and open to the public and are made possible by the generous support of the Lowell Institute.

MILL TALK: Fantrip! Enthusiast Outings on the Boston & Maine Railroad

presented by Rick Kfoury

FREE to the Public
REGISTRATION REQUIRED

PLEASE NOTE:
This is a lecture, not a tour.

Chartered by the Mass Bay chapter of the Railroad Enthusiasts, fantrips were sponsored by the Boston & Maine, which used its equipment and ran everywhere from the 1930s onwards. They rambled over mainlines and crept up weed-choked branchlines.

These trips allowed passengers to ride on lines that had long since become freight-only, and gave photographers the chance to snap photos in unlikely places.

Many of the photos come from the J. Leonard Bachelder Collection, part of a massive collection that the B&MRRHS has helped preserve.

Rick Kfoury is a railroad historian and author with an express interest in New England railroading in the second half of the twentieth century. He has authored four books on the subject, The New England Southern Railroad Volumes I and II, Queen City Rails: Manchester's Railroads 1965-1990, and Steam Trains of Yesteryear: The Monadnock, Steamtown & Northern Story.

A 2018 graduate of the Keene State College history program, Rick currently serves as President and Newsletter Editor for the Boston & Maine Railroad Historical Society and is employed in college admissions for Southern New Hampshire University.

The Boston & Maine Railroad Historical Society, Inc. is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization composed of people who want to share their knowledge, and learn more about, the history and operations of the Boston and Maine Railroad, its predecessors, and successors. The Society was founded in 1971 and consists of over 1,000 active members from the New England region and beyond.

It’s BACK!
NextGenSTEM Fest is a different STEM festival

To learn all about the Fest, exhibitors and the planned activities and workshops, visit:

At the NextGen STEMFest, come let your curiosity wander with interactive learning activities and experiences from some of the world's top STEM companies and University research labs. You will see and learn about regenerative medicine, new biotechnologies, hear from young people about their college STEM experiences, learn about physical computing, and more.

You can sign up to learn how to use a laser, how to 3D print nearly anything, and screen printing at Massachusetts’ only youth-led innovation maker-space, the Charles River Collaboratory, located at the Charles River Museum of Industry &Innovation.

While you are at NextGen STEMFest, you can also visit the Charles River Museum, which will be free for visitors all day!

2026 Exhibitors

For more on what each exhibitor will be showcasing, visit
nextgenstemfest.org/about-nextgen-stemfest/2026-exhibitors

Without the support of our wonderful sponsors, we would not be able to have STEMFest be a free event.

Mill Talk: AT&T's Idea Factory: How Bell Labs invented the technology of the future

Presented by Jon Gertner

FREE to the Public, REGISTRATION REQUIRED

The presentation will explain the origins and unique capabilities of Bell Laboratories, AT&T’s vaunted R&D organization. The work at the Labs led to many of the most revolutionary technologies of the 20th Century, including the transistor, the laser, digital communications, the solar cell, and communications satellites.

But why was Bell Labs so innovative? What went on inside this remarkable organization? How did its engineers and scientists organize and conduct their work—and how did it help the phone company and enable modern communications?

This 45-minute talk will explain the importance and function of Bell Labs; it will also tell the in-depth story of two of the Labs’ most formative technologies: the transistor and solar cell. A question-and-answer period will follow afterwards.

Jon Gertner, a journalist and historian, is the author of The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of Innovation (2012) and The Ice at the End of the World: Greenland’s Buried Past and Earth’s Perilous Future (2019). His next book, about NASA’s long-running Voyager mission, will be published by Random House in the summer of 2027. A longtime feature writer on science and technology for the New York Times Magazine, Jon's stories and book reviews have also appeared in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Book Review, and Wired Magazine. He is the recipient of grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; a fellowship from the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers; and a “public scholar” fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2020, Jon served as Princeton University’s McGraw Visiting Professor of Writing. Jon grew up in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, and now lives with his family in nearby Maplewood.

Blue Collar 101: Building Trades & the Path Through Apprenticeship

Inaugural Session 

FREE to the Public
REGISTRATION REQUIRED

What does it actually take to become a carpenter in the 21st century? What range of skills and specialties does the trade encompass, and how does someone learn them?

For the inaugural session of Blue Collar 101, we're bringing together voices from across the carpentry and building trades to answer those questions directly. Joining us will be members of Local 339 of the North Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters, including a working carpenter who has moved through the apprenticeship pathway alongside a representative from the Massachusetts Division of Apprentice Standards (Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development), who will offer a policy and workforce perspective on how apprenticeship programs function across the Commonwealth.

This is a panel conversation for the general public and those interested in pathways to the trades and industrial work. Expect honest, ground-level discussion about what the work looks like day to day, how skills are acquired, what the apprenticeship pipeline actually offers, and what the public often gets wrong about the trades. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, alongside unions, industry, and educational institutions, are prioritizing the importance and future of our industrial labor force.

Blue Collar 101 is a public education series based at the Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation. At a moment when conversations about workforce development and the future of work often happen without workers in the room, this program starts from a different premise: the people who build, maintain, and repair the physical world are experts, and their knowledge deserves a public platform.

This will be the first of a recurring series of events, each spotlighting a different trade or type of industrial work, including those that keep our electrical grid powered, water flowing, transit systems running on time, and our modern world functioning around us.

Free and open to the public through a generous grant from the Lowell Institute.

Mill Talk: The Legacy of 1812: How a Little War Shaped the Trans-Atlantic World

Don Hickey in dialogue with Bob Allison
Pre-Talk award ceremony at 6:15, the Mill Talk itself will begin at 7PM

Co-sponsored by The Society of the War of 1812 in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

FREE to the Public
REGISTRATION REQUIRED

In this engaging dialogue, noted historians Don Hickey and Bob Allison explore the enduring legacy of the War of 1812—how a seemingly small conflict reshaped the relationships among the United States, Britain, and Canada. They’ll discuss the war’s political and economic reverberations in New England, its impact on trans-Atlantic trade and diplomacy, and the ways it continues to influence North American identity and memory today. This topic has particular resonance here at the Charles River Museum, at the site of Francis Cabot Lowell’s Boston Manufacturing Company, whose prosperity was only possible due to trade disruptions caused by the War of 1812.

Public Award Ceremony: 6:15 PM

Join The Society of the War of 1812 in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation for a public recognition of Professor Don Hickey, widely regarded as the foremost scholar of the War of 1812, and Suffolk University Professor Robert Allison, President of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts and Chair of Revolution 250.

The Society will present each scholar with a commemorative medallion in recognition of their lifetime contributions to the field of American history.

Speaker Bio: Don Hickey

Don Hickey, a retired history professor, is a longtime student of the War of 1812. He taught for many years at Wayne State College in Wayne, NE. Called "the dean of 1812 scholarship" by the New Yorker, he has written a dozen books and more than a hundred articles. He is best known for The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict, which has been in print since 1989 and is generally considered the standard American treatment of the subject. His latest book is Tecumseh's War: The Epic Conflict for the Heart of America.

Links: hickeyhistory.com

In Dialogue With: Bob Allison

Robert J. Allison, a professor of history at Suffolk University, also teaches in the Harvard Extension School. He has written a series of short books about the American Revolution, on the histories of Boston and of Cape Cod, as well as longer works on the Barbary Wars and Naval hero Stephen Decatur. He edited an edition of The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Allison created two classes for The Teaching Company’s series “The Great Courses,” on colonial America (“Before 1776: Life in the American Colonies) and “The Age of Benjamin Franklin,” drawn from his teaching which has covered all phases of American history, though his primary focus is the American Revolution and the early American republic. He is president of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts (https://www.colonialsociety.org/), a scholarly organization which publishes primary documents on early American history, a life-trustee of the USS CONSTITUTION Museum, and as chair of Revolution 250 Allison hosts its weekly podcast, (https://www.buzzsprout.com/1336051) a series of conversations on the Revolution with historians, museum curators, and re-enactors.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

Mill Talk: Forging History: The Creation of Saugus Iron Works NHS

presented by Gretchen Pineo

FREE to the public
REGISTRATION REQUIRED

The Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site, located in Saugus, Massachusetts, is a mid-twentieth century reconstruction of a seventeenth-century ironworks. Built by private investors in the public interest, the site is at turns an outdoor museum teaching the public about the origins of the iron and steel industries and an object lesson in the ingenuity of the early settlers of Massachusetts as a way of conveying American beliefs about the pioneer spirit and independence onto a new generation. This talk explores the history of the site, beginning with its establishment in the mid-seventeenth century, through its stewardship by the National Park Service in the late twentieth century.

Speaker Bio:

Gretchen Pineo is a Senior Architectural Historian at the Public Archaeology Laboratory in Pawtucket, RI and an adjunct instructor at the Boston Architectural College. She received her M.A. in Preservation Studies from Boston University and holds a professional certificate in Museum Studies from Tufts University. She joined PAL in 2014 after interning with the National Park Service (NPS) Northeast Region History Program, where she was introduced to Saugus Iron Works NHS and became intrigued by its history. Ms. Pineo works throughout New England and the mid-Atlantic for a variety of government and private clients, documenting disparate resources including state and national parks, historic towns and villages, and military installations. She has also developed public interpretive displays in Massachusetts and Rhode Island covering disparate topics including industrial village development and Cold War-era scientific and military research.

Links:

https://www.palinc.com/

Collaboratory Public Workshop: How to Work With AI

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 what all the hype is about with AI? This workshop will be led by Charles River Collaboratory instructors with youth leaders as co-instructors.  This workshop will focus on the basics of AI, and you will learn to train a “machine learning” model for object recognition to understand how AI models are trained by using Google’s “Teachable Machine.”  During this workshop, you will be introduced to what an AI prompt is, provided with examples, and try some of your own prompts.  

This session should last around 90-120 minutes

Mill Talk: The Unlikely Story of Roomba: Birthing the World’s Favorite Robot

presented by Joe Jones, inventor of the Roomba
author of DANCING WITH ROOMBA Cracking the Robot Riddle and Building an Icon

Free to the Public
REGISTRATION REQUIRED

Inventions are born amid passion and pathos. And every product has a story, but one of the most improbable is the tale of Roomba. For 40+ years major corporations and basement tinkerers alike struggled to solve the seemingly simple problem of building a robotic floor cleaner. Nothing worked. Finally, in 2002 a quirky team from an unknown company cracked the riddle and delivered Roomba. A million memes followed.

The talk recounts Roomba’s decade-long journey from a 1989 maker event at MIT to living rooms around the world.

Speaker Bio:
Born and raised in a tiny, rural Ozarks community, Joe Jones nurtured an early passion for science and technology.  Encouraged by a thoughtful high school teacher, he attended MIT and spent his undergraduate days preparing for a career in experimental physics.  But no compelling physics niche presented itself so, he embarked on a solo trip around the world.  Returning a year later, he gained a position on the research staff at the MIT AI Lab.  There he discovered his true calling: robots. 

Inspired by a new paradigm in robot programming developed at the Lab, he built Rug Warrior—Roomba’s earliest direct ancestor—for a maker event.  Upon leaving the AI Lab, Joe joined fledgling iRobot as the company’s first full time hire.  Several years later, he and a colleague proposed Roomba.  A tight-knit team formed to developed the robot and in three years they accomplished the goal that had eluded all others for a half-century.

Joe subsequently founded two companies: Harvest Automation, a maker of an agricultural robot, and Tertill Corporation, builders of a solar-powered robot that weeds home gardens.  The holder of 80+ US patents, Dancing with Roomba is Joe’s fourth book.

Collaboratory Public Workshop: Embroidery

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 to embroider your initials onto cloth?  In this youth-led workshop, participants explore the intersection of textile art and modern technology using the Collaboratory’s embroidery machines.  In this workshop, you will learn how to use an embroidery machine and be introduced to open-source embroidery software such as Inkscape (and, if there is time, Inkstitch).  These software tools let you design your own embroidery patterns.  This workshop is expected to last 90 minutes but may run up to 2 hours.  Our goal for this workshop is for everyone to leave with something embroidered (your initials).

This session should last around 90-120 minutes

Collaboratory Public Workshop: Basics of 3D Printing

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 what 3D printing is and how a 3D printer works? Led by the Charles River Collaboratory youth leaders, this session demystifies “additive manufacturing” by giving participants direct access to the Collaboratory’s 3D printer bank.  You will learn how to search for files, what “slicer” software is and how to use it, and understand the basic settings of a slicer to print a file.   You will also learn about the type of materials that are used in 3D printers and how to transfer your file from a computer to a 3D printer. 

This session should last around 90 minutes

Mill Talk: Dirt and Disorder: The Origins of Contamination Control in Industry

presented by Dan Holbrook

Free to the Public
REGISTRATION REQUIRED

This talk will outline the origins of the need for contamination control in industry and of some of the basic elements of modern contamination control. As technologies and medicine became more complex and precision in both material inputs and production processes more crucial, dirts of various sorts had to be controlled. Over the course of the later 19th and throughout the 20th centuries, precision manufacturing, food processing, gases, medicine, glass, and materials for both tube-based and solid state electronics found that cleanliness and purity allowed order to be established, and with order, control.

Speaker Bio: Dan Holbrook is Professor Emeritus of History at Marshall University, Huntington, WV. He holds a BA in American Studies from Brandeis University and MA and PhD in History from Carnegie Mellon University. His scholarly work has revolved around the generation and dissemination of knowledge in the early years of the American semiconductor industry and on the history of contamination control.

Links:

https://marshall.academia.edu/DanHolbrook

Mill Talk:And the Cabots Talk Only to God-Francis Cabot Lowell’s Cabot Side

presented by Krystina Yeager, Education Manager, Historic Beverly

FREE to the public,
REGISTRATION REQUIRED

And this is good old Boston
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells talk to the Cabots,
And the Cabots talk only to God.

Discover the story of the Cabot family, whose legacy of wealth and influence shaped Massachusetts from the colonial era through the dawn of industry, even inspiring the name of Francis Cabot Lowell. From their roots in Salem to their ventures in maritime commerce, the Cabots built a network of enterprise that extended across New England and beyond. Their establishment of the Cabot Cotton Mill in Beverly — the first in America — marked a turning point in the region’s industrial future. This talk explores how the Cabots’ ambition and power helped define Boston’s so-called “codfish aristocracy” and left an enduring mark on the economic and social identity of Massachusetts.

Mill Talk: Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery

presented by Seth Rockman

FREE to the Public
REGISTRATION REQUIRED

In this talk, Rockman tells the biggest stories of early American history through the most mundane artifacts: shoes manufactured in Massachusetts for the use of enslaved people in Mississippi, for example, or woolen dresses stitched in Rhode Island for enslaved women in South Carolina to wear. In following these goods from the communities in which they were made to the communities in which they were used, Rockman rethinks the geography of slavery and freedom in the decades between American independence and the Civil War. He poses questions that continue to preoccupy us in the age of the iPhone and fair-trade coffee: what are the moral, ecological, and political relationships linking consumers and producers across long distances? What does it mean to be “complicit"?

Speaker Bio:

Mill Talk: Disrupting Time: How industrial espionage shaped the future of the American and Swiss watch industries

presented by Aaron Stark

FREE to the Public
REGISTRATION REQUIRED

In the fall of 1876, two Swiss spies came to America and conducted some of the most covert and consequential industrial espionage in history, changing the course of the global watch industry forever. Disrupting Time is a true historical narrative of business strategy, espionage, and consequences. It details the story of Jacques David and Theo Gribi who, in 1876, were commissioned by the Society of Jura Industries, a Swiss trade association, to acquire the secrets of America’s technology sector – the American watch industry. They captured their intelligence in a 130-page report that would remain mostly secret until 1992.

Disrupting Time details the never-before-told story of David and Gribi’s secrets and mission, showing how they used disguises, agent recruitments, and other classic espionage methods to steal the secrets of America’s technology sector of the era.

Speaker Bio:

Aaron Stark is the author of the book "Disrupting Time: Industrial combat, espionage, and the downfall of a great American company." He currently serves as a director of business intelligence for a Fortune 500 company. Before entering business, he was an assistant professor of economics at West Point, with a specialization in finance. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School with a focus on finance and business strategy, and a BS in Economics from West Point. He is a veteran of the US Army with two combat tours in Afghanistan, serving as an Apache helicopter pilot.

Disrupting Time details the never-before-told story of David and Gribi’s secrets and mission, showing how they used disguises, agent recruitments, and other classic espionage methods to steal the secrets of America’s technology sector of the era. In praise for Disrupting Time, Hodinkee's former Editor-in-Chief Jack Forster wrote "Aaron Stark pulls back the curtain on perhaps the single most important case of industrial spying in the history of watchmaking – and one whose full details, incredibly, weren’t fully known until just last year.” Additionally, the anonymous CIA officer behind the wildly popular Watches of Espionage wrote: "Disrupting Time is a fantastic story of real-life watches of espionage.

It is a thrilling read, full of details that will change everything you thought you knew about the origin of Swiss watches - definitely not the narrative the watch industry has told you. If you are into watches, intelligence, history, or business, this book is a must read!” Join us for author Aaron Stark's lecture where he will talk about his journey of discovery, research, and how these events changed the course of history.

Links:

Aaronstarkbooks.com

Mill Talks at the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation are free and open to the public and are made possible by the generous support of the Lowell Institute.

Mill Talk: Inside a Waltham Pocket Watch: How It Works and Why

A Talk and Demonstration with Chris Carey, Watertown Watch and Clock
FREE to the Public
REGISTRATION REQUIRED

Step inside the intricate world of fine watchmaking with Waltham’s own Chris Carey, watchmaker and owner of Watertown Watch and Clock. In this live demonstration, Chris will carefully disassemble a Waltham Model 1908 pocket watch, revealing the artistry, engineering, and precision that made Waltham a world leader in timekeeping.

As he takes the watch apart piece by piece, Chris will explain how each component functions, what makes it essential, and how Waltham’s innovations compared with those of earlier and later American, Swiss, and English timepieces. Through detailed visuals and hands-on examples, attendees will gain a rare, close-up look at the mechanical heart of a Waltham watch—and a deeper appreciation for the craftsmanship and ingenuity that powered the city’s historic watch industry.

Chris Carey was taught watch repair as a boy by his grandfather, Pat Caruso, a watchmaker at Waltham Watch Company. In 1993 he opened his own clock and watch repair shop, Watertown Watch and Clock, and now operates the shop with his wife, Christine, in Waltham, Massachusetts. Chris has served as the Secretary of The American Watchmakers-Clockmakers Institute (AWCI), he is the Chairman of the Board of the Massachusetts Watchmakers-Clockmakers Association, and is Past President of NAWCC New England Chapter 8.

Beware: Chris' family is sick of hearing him talk about watches and clocks, so he is happy to have found a new audience with whom he can share is passion.