MILL TALK: Artificial Intelligence and the Next Industrial Revolution?

presented by: Sam Ransbotham, Professor of Analytics,  Boston College Carroll School of Management

Do recent advances in artificial intelligence herald a new stage of human development? Or is the current AI fervor yet another technology hype?

Rapid advances in AI have captured considerable public interest. Like prior technology developments, we can increasingly replace human activity with machines. But while prior technology developments deeply affected physical labor, AI developments (particularly generative AI) encroach on what was previously an entirely human domain -- knowledge work. Machines now seem to be able to think and learn. With these developments, we may see liberation from routine tasks, standardization of processes, and a head start on human learning. But we may instead see unemployment from job displacement, bias at a massive scale, and a race to mediocrity.

“Has the machine in its last furious manifestation begun to eliminate workers faster than new tasks can be found for them?” Stuart Chase asked this topical question in his book, “Men and Machines” -- in 1929. While everyone seems to talk about artificial intelligence, we’ll talk about what people are really doing now and where they seem to be headed.

The discussion will build from a 10-year MIT Sloan Management Review research program and stories from the Me, Myself, and AI podcast. In particular, we’ll focus on the role of human agency in choosing how we use these exciting tool developments.

Ransbotham received a National Science Foundation Career Program award “in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education,” for his analytics-based research in security. He was also honored with an INFORMS ISS Sandra A. Slaughter Early Career Award, which recognizes “early career individuals who are on a path towards making outstanding intellectual contributions to the information systems discipline.”

Ransbotham earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, an MBA, and a doctorate, all from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Before earning his doctorate, he founded a software company with a globally diverse client list including the United Nations IAEA (Vienna), FAO (Rome), WHO (Geneva), and WMO (London). Since 2015, he has been an editor for MIT SMR’s Big Ideas initiatives, including Artificial Intelligence and Business Strategy, and Competing With Data & Analytics.

RESISTRATION FOR THIS EVENT IS FULL!

Mill Talk: Travel 3D with the 19th Century TimeGuys

presented by George L. Mutter, Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School and Bernard P. Fishman, Director, Maine State Museum, Augusta, ME

Magic glasses will be provided

Note: Due to the special nature of this 3D presentation, this Mill Talk will not be recorded or livestreamed. This is an in-person event only.

Warning:  This presentation is uncensored, showing imagery as it was prepared for and shown to audiences in the day.  Some content may be considered offensive to current sensibilities.  Viewer discretion is advised.

George Mutter trained in medicine at Harvard and Columbia, and is currently a Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School.  He is a prolific scientist and educator, having authored over 120 scientific papers, and delivered numerous invited lectures internationally. 

Bernard Fishman is an Egyptologist trained at Columbia U. and U. of Pennsylvania.  He worked in Egypt with the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago before becoming a nonprofit institution administrator.  He is presently the Director of the Maine State Museum in Augusta, Maine.  

Mill Talk: THE HIDDEN COSTS OF A GREENER FUTURE
Unearthing the Environmental Impact of Electrification, presented by Dr. Tomas Villalón

FREE to the Public
REGISTRATION REQUIRED

This lecture will be recorded for later viewing on the WGBH Forum Network.

The sustainable future we are collectively building comes with significant environmental costs, primarily felt by the global south. The mining and processing of rare earth metals, nickel, cobalt, copper, and many other critical materials, essential for electrification and renewable technologies, often result in considerable ecological damage.

We will explore how the mining and extraction of these materials, while essential for driving forward the clean energy revolution, often contradicts the principles of environmental stewardship. The lecture will particularly focus on the impact in the global south, where much of the world's mining and refining activities take place, often with less stringent environmental regulations and oversight. This raises critical questions about the true cost of our transition to renewable energy and electric mobility.

In response to these challenges, Dr. Tomas Villalón will share Phoenix Tailings’ transformative approach to mining and material processing. Our innovative strategies aim to revolutionize the industry by extracting rare earth metals and other crucial materials sustainably. He will discuss their cutting-edge techniques for minimizing ecological impact through rethinking the approach to material refining and the remediation of toxic waste. By turning a historically pollutive process into a more environmentally responsible one and cleaning up the toxic byproducts of mining operations, Phoenix Tailings is not only contributing to the cleaner production of electrification materials but also paving the way for a more equitable and truly sustainable future.

Mill Talk: Community Engineering: Stories and Soaring to the Future

An Evening with Engineers Without Borders USA

Engage in a dynamic and lively conversation with the leaders and volunteers of Engineers Without Borders USA!

The Charles River Museum will host EWB-USA CEO Boris Martin, Former EWB-USA Board President Dr. Chris Lombardo, and EWB-USA volunteers from across the New England area for a happy hour social followed by a unique and forward-moving Mill Talk on community engineering. Expect to be regaled with stories of impact, engaged in reflection on engineers’ and educators’ calling, and moved toward action to build a better world.

Come for a happy hour social (with light appetizers and a cash bar) from 6-7 pm, and a dynamic and conversational Mill Talk with Dr. Boris Martin and Dr. Chris Lombardo from 7:15 to 8 pm.

Perhaps above all, Boris is proud to contribute to EWB-USA’s global impact projects that provide reliable access to safe water, renewable energy, nutritious food, and improved economic opportunities for thousands of underserved communities across the USA and around the world. His commitment is to make EWB-USA a leading Community Engineering organization and a catalyst and partner for Community Engineering around the world.

Dr. Chris Lombardo
Dr. Lombardo is currently employed at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences as the Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies and Lecturer in Electrical Engineering. His teaching focuses on electronics, engineering design, and the intersection of engineering and human centered design with a focus on low resource settings.

Mill Talk:
How Dickens Helped Bring Christmas to Boston

Readings and performances of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol have played an integral part in winter holiday festivities since longer than most of us can remember. What fewer people know, however, is that the British literary superstar and his popular novella actually helped bring Christmas back to Boston.

Accompanied by a beautiful slide show, Susan Wilson—the Official House Historian of the Parker House—traces the history of Christmas celebrations, which were discouraged and even banned in the Puritan stronghold of colonial Boston. Wilson explains how and why Christmas finally began to be embraced in the mid 19th century, and how Charles Dickens' arrival in 1867—when he made his home at the Parker House for 5 months—really added fuel to the yule log.

Mill Talk: "Those Valuable People, the Africans"
The Slave(ry) Trade, the Global Cotton Kingdom, and the Industrial Textile Revolution in World and U.S. History

presented by Prof. Ronald W. Bailey

This MILL TALK is FREE and open to the public.
Registration required. REGISTER HERE

This talk explores a key chapter in trans-Atlantic, U.S., and African American history. The title is from a quote from Malachi Postlethwayt, a British mercantilist theorist in 1745. The book on which this talk is based chronicles contributions made by millions of African peoples and their descendants to the vast “wealth of nations” that financed the economic and social progress of modern Western civilization called the “industrial revolution.” The same global process has been identified as one cause of the “underdevelopment” in Africa and other parts of the world. The phenomenal contribution resulted from the uncompensated labor of enslaved Black peoples across several centuries and on several continents. Prof. Bailey has coined the term “slave(ry) trade”™ to encompass an array of activities generally considered as separate developments.  This includes the trade in Africans as commodities; commerce in slave-produced goods, especially sugar and cotton; trade among slave-based economies; production of manufactured goods from slave-produced raw materials; and related financial and commercial activities.

The story is narrated in three “acts” focused the slave(ry) trade’s pivotal role in three key periods of global history. Act I is a chronicle of Europe’s journey—especially Portugal and Spain—out of its “Dark” Middle Ages beginning in the 9th century and into a new global system centered around the Atlantic Ocean. With a focus on Great Britain, Act II begins in a world of expanding commerce—the “Age of Reconnaissance” or “Age of Discovery” in the 1500s—the period of mercantilism and the “Triangular Trade” when the colonization of the Americas and other parts of the globe was completed. Great Britain emerges as the first global industrial power in the 18th century. Act III explores  the American Revolution and focuses on the role of the slave(ry) trade and the global cotton kingdom in transforming colonial America into a world power as the independent United States, a process that continues with the Civil War in the 1860s.

Bailey’s publications include Introduction to Afro-American Studies: A Peoples College Primer; Remembering Medgar Evers . . . For a New Generation; Let Us March On: Civil Rights Photographs of Ernest Withers, Jr.; and Black Business Enterprise: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.  His articles have appeared in the Journal of Social Issues, Journal of Negro Education, Agricultural History, Review of Black Political Economy, Black Scholar, Souls: Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society, and the Journal of African American History.

NSF and NEH grants supported the development of two website projects he initiated: www.dignubia.org and www.nubianet.org. He was also a co-founder of ACT-Roxbury (Art, Culture, and Trade—Roxbury), an organization that now operates the Roxbury Center for the Arts @ Hibernia Hall and the Roxbury Film Festival. Bailey has consulted on museum, curriculum, and technology projects. He was also the principal investigator of a project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services to build capacity in six African American museums in the Savannah area. He is the current co-principal investigator of a six-year digital tools project called AFRO PUBLISHING WITHOUT WALLS, or AFRO PWW-2, funded for the past six years by the Mellon Foundation.

Mill Talk: Birth of a New Utility, with Audrey Schulman

This MILL TALK is FREE and open to the public.
Registration required. Register HERE.

It's been over a century since a new utility was created.  Hear the story of how a small local nonprofit, HEET, has innovated a pathway for gas utilities to become a "thermal utilities," delivering you heating and cooling without combustion.  Eversource and National Grid are already selecting sites for the first installations, and over 15 other utilities across the country are following along.  Hear the story of innovation and how to create social change across boundaries. 

This MILL TALK is the first of a series we will be presenting in 2023 curated by Boston University Professor Nathan Phillips. More talks in this series will be announced in the coming weeks:

Climate, Energy, Infrastructure, & Justice

Infrastructure & Climate : The past, present and future of mill towns

Francis Cabot Lowell’s vision made manifest in Waltham of mechanically transforming bales of cotton into bolts of fabric under one roof was certainly a revolutionary business concept. Yet the story’s transformative influence extends so much farther, along process chains that involve land and water, materials, energy, infrastructure, topography, people, and social (in)justice. 

This ongoing, world-changing story matters more than ever today, as we seek to revolutionize afresh humanity's relationships with one another, improve how we affect our shared climate, and restore essential balance in relationships among all life on planet Earth. What can we learn from and use – or leave behind – as we fully apprehend the complex legacies of industrialization and build an ecologically sound economic future for all in New England mill towns and cities, and the world beyond?

This series of Mill Talks, underwritten by the Lowell Institute, widens the lens on the two-century old Francis Cabot Lowell Mill legacy, weaving together topics and speakers working in the messy nexus of climate, energy, infrastructure, and justice disciplines. We will hear from historians, geographers, engineers, futurists, business innovators, civic leaders, activists and more, who leverage their understanding of history and the power of their platforms to actively build energy, infrastructure, and inclusive enterprises that promote a healthy climate and economic vitality for all.

MILL TALK: From Textile Workers to Rideshare Drivers: The Never-Ending History of Creative Destruction

presented by Dave Broker

 REGISTER HERE
Masks encouraged Visit HERE for our current COVID-19 policies

In the second decade of the 21st Century, a major shift took place in the world of ground transportation. Taxicab drivers – long protected by local barriers to market entry – found themselves overtaken in the marketplace by new and disruptive rideshare services. Uber and Lyft drivers were able to provide a cheaper and simpler and more convenient means of getting around. This has created a significant benefit to consumers, though there have been winners and losers among drivers. 

Yet, even for the winners, this profession is now at serious risk of redundancy, thanks to the prospect of the driverless car. While still in development, autonomous vehicles could well mean the end of a livelihood – not only for rideshare drivers, but also for truckers and other vehicle operators – in the years to come.

However, this is not a new phenomenon. In this talk, industrial history podcaster Dave Broker explains how, between the 17th and 19th centuries, an almost identical process played out in the British textile trade. It was the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and its explosive consequences should be remembered and studied as we face the economic changes on the horizon.

MILL TALK: New England Textiles: Sustaining the Tradition—50 Years and Still Spinning

presented by John “Chick” Colony, President and Founder, Harrisville Designs

THIS EVENT IS FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC Register HERE

Masks encouraged
Visit HERE for our current COVID-19 policies

In the wake of the 1970 closure of Cheshire Mills, a woolen mill that had been operated by the Colony family since the mid-1800s, John “Chick” Colony founded Harrisville Designs in Harrisville, New Hampshire.  

Today, a half-century on, Harrisville Designs, still owned by Chick and his wife, Patricia – and whose sons are now involved in running the business - is sustaining a textile tradition in Harrisville that dates back to the late 1700s. Harrisville Designs not only spins virgin wool yarn but also manufactures a range of floor looms, table looms, and lap looms.  

Harrisville yarns and looms are widely used for both weaving and instruction by members of the Weavers’ Guild of Boston, whose Centennial Celebration exhibition is on display at the Charles River Museum through the end of 2022. 

In this talk, Chick Colony, with his 50 years of hands-on perspective, will discuss ongoing developments in New England textiles since 1971, touching on sheep, scouring, dyeing, and – of course – manufacturing, and where we, and Harrisville Designs, may go from here.  

MILL TALK: Spinning as “Industry” presented by Zoë Lawson

If you would like to attend this Mill Talk, REGISTER HERE
Space is limited.
Proof of vaccination and face masks required.

A technical writer by day, Zoë Lawson is a spinster and public historian by vocation. She has been spinning for more than 35 years and has given numerous demonstrations at historic sites in the Boston area. An active 18th-century re-enactor, Lawson recently began to explore Medieval textile and fiber production. She enjoys experimenting with historical tools and methods and teaching spinning to anyone who wants to learn by doing.

“Spinning as ‘Industry’” is based on Lawson’s research on textiles and textile production prior to the Industrial Revolution. Even though mills as we think of them did not exist, the many stages of fabric production were organized and industrialized, within the parameters of the time period. Lawson will also discuss fiber preparation as well as the spinning process and will demonstrate spindle spinning, to remind us why the Industrial Revolution was so revolutionary.

MILL TALK: Cities at the Falls, with Patrick Malone, Professor Emeritus, Brown University

If you would like to attend this Mill Talk, REGISTER HERE
Space is limited.
Proof of vaccination and face masks required.

The story of power canals and waterpower at Waltham, Lowell, Lawrence, and other mill towns is one of innovative engineering and awe-inspiring construction. From above the Moody Street dam in Waltham, the Boston Manufacturing Company’s power canal ran parallel to the Charles River, allowing it to drive multiple mills in a line. Company founder Nathan Appleton first saw this concept in operation in New Lanark, Scotland, and helped bring it to the U.S. Learn how the flows of water, technology, and capital converged to power the American Industrial Revolution.

Much of his scholarship examines waterpower development on American rivers, but he has also examined tide mills and the use of steam engines for textile manufacturing.

MILL TALK: What Came Before, with weaver Marjie Thompson

If you would like to attend this Mill Talk, REGISTER HERE
Space is limited.
Proof of vaccination and face masks required.

Weaver Marjie Thompson of Maine has studied the handcraft of weaving as it was practiced over the millennia and around the globe. Here, she discusses New England and Mid-Atlantic weaving traditions before the era of water and steam powered textile mills. The fibers, fabrics, and patterns of labor represent a fascinating story of both continuity and change.

Mill Talk: ALMOST A RIOT—Irish Labor & Working Conditions on the Canals & Railroads presented by Kate Viens, PhD, Dir. of Education, Charles River Museum

IN-PERSON REGISTRATION FOR THIS EVENT IS FULL

This Mill Talk will also be livestreamed on our YouTube Channel

Proof of vaccination and face masks required.

It’s Francis Cabot Lowell’s birthday! Join us at the 1814 mill site where Lowell and his peers pioneered the integrated cotton manufacturing that served as the model for the Lowell, MA industry. Learn what it was like to build the canals and early railroads, and how Irish workers rose up to challenge low wages and unsafe working conditions. Their experiences gave these men and their families an enduring place in American life.

This MILL TALK is part of a regional series of events:
The Irish Canal Builders
Wednesday, March 9 – Sunday, April 24
at various museums

Our museum is pleased to participate in a weeks-long series of events to commemorate the April 6 bicentennial of the arrival of the first Irish in Lowell. Led by Hugh Cummiskey, this group of workers was responsible for digging the canals that would power the new mills, dramatically expanding of the textile industry launched here in Waltham.

Events include a talk by Brian Mitchell, author of The Paddy Camps: The Irish of Lowell, 1821-1861 (sponsored by St. Patrick’s Parish); a Middlesex Canal walk, bike tour, and discussion of the novel This Enchanted Land: Middlesex Village (at the Middlesex Canal Museum); and “Lowell Talks: The Irish Canal Builders,” a panel conversation including the museum’s Director of Education, Kate Viens (Lowell National Historical Park).

For details, visit the websites for St. Patrick’s Parish (lowellirish.weebly.com), the Middlesex Canal Museum (www.middlesexcanal.org), and Lowell National Historic Park (www.nps.gov/lowe/).

MILL TALK- Entangled Lives: Women’s Labor, from the Rural Farm to the Factory Village

ONLINE ONLY EVENT

a discussion with Marla R. Miller, UMass Amherst

Streaming LIVE on YouTube.

Professor Marla Miller joins the Charles River Museum’s Director of Education, Dr. Kate Viens, for an engaging discussion about the ordinary women who made essential contributions to the New England economy in the Early Republic. By exploring the narratives of women’s labor, agriculture communities, and early industrialization, this program will bring the histories of rural farming towns and textile mill villages into closer conversation with one another.

In her book Entangled Lives: Labor, Livelihood, and Landscapes of Change in Rural Massachusetts, Miller examined the social relations of Anglo-, African, and Native American women workers in Hadley, a rural town in western Massachusetts. Her research revealed not just the gendered nature of labor, but the effects of race and class on the social and economic opportunities that this work represented.

Women in agricultural communities labored in traditional occupations such as domestic service, cloth making, health and healing, and hospitality. Yet by the early 19th century, the countryside was changing, with the development of local factories and mills where women found employment. Here at Waltham, the Boston Manufacturing Company established boarding houses for its workforce of young Yankee farm women.

Join us for a conversation that considers the “before and after.” We’ll explore how the social and economic traditions of rural communities might have supported or hindered these women as they entered a new type of employment; how their experiences and qualifications contributed to the success of the New England textile industry; and the ripple effects, including a shortage of domestic servants that increased the power of these women to demand higher wages and other concessions.

The 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.

This Mill Talk begins at 7:00pm. Doors open at 6:30.

This talk is free, and light refreshments will be served.

Massachusetts recruited over sixty regiments during the Civil War and their records are preserved in the Massachusetts Archives.  Highlighting original materials from the files of the "Great War Governor,"  John Albion Andrew, the lecture presents the stories of three unique regiments:  the 20th "Harvard Regiment," the " Irish-American" 28th Regiment, and the  "African-American" 54th Regiment, featured in the motion picture Glory!  It also includes material on the technology that made the Civil War so devastating.

Our speaker, Stephen Kenney, has been Director of the Commonwealth Museum, the Massachusetts state history museum, since 2002.  He has a Ph.D. from Boston University and has been a faculty member and administrator at several colleges including service as Interim President at Quincy College. He has been curator for several exhibits at the Commonwealth Museum, including Civil War Massachusetts, Sacco and Vanzetti, Road to Revolution: the Stamp Tax Crisis of 1765, and Freedom's Agenda: African-American Petitions to the Massachusetts Government.

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This Mill Talk begins at 7:00pm. Doors open at 6:30.

This talk is free, and light refreshments will be served.

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED FROM THE ORIGINAL DATE OF MARCH 21st.

Mill Talk begins at 7:00pm. Doors open at 6:30.

This talk is free, and light refreshments will be served.

In the 1830s, Waltham's first middle-class residents built a neighborhood near the Common that came to include some of the town's most radical abolitionists. Starting as a small group, they became a force in the antislavery movement and drew abolitionist leaders to Waltham, including Frederick Douglass and Ralph Waldo Emerson. In a house at the corner of Main and Liberty Streets, one man also harbored runaway slaves.

With the discovery of a largely untouched room papered with Civil War images from Harper's Magazine, historian Alex Green uncovered Waltham's hidden role in the Underground Railroad. Green will share his findings and what they mean for Waltham residents today.

Alex Green is a Fellow at Harvard Law School. A longtime Waltham resident, he is the former chairperson of the Waltham Historical Commission. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, and Lapham's Quarterly, and he is a contributor to WBUR-NPR's Cognoscenti.

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This Mill Talk begins at 7:00pm. Doors open at 6:30.

This talk is free, and light refreshments will be served.

This event, hosted by Mr. Robert Megerdichian, is really a full-throated expression of a son's love for his father, Abraham, sharing with all of us his machinist father's love for his work.

Abraham Megerdichian was born in 1923 to Armenian immigrants. After completing a special machinists' technical training secondary education and serving in the United States Navy in World War II, he then worked a full career at General Electric in Lynn, Massachusetts.

During the early 1960s, Mr. Megerdichian began using his 20 minute breaks to craft precious keepsakes for family and fiends. His earliest items were utilitarian, domestic, and full size. As his technical proficiency increased, however, his works became more intricate, smaller, and often included many very small parts.

Among these items created entirely out of metal to please and amuse were jewelry, doll house furniture, a cash register, a miniature vacuum cleaner, a tool box with individual tools to scale, toy trucks and cars, and a train set. Over the course of his working life, Abraham Megerdichian created over 400 metal art objects.

Please join us for a special evening hosted by Abraham Megerdichian's son, Robert, who will give a short talk about his father's life, art, and legacy, and will be on hand to discuss Abraham's work and what it was like to grow up the son of such a talented and generous tradesman-artist.

This event runs from 6:00pm to 8:00pm. Admission is free. Please RSVP by clicking the button below.

We hope to see you on March 14th!

This Mill Talk by Mimi Graney, author of "Fluff: The Sticky-Sweet Story of an American Icon," will explore the history of Marshmallow Fluff and the company and people that made it. 

At the turn of the twentieth century, Boston was a booming candy town. Of all the tantalizing treats, nothing has stuck around like Marshmallow Fluff. Since that time, the small, family-run company Durkee-Mower has churned out a century of Fluff with the secretive air of Willy Wonka. Little has been made of this extraordinary legacy—until now.

To author Mimi Graney, Fluff is more than a retro ingredient. It is a story about the merits and pitfalls of adaptation and innovation.

Graney deftly brings the factory floor alive, weaving a fascinating narrative about New England’s forgotten candy industry, changing social roles for women, the advent of commercial radio and modern advertising, and the supermarket revolution. Fluff has survived two world wars, corporate attacks, nutrition battles, and the rise and fall of manufacturing towns. The world has changed around it, yet this icon remains the same.

Mimi Graney is the founder of What the Fluff?, a festival celebrating Marshmallow Fluff that draws thousands annually. Her work in neighborhood economic development takes her to communities across Massachusetts where she focuses on creative industries and food-based businesses. Her favorite way to enjoy Marshmallow Fluff is by the melting spoonful in a mug of hot chocolate.

Come to this Mill Talk and learn a great, local story that will really stick with you!