Backbone of the Shoe Industry

Backbone of the Shoe Industry. Marlborough, Massachusetts. Marlborough has followed the patterns of the American experience, depending largely on wave after wave of immigrant groups to fuel the need for cheap labor for its industrial growth. Before 1850, the few factories in town employed only descendants of English Puritan families to staff their workplaces. There were too few in number to fuel expansion and growth, but things would change rapidly soon after. , In the late 1840's the Irish potato famine wherein over a million people starved to death, was the “push” that brought nearly a million people to the shores of America seeking work. By the 1860's the Irish was the largest ethnic group in Marlborough. Shoe factories, flush with cheap labor, began to spring up. Multi-apartment housing on small lots in and near downtown were quickly built and financed by the shoe manufacturers, and Main Street filled with small shops. , The demand for labor did not cease. Another wave of immigration, this time from French Canada, responded. Motivated by limited opportunity and growing debt, and finding opportunity at the end of the Fitchberg Red Line from Montreal, French Canadians filled the area surrounding the “West” village where a second shoe manufacturing center was quickly growing. By the end of the century, French Canadians were the largest ethnic group in the city. , In the early years of the 20th century, substantial waves from Italy and Greece continued the tradition, and today large groups from Bazil, Latin America and Asia contribute to the dynamic life of this city. , [Captions] Unreadable in photograph