On January 10, 1860, something unthinkable happened: a rumble in the early evening, a heave, a shake, and the Pemberton Mill in Lawrence, MA collapsed! Just over 100 mostly immigrant workers were dead. Why did the mill fall? What of the families of workers who’d lost their lives? Who or what was at fault?

These questions and more will be discussed by UMass Lowell history professor Robert Forrant in a talk based on a just-published article in the New England Quarterly on the mill’s collapse.