1901-1939

"A Mighty Big Workshop"

-Donald Tulloch, 1914

Worcester reached its height as a manufacturing center in the early twentieth century. As industry boomed, business leaders promoted Worcester as the ideal industrial city, a city of prosperity. Immigrant workers continued to pour in, creating an ethnic mosaic. They came from new places, including Lithuania, Poland, Italy, Greece, Finland, Syria, and Armenia. Large-scale industrialists tried to foster loyalty, improve productivity, and maintain a measure of control over their diverse work forces by offering housing, recreation, and social services. Until the Great Depression slammed on the brakes, this was a bustling era when railroads, trolleys, and pedestrians clogged streets, smokestacks spewed, machines hummed, and products rolled out.

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