October 7, 2025

1 Lecture: The Hareven-Langenbach Amoskeag Project

2 Now on Exhibit: Amoskeag Revisited

3 2025 Manchester Holiday Ornament

4 2026 Historic Preservation Award Nominations

5 America's Tapestry Project

6 Lecture: Bricks That Built Amoskeag

7 2024 Annual Report

8 Manchester Trivia Questions

A Revolutionary Approach to the Study of History of Manchester: The Hareven-Langenbach Amoskeag Project in the 1970s

THIS SATURDAY!

October 11, 2025

11:00 a.m.

Millyard Museum

included with regular admission

In connection with our special exhibit “Amoskeag Revisited”, join us at the Millyard Museum for a special talk by historian Robert B. Perreault.

Perreault will speak about the Amoskeag Project and the relatively new methods employed in the study of local history during the previous century.

Although traditional history featured important people, events, and movements, the roots of the “new social history” dated back to the Depression-era WPA interviews with average citizens who related aspects of their everyday lives and work.

Based at the Manchester Historic Association’s research center in the 1970s, the Amoskeag Project relied upon the Association’s vast archival body of Amoskeag Manufacturing Company records, and especially its approximately 75,000 individual employee files, in an effort to identify, locate, and interview former Amoskeag textile workers and company administrators as resource persons in the production of journal articles and books by Tamara Hareven and Randolph Langenbach.

Perreault served as chief oral-history interview and research assistant to the project.

Please RSVP by calling 603-622-7531 or emailing history@manchesterhistoric.org

Now on Exhibit:

Amoskeag Revisited: A Fifty Year Retrospective

The year 1975 was a turning point for Manchester’s Millyard. The urban renewal project had recently been completed with the filling in of the canals and demolition of about 25% of the mill space, and many of the businesses that came into the Millyard in the 1930s and 1940s had left, including the Chicopee Manufacturing Company, which shut down that year.

In September 1975, a special exhibit opened at the Currier Gallery of Art called “Amoskeag, A Sense of Place, A Way of Life”. The exhibit was designed by Randolph Langenbach, an architectural historian, and featured historic images of the mills, along with contemporary photographs taken by Langenbach before and during the urban renewal project. Also featured in the exhibit were machinery and architectural components of the mill buildings that had been salvaged by Langenbach, as well as recollections of former millworkers who told what it was like to work in the mills and live in corporation housing.

The exhibit was very successful, attracting double the number of visitors to the Currier than any previous exhibit. It also served to instill in the city and its citizens a deeper appreciation for the mills and the legacy of the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, as well as for the remaining mill buildings.

In the fifty years since the Amoskeag exhibit opened at the Currier, Manchester has grown to have a deeper appreciation of the history of the Amoskeag mills. This exhibit at the Millyard Museum examines the lasting impact that the mills have had on Manchester and feature elements of the original 1975 exhibit as well as never-before-seen photographs taken by Langenbach.

On exhibit through March 7, 2026

2025 Manchester Holiday Ornament

The Manchester Historic Association is pleased to announce this year’s holiday ornament featuring Amoskeag Corporation Housing.

The ornament features a colorized depiction of the corporation housing - a distinct feature of the Amoskeag Millyard. The corporation housing district between Elm, Canal, Hollis, and Pleasant Streets was built by the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company between 1838 and 1916 to provide homes for their workers. 

For over 20 years, the Manchester Historic Association has produced original, limited edition brass-plated ornaments that celebrate Manchester’s history. These unique, detailed ornaments are handcrafted in the United States and make perfect Christmas tree decorations or gifts for the holidays and for many other occasions. Each comes in a decorative box.

These ornaments are available for $30.00 in the Millyard Museum Shop as well as at the MHA Research Center. The 2025 ornaments, as well as a limited number of ornaments from past years, can also be purchased online.

2026 Historic Preservation Award Nominations



The Historic Preservation Committee is now accepting nominations for the 2026 Historic Preservation Awards.  

The Historic Preservation Awards program recognizes and supports the efforts of individuals, businesses and organizations who have made significant contributions to the preservation of buildings, neighborhoods, traditions and other historic resources in the Queen City.

Over 30 years, more than 250 recipients have been recognized for a wide variety of preservation efforts in 40 different categories. The annual event is the MHA's largest fundraiser to support its non-profit mission of collecting, preserving and sharing the history of Manchester.

If you are interested in nominating a person, organization or business for a Historic Preservation Award, please complete the HPA 2026 Nomination Form by November 30.

Details about the 2026 Historic Preservation Awards will be announced in the coming months.

America's Tapestry Project

Fridays and Saturdays throughout 2025

Millyard Museum

included with regular admission

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Manchester Historic Association is excited to announce a partnership with America's Tapestry.

America's Tapestry is a unique exhibition that will feature 13 hand-embroidered panels, one for each of the original colonies. The embroidery is being conducted by talented artisans from New Hampshire to Georgia and each panel illustrates the diverse stories of individual contributions–many overlooked–that reveal each colony's struggle for Independence.

Museums from across the states have volunteered to collaborate on the panels' historical imagery and host the stitchers as they work.

The Millyard Museum is pleased to be hosting the stitchers of the New Hampshire panel as they create this artwork that celebrates the state's pioneering revolutionary spirit. Visitors to the Millyard Museum are invited to come and watch the stitchers as they work every Friday and Saturday (excluding major holidays) in the museum's Elm Street gallery until the work is completed, likely in early 2026.

Following the completion of all 13 panels, "America's Tapestry" will tour a number of venues throughout the East Coast, including the Millyard Museum in 2027.

To learn more about America's Tapestry, visit their website: americastapestry.com

To learn more about the design of the New Hampshire panel, click here.

Lecture:

Bricks that Built Amoskeag and Beyond

Saturday, November 15, 2025

11:00 a.m.

Millyard Museum

included with regular admission

Did you ever wonder where all those bricks came from that built the mill buildings in the Manchester millyard? Do you know how red bricks were made 175 years ago?

A presentation on the topic with the answers to those questions will be held on November 15, at 11 AM in the Discovery Gallery of the Millyard Museum. 

The presentation will cover the discovery of clay, the raw materials for the bricks, the process of making the bricks, the people who made the bricks, where they were made and the transportation of the bricks to Manchester. 

Learn about the fascinating connection to Hooksett as part of the entire process and how their contribution was so significant to Manchester’s history. Presented by Jeffrey Myrdek, historian.

Please RSVP by calling 603-622-7531 or emailing history@manchesterhistoric.org

2024 Annual Report

2024 Annual Report

The Manchester Historic Association's 2024 Annual Report is now available! Please click on the above link to view or download the report.  

Print copies of the report are also available at the front desks of the Millyard Museum and Research Center and can be mailed upon request.

We hope you enjoy reading about some of the highlights from the past year!

Last Month's Trivia Question:

Why were the Coolidge Mill and the Jefferson Mill so named by the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company?

ANSWER:

Both mill buildings were named in honor of Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, great-grandson of President Thomas Jefferson. 

T. Jefferson Coolidge was Treasurer of the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company in 1885 when the Jefferson Mill was built, and he named it to honor his ancestor. The Coolidge Mill, built in 1909, was so named by the Amoskeag to show its appreciation of Mr. Coolidge.  

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This Month's Trivia Question: What property surrounding Long Pond in Manchester, just south of Lake Massabesic on the Auburn line, was purchased in 1936 by philanthropist Frank P. Carpenter?

The answer will appear in the next newsletter.