30th Anniversary Lawrence History Center- Immigrant City Archives

June 5, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Barbara Brown, 978-686-9230

Lawrence History Center Celebrates 30 Years—Presents 2008 Dengler Honorees

LAWRENCE—Ten of the most promising and transforming leaders in the Lawrence Community will be honored on Thursday, June 12, 2008, at the 30th Anniversary celebration of the Lawrence History Center. The gala celebration will feature a new exhibit dedicated to the leaders of Lawrence, past and present, with live music, food, and additional artwork and displays in the courtyard of the complex at 6 Essex St. in Lawrence.

The awards commemorate the vision of Eartha Dengler, whose vision to preserve the rich history of the City and its people, inspired her to establish the Lawrence History Center/Immigrant City archives 30 years ago. The Dengler Honorees are reviewed and selected by the past recipients of the award, forging a bond of civic leadership across generations. The 2008 Dengler Award winners are: Jessica Andors, Deputy Director, Lawrence Community Works; Sabrina Dorsainvil, Movement City/Groundwork Lawrence Green Team; Laurie Bottiger, Head of School, Esperanza Academy; Ralph Carrerra, Director, Lawrence Family Charter School; Terry Kelley, Artistic Director, Friends of the Lawrence Public Library; Misael Martinez, Movement City; Michael Miller, Esq., Lawrence Municipal Airport; Gary Sidell, Principal, Bell Tower Development LLC; Manuela Su, Manager of Bilingual Education, Community Training Group; and Larry Yameen, Realtor, LJ Yameen Real Estate.

As these future history makers receiver their honors, the event itself marks an historic turning point. The History Center occupies the former headquarters of the Essex Company, the courtyard of which had been used exclusively by the Essex Company executives and their employees. Since then, lack of funding and maintenance kept the courtyard gates locked for decades. However, historic preservation grants have advanced repairs to the complex, including new courtyard gates, built by YouthBuild workers to the original specifications. Those gates will open next week, and for the first time, Lawrence residents will be able to walk through the courtyard where the City was born, and enjoy new public open space rich with history.

Enel North America, the successor of the Essex Company, is the lead sponsor for the event, along with the Sidell Family of Bell Tower Development LLC. Tickets are $50 each. Contact Acting Director Barbara Brown at 978-686-9230 for tickets or more information.
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An (Un)Civil Action

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 12, 2010
 
Contact: Pleun Bouricius, (413) 584-8440, pbouricius@masshumanities.org

  
HISTORIANS WRESTLE WITH CIVIC VIOLENCE IN LAWRENCE PUBLIC FORUM
 
Northampton – Six weeks of harsh winter weather and violence during the 1912 textile strike led many women strikers to send their children to live with sympathetic families in other cities. On Saturday February 24, 1912, Lawrence police prevented more families from sending their children on the 7:11 a.m. train, citing neglect as the reason. In the riotous melee that followed, fourteen adults and fifteen children were arrested. Public opinion turned in support of the strikers, and by Monday the 26th, Lawrence was in chaos, with marching workers slinging bricks at police, who were shooting into the crowds.  Images in the national press of police beating on women and children would prove to be the undoing of the factory owners.
 
Join historians Robert Forrant and Jim Beauchesne on February 27, 1-4 pm, at the Lawrence Heritage State Park, 1 Jackson Street, Lawrence, MA for a discussion program on civic violence in Lawrence and American history. The program features a tour of selected locations of the strike, excerpts from the documentary, John Brown's Holy War and discussion of Brown's choice for armed conflict, and culminates in a discussion of violence during the Bread and Roses Strike.
 
This event is presented by Mass Humanities in collaboration with the Lawrence Heritage State Park, the Lawrence History Center, and the Lawrence Public Library.  Free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served. The (Un)Civil Action program in Lawrence is one of many that Mass Humanities is presenting in collaboration with local agencies around the state.  For more information, visit www.masshumanities.org
 or contact localhistory@masshumanities.org.
 
            Northampton-based Mass Humanities is affiliated with the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.  Mass Humanities conducts and supports projects that use history, literature, philosophy, and the other humanities disciplines to strengthen and enhance civic life across the Commonwealth. For further information about initiatives, grant deadlines, and awarded grants, visit: www.masshumanities.org.
 

Eartha Dengler Receives "American By Choice Recognition"

September 10, 2009: Founder of Lawrence History Center to receive Outstanding American by Choice Initiative Recognition

Eartha Dengler, founder of Immigrant City Archives/Lawrence History Center, antiwar and civil rights activist, and champion of the immigrants of her adopted city of Lawrence, Massachusetts will receive one of the nation’s most prestigious awards, the Outstanding American by Choice Initiative. The recognition, given by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, will be presented on Tuesday, September 15 at 1:00 p.m. in the historic courtyard of the Essex Company, 6 Essex Street, which houses the archives.

The initiative recognizes the significant contributions and achievements of naturalized U.S. citizens who have made a personal decision to become an American by choice. Past recipients include Carlos M. Gutierrez, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce; Elie Wiesel, author and Nobel Peace Prize winner; Franklin Chang Diaz, former NASA astronaut; and General John Shalikashvili, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Dengler, who will be honored along with Eva Millona, Executive Director of MIRA, is being honored “having demonstrated responsible citizenship and commitment to this country and the common civic values that unite us all as Americans” The Recognition Ceremony follows the dedication, earlier the same day, of the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services Lawrence Field Office, at 2 Mill Street. After the dedication, the program moves to 6 Essex Street and will also include the naturalization of 15 immigrants who will become citizens that day and the American By Choice ceremony.

Dengler was born near Hamburg, Germany, in 1922. She emigrated to the United States in 1951 with her husband, Claus, and their daughter Ann, and resided in Andover for decades. As a young woman she lived through the terrifying years of World War II, fleeing as a refugee from bombings and then resisting the Russian occupation. Settling in the greater Lawrence area--home to wave after wave of immigrants who had come first from Europe, then from the middle east, to work in the city’s mills--Dengler drew upon her own experience to reach out, discover, and preserve the larger story of Lawrence’s immigrants and the role they played in building what is still called “the Immigrant City.” Dengler, now 88 years old, lives in St. Louis Park, Minn., near her family.

A humanitarian, passionate about history and the plight of immigrants, she founded the Immigrant City Archives, a repository of some 750 oral histories, photographs, city records, documents and the Essex Company compound & collection, now called the Lawrence History Center. She began the archives from a closet in the YWCA, working from scratch with documents of women immigrants who were residents of the YWCA in the city. “When the records became obsolete—for the Y—they became important to me, and I convinced them to turn them over to me; I wanted to keep them,” she said.

“The immigrant story is never obsolete; it is the texture of America. Eartha lived it, understood it, and spent the latter part of her life preserving it,” said Barbara B. Brown, Executive Director of the Lawrence History Center. “The issues she raised in Lawrence--about citizen participation, community building and most importantly, respect for everyone's history- are the very issues that surface at the national level as the country deals with immigrant issues today,” she added.

Dengler received a B.A., Magna Cum Laude from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, in 1975, and a master's degree from the Graduate School of Library Science, Simmons College, Boston, in 1977. Besides caring for her family, which had grown to three children, she worked at Andover's Memorial Hall Library while attending college, to make ends meet. Among her many awards and recognitions include a Doctor of Humanities, from Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass; Lawrence Eagle Tribune, Woman of the Year, Merrimack Valley Chamber of Commerce Leadership Award, and the Bay State Historical League, John I. Ayer Award.

CONTACT: Barbara Brown, Director at 978-686-9230

Additional Attachments:

Press Release - Eartha Dengler Receives "American By Choice" Recognition (pdf)

American By Choice Fact Sheet (png)

Eartha Dengler Fact Sheet (pdf)

Notable quotes by Eartha Dengler (pdf)

Schedule of Events on September 15, 2009 (pdf)

Fact Sheet on Lawrence Mass (pdf)

Images (please contact the LHC for high resolution images):

Eartha Dengler and Chet Sidell

Eartha in 2008 (click on image for high-res version)

Eartha in 2008 (click on image for high-res version)

Eartha and current LHC Executive Director Barbara Brown (click on image for high-res version)

A Young Eartha Denlger

Eartha and the Yepez Brothers

Eartha and a young friend

Front View of the LHC Offices (the former Essex Company Building)

The New LHC Logo

Webster Family Fund/ ECCF Award to LHC

For Immediate Release 12/23/2009

The Lawrence History Center has been awarded a three thousand dollar grant from The Webster Family Fund at the Essex County Community Foundation. Lawrence History Center will use the grant funds to continue critical repairs to the historic Essex Company complex located at 6 Essex Street which is the home of the Lawrence History Center.
Lawrence History Center~Immigrant City Archives was founded by German immigrant, Eartha Dengler in 1978 to preserve the history of Lawrence and her people. Settling in the greater Lawrence area--home to wave after wave of immigrants who had come first from Europe, then from the middle east, to work in the city’s mills--Dengler drew upon her own experience to reach out, discover, and preserve the larger story of Lawrence’s immigrants and the role they played in building what is still called “the Immigrant City.”

ECCF was established in January of 1999 to increase local philanthropy and provide support to non-profit organizations located in and serving Essex County. The Foundation offers the philanthropic, grant making, financial, and tax expertise needed to engage in effective, inspired charitable giving. ECCF stewards more than 80 charitable funds held in over $16 million in assets, and since its inception has awarded over $8 million in grants to local organizations. The Foundation’s mission is to “to help you help your community”.

The Webster Family Fund was formed in 2005 when the D.K. Webster Family Foundation transferred its assets into a field of interest fund at the Essex County Community Foundation. The Fund supports capital projects at nonprofit organizations serving the Greater Lawrence community.

To learn more about The Lawrence History Center, please visit www.lawrencehistory.org

To learn more about The Essex County Community Foundation, please visit www.eccf.org