Talk:Lynn, Massachusetts

City of firsts
I feel that as a native, I ought to try and explain that conspicuously small collection of "Firsts" that the city is supposedly known for. In the very early 90s, the city of Lynn created an advertising campaign to offset the city's stagnating image as a depressed, crime-ridden satellite urban area. This was the "City Of Firsts" campaign. Among the numerous Lynn Firsts that were touted were:


 * Lydia E. Pinkham - First woman in advertising (and first woman in mass-marketing)
 * First baseball game played under artificial light
 * First dance academy in the U.S.
 * First tannery in the U.S.
 * First air mail delivery in the U.S.

Unfortunately, after a few short years, the majority of these claims were found to be inaccurate. For example, the first air mail delivery in the U.S. apparently occured on Long Island (link), a year before Lynn's claimed event. The first baseball game under artificial light apparently occured in Indiana (link). And on top of it, Lydia Pinkham (for whom there is a building named in town) turned out to be a snake oil peddler (thanks in part to a History Channel documentary a few years later on snake oil which featured Pinkham prominently. See also Patent medicine).

The "City of Firsts!" perhaps was the start of a series of rather bad attempts by city officials and employees to improve the city. Circa 1992, the city installed false plexiglass storefronts on Union Street, in an attempt to literally cover up the nagging loss of commerce in the city's main transportation square. As of 2002 most of the 6 original false fronts were still there, quite ironically covered in pigeon poop and in disrepair. (Not surprisingly, the storefront idea was conceived by a city worker who lived in the semi-affluent neighboring town of Swampscott, Massachusetts.) A large, new-fab, multi-level parking structure built by the MBTA at the commuter rail station near downtown in the late 1980s likewise never materialized into a draw for local commerce. The available commercial space in the structure was instead rented by the nearby community college; and despite being free, the lot is never remotely near capacity. Progress made in turning Lynn in to a technological center for the North Shore in the late 1990s and early 2000s was stunted by the burst of the dot-com bubble. See Lynn Cyber District.

Despite being a developed urban center in close proximity to Boston, Massachusetts, Lynn has no lodging hotels. A short-lived Days Inn at the very entrance to the city closed circa 1992; nearly ten years later the prime-location lot remained untouched save for rampant overgrowth. On the bright side, Lynn's main highway, the Lynnway (MA. Rt. 1A), rivals the Automile in car dealerships and car services, and leads to one of the better looking parts of town down by the waterfront on the way to Nahant, Massachusetts and Swampscott. Unfortunately, due to a perennial problem of heavy algae accumulation on the beach baking under the summer sun, this is seasonally one of the worst-smelling parts of town.

Lynn's dubiously proud history as the shoe-making capital of the early American colonies is not disputed (except that this legacy was partially shared by Saugus, Massachusetts and Danvers, Massachusetts). Lynn also boasts the largest city-owned park (the 2,200 acre Lynn Woods) in the state and the second largest in the U.S.

While we're talking about Lynn's firsts: For many years in the late 70s and 80s, Lynn residents lamented that Lynn was the first (then only) city where a McDonalds had ever closed (at corner of Union and Baldwin streets; the building still stands today, looking much like a 70s McDonalds). This was repeatedly proven to be untrue, but the mass depression from a faltering commercial economy kept the myth alive for some time.

Another First not included in the city's pride campaign was the establishment of the first Church of Christian Science by city resident and Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy. The Mary Baker Eddy House is a minor city attraction. KeithTyler
 * Are you sure about the Lynnway there? It doesn't run along the beach; that's Lynn Shore Drive, which isn't part of Rte. 1A but does smell bad in the summer. AJD 18:24, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
 * That's true... Edited... I wonder if any of this Lynn rambling is appropriate for the main page. KeithTyler 19:29, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Lynn Woods
[addition] Lynn Woods or Lynn Reservation is the largest reservation in the United States. If they continue to build up of Lynnfield Street, there won't be very much Woods or Reservation left for Lynn's Wilf Life. It seems that Lynn's Reservation is being Protected anymore.

I too am from Lynn and have always heard that Lynn Woods is the second largest city owned park in the United States but recently found this article on the net. I am now thinking the "the second largest city owned park" moniker can also be chalked up with the ficticious "city of firsts" brandings as well.

http://www.honan.net/2004/06/park-pride-nations-largest-urban-parks.php

History
Who founded the initial European settlement? Were they part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony? -- Beland 01:26, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Resettlement?
What does the article mean about "re-settlement"? I'm also curious why the location was chosen and why manufacturing was big. Is there a nearby source of water power? -- Beland (talk) 17:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Automation came very late to the industry. — Llywelyn II   15:41, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Revised
"Lynn Lynn the City Of Sin, You Never Come Out The Way You Came In" lol, there was always an exit out of Lynn but the Sin part was when you passed THRU Lynn a person was supposedily not the same when they left Lynn. Either from drunkiness or whatever that person came thru Lynn to pick up, lol. True Story, Massachusetts was an Indian Name and Indian Land, if you're interested it's a good read. Does *anyone* have any references or sites for "Lynn Lynn City of Sin"? I know it's real, and I know nearly everyone within a 100 mile radius of Lynn knows it, but damned if I can prove it with an external reference. It's days like this when I really hate the WP:OR policy. - Keith D. Tyler &para; (AMA) 19:16, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I can't remember the name of the book, but that whole paragraph is all wrong. From a book in the gift shop at the Lynn Historical Society, "Lynn, Lynn, city of sin. You never come out the way you went in. Ask for water, they give you gin. It's the darndest city I've ever been in." The saying refers to a once bustling harbor, and the sailors that would wander onto Summer St., which at the time, boasted around 100 bars in a row that the sailors would frequent. Debauchery was common-place along that strip. [unsigned]


 * I've never heard the "sin" one. Though, born and raised in Dorchester, lived in Braintree, Cambridge and Plymouth. I never visited Lynn. But, when just a small child, my mother used to sit me on her knees, facing her, and bounce her legs up and down (as to "Trot" lol), while holding my wrists, and would sing this song (Paddycake tune) Trot Trot to Boston, Trot trot to Lynn -- although, her words, and pronunciation were; "Trut trut to Boston, trut trut to Lynn, watch out little (Jeeny) before ya fall in." Then she would split her legs apart so I'd "fall in". Just a bit of nostalgia. :) I continued the "tradition" with my son, and he loved it. I also played the "game" with other children and they loved it. It was a hit. I thought my mother was a genius, as I thought she made it up herself (I guess she did, in a way, as she used different words and made a game of it, like a very short and crude amusment ride). Kids would beg me to play the Trut Trut game, as I did with mum. - Jeeny Talk 23:31, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems a native will never escape the "Sin" one. At least twice since moving to Seattle I've had it recited at me after admitting where I'm from. As for "Trot, Trot," it seems to have a bit of history. - Keith D. Tyler &para; (AMA) 18:32, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I've added the "City of Sin" part. Was shocked it wasn't there before.  Although as far as I know, it's tongue in cheek at this point, haven't heard much about about Lynn lately.  Just Boston. - MSTCrow 01:28, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
 * That's because nobody cares about it Crow. Get a life.

Lynn - Southampton connection
Removing this section because it's wording isn't backed by its cites or by a couple other sources I've found. By 1640, the population of Lynn consisted of about 40 families. In that year, after being reprimanded or "straitened" by Gov. Winthrop, the entire population of Lynn abandoned the site of Lynn and moved to Long Island where they established the towns of South Hampton and Southold, bringing all of the records from the town of Lynn with them. The town of Lynn was subsequently repopulated by new settlers.

The pastor of the community that moved from Lynn to Long Island was the Rev. Abraham Pierson. Around 1646, Rev. Pierson and about 20 families relocated again, moving from Long Island to Branford, New Haven Colony. In 1666, after the New Haven Colony was merged with the Connecticut Colony, Rev. Pierson and his colleague Robert Treat of Milford moved to New Jersey where they established the community of New Ark, the site of the present-day city of Newark. Rev. Pierson's son, Rev. Abraham Pierson, Jr. moved back to Connecticut in 1691 where, in 1701, he became the first rector of the Collegiate School, known today as Yale College.

The cited source (History of Long Island), available on Google Books here, doesn't reflect the assertion made above. There is no indication that the entire population of Lynn abandoned it to go and found settlements in CT and LI. The term "straitened" means simply restricted in potential for growth. While this can be a deliberate restriction imposed as a penalty, there isn't indication that this was the case. What it does say is: "In Winthrop's Journal, he states that about forty families, finding themselves straitened, left the town of Lynn with the design of settling a new plantation. They invited Mr. Abraham Pierson, of Boston, to become their minister...." Firstly, it only says that Winthrop recorded (as he did many things about the MBC) that forty families "found themselves straitened", but not that he had anything to do with it, and that they decided to go found a new settlement elsewhere. Also, it indicates that Pierson was not from Lynn.

At, we see a different wording: "The common statement derived from Cotton Mather is, that between thirty and forty families in Lynn, Massachusetts, finding themselves straited for land, came over to Long Island and effected a settlement." The wording here suggests not that Lynners had been reprimanded and left in exile, but that some families decided there wasn't enough available land in Lynn for them; so the venturing into new settlements in CT and LI weren't about exile but about expansionism and homesteading.

Likewise, History of Essex County Massachusetts available at Google Books, describes that a number of deed issues with the natives had led to some unsavory conflicts, so perhaps (OR) there was limited undeeded land available for the English. As to the Lynners who left to found settlements in CT and LI, it refers to them as "restless" or "enterprising", not exiled or ostracised.

No source indicates that the entire population of Lynn abandoned the town, whether by force or not, or that it was ever repopulated or resettled.- Keith D. Tyler &para; 16:50, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

The links, the links
No, I'm not referring to the golf courses. Read this for WP's concept of an acceptable link: WP:ELNO. The COC link has to go because it is all advertising. The Lynn Item was a tough one. However, the item is not primarily about Lynn, it is about the news, granted much of it happening in Lynn. The fact that someone might have failed to turn his vehicle at the end of Eastern Avenue, run it into King's Beach, and was immediately poisoned to death by the sewage there, is not encyclopedic information about Lynn, even though those places are in Lynn. Similarly, if an elderly woman dies of asphyxiation from the smell trying to get to Nahant, that is not encyclopedic, either. If you say much about the item in the article and you want to list an issue as a reference to it, that seems to me to be OK. Or, if the Item has its own article, the newspaper might be an official site there; certainly it would belong there. I think it might. Meanwhile, these disallowed links have to go, and the others should be properly formatted, say with template:cite web.Dave (talk) 21:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Notable residents
I'm pretty sure this list has to go. It isn't encyclopedic. We can't list every person of note living in every city in the world. This would not be an encyclopedia, it would be a global telephone book without the telephone numbers. What's the point of it? Someone wants to know something about Lynn, Massachusetts, and all he can find is a list of persons who consider themselves notable and live in Lynn. For the persons actually from Lynn, we have a category to cover that. And suppose a person moves. What, are going to take in hand checking the lists and making sure they all have not moved? I am sure you will agree, this is absurd. It falls into the category of lists of trivia. I'm going to do a little more study of the WP policy and then I think this list will have to go.Dave (talk) 23:02, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * It's back. — Llywelyn II   15:41, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Recreation
I am questioning the Great Stew Race’s relevancy here. This race only occurs once a year and does not have any legitimate coverage in any online media. Removed. Charger2 (talk) 04:26, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Notable natives deletion
I agree with Dave's previous comment on the Notable Residents section. Since their comment, the section was renamed to "Notable natives", but the list was unwieldy (40+) and seemed to go against the principal of having article be a summary on a topic. I have removed this section. Charger2 (talk) 03:23, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
 * It's back. — Llywelyn II   15:41, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Lynn (Essex Co.) Acadian Connection
During the early-late 1900s, ferry service ran from Nova Scotia to Boston. A large number of Nova Scotias, particularly those of Acadian descent, relocated to Massachusetts. Many settled in Essex County and more so, the community of Lynn. Even today, there are many "French Acadian" family names in the area. I am just wondering if there has been any research on this subject. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.166.4.1 (talk) 16:06, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Presumably the 'French Acadian' family names are just the Quebeckers who came down when automation allowed the mill owners to replace the locals with cheaper workers. — Llywelyn II   15:41, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Timeline of Lynn, Massachusetts
What is missing from the recently created city timeline article? Please add relevant content. Contributions welcome. Thank you. -- M2545 (talk) 06:51, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Currently, all four of the major events in Lynn's 1760–1904 history are entirely missing. (Counting Douglass's book, 4/5ths are missing.) See below. — Llywelyn II   15:56, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Largest Employer
What is the largest employer in Lynn, officially? I would guess that it is the General Electric Company's aviation engine plant, BUT the largest employer in Essex County is said to be the Massachusetts General Hospital!24.121.195.165 (talk) 07:09, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Discussion of First Electrified Streetcar ("Trolley") in Massachusetts
Suddenly today there appears to be a kerfuffle over the status of the Highland Circuit streetcar line of the Lynn and Boston Street Railway even though there are two sources cited which pin the start date of the electric service at November 19, 1888: There are NO earlier dates of electrification for any streetcar on List of streetcar systems in the United States and I have extensively researched the history behind the Highland Circuit line being electrified first in the state and have consulted with transportation industry experts for verification.
 * The Electrical World, December 8, 1888, page 303
 * Electric Power, January 1889, page 21

What's the resolution here? Stefan01902 (talk) 23:30, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

I added a new reference just now, to the official City Of Lynn "About Lynn / A Brief History Of Lynn" which reads:
 * The first Electric Trolley in the state ran from Lynn in 1888

Stefan01902 (talk) 23:40, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

In the case of the first electric streetcar, multiple sources refer to Lynn as home to the first electric trolley in the entire United States:
 * Street Railway Bulletin, Volume 12 page 465


 * House Committee on Labor

but in fact other U.S. systems had been electrified prior. (Those first-in-nation overstatements have dates of service inception which do correlate with other sources, and if the scope of "first" is applied to Massachusetts specifically then otherwise those sources are solid.) Stefan01902 (talk) 00:43, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Any school ever on Pearl (now Baldwin) Street?? Ever?
Both Google Maps and Apple Maps show the "Cobbet Junior High School" at 50 Baldwin St Lynn, MA 01902. The current Lynn school is the Cobbet Elementary School http://www.lynnschools.org/ourschools_cobbet.shtml and the English High School (1892 building) was rebuilt in 1924 to be the Cobbett Junior High School (note different spelling).

Was there ever a school, of any grade level, on Baldwin Street (formerly Pearl Street) ???

I will ask this on the Lynn Public Schools Talk if needed. Stefan01902 (talk) 16:18, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

2021 additions to History
Just FYI I'm planning on also adding to the 21st Century history about the downtown expansion / development (which includes the FD Park) quite a bit more. The FD Park mention is just the start. Stefan01902 (talk) 23:34, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Transportation too condensed?
Condensing the Transportation section regarding the ferry service makes sense. I feel that dropping the electrification plan completely is a bit too much though. I think it's important to call out how the rail corridor to and including Lynn involves EJ and underserved population issues. Thoughts? Stefan01902 (talk) 14:01, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

More citations needed for History??
Your addition of the Moresources template doesn't come with any discussion here.

This edit:
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lynn,_Massachusetts&oldid=1059472596

seems to be in error, as the History section has (in my opinion) a large number of citations and numerous links to related pages which in turn have validation.

Please explain why you added this template, or I will remove it per Help:Maintenance_template_removal. Stefan01902 (talk) 16:53, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * OK. I acted in good faith but I accept that others disagree with the tag in question. I will remove it. (May add some individual cite tags.) 107.127.46.11 (talk) 03:08, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Added back NSCC as being in 1981 fire area.
I just added back the mention of NSCC being in the fire area of 1981 (with a proper citation) which had been removed in good faith (citation needed) April 26. I feel that mentioning that the campus is in the area of the fire helps to provide better context to the location - rather than just "at Broad and Washington Streets" which is somewhat of an understatement given the affected area. Stefan01902 (talk) 23:56, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

What's wrong with "bostonroads.com" as a citation?
I just reverted revision 1115783696 which was the removal of a reference / citation which appears perfectly valid to me.
 * http://www.bostonroads.com/roads/I-95N_MA/

What's wrong with that page as a reference? Stefan01902 (talk) 23:10, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Cheyna Matthews
Pro soccer player is from lynn 2601:C4:8201:FEB0:902:7D32:6C4D:6484 (talk) 01:19, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
 * So? We already have two posters above asking for the entire list to be removed. I'm in favor of some small list capped at 10 or so. Alternatively, shunt the whole thing to a separate list page where it can be longer. A soccer player in any country where the sport is called soccer is almost never going to make the shorter cut. — Llywelyn II   15:41, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Sources for future article expansion
This source quoting from a book compiled by the WPA during the Great Depression could be helpfully used to expand the article. It does need to be used with a little caution, though. (For instance, it calls Thomas Bata "Charles Bata" for no apparent reason and misses the real importance of John Adam Dagyr.)

See also the new History section at Footwear since Lynn takes pride of place in the entire human saga of footery. In part:
 * Amid the Industrial Revolution, John Adam Dagyr's introduction of assembly line production[14][24] and tight quality control[25] to the "ten-footer" workshops[26] in Lynn, Massachusetts, USA, around 1760 is sometimes credited as the first shoe factory.[1] However, each step was still done by hand in a slowly optimized putting-out system.[24][27] The first mechanized systems—developed by Marc Isambard Brunel in 1810 to supply boots to the British Army amid the Napoleonic Wars—failed commercially as soon as the wars were over because the demobilized soldiers reduced the price of manual labor.[28] John Brooks Nichols's 1850 adaptation of Howe and Singer's sewing machines to handle binding uppers to soles[29] and the Surinamese immigrant Jan Ernst Matzeliger's 1880 invention of an automatic lasting machine finally allowed true industrialization, taking the productivity of individual workers from 20 or 50 pairs a day to as many as 700, halving prices,[24][30] and briefly making Lynn the center of world shoe production.[31][32] As late as 1865, most men in the industry identified in the census and city directory as general purpose "cordwainers" or "shoemakers"; by 1890, they were almost universally described as "shoe workers" or—more often—by the specific name of their work within the industry: "edgesetter", "heel trimmer", "McKay machine operator".[24] Many were replaced by cheaper immigrants;[24] the Czech Austrian Tomas Bata joined these workers at Lynn in 1904 and then returned to his own factory in Zlin, Moravia, mechanizing and rationalizing its production while guiding the factory town that developed into a garden city.

— Llywelyn II   15:41, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

City of Nonsense Firsts
(see above) while missing the three important ones not just for itself but for humanity. (Sources at Footwear, Last, and Jan Ernst Matzeliger can be checked and expanded as needed.)

1) The current article misses Welsh immigrant John Adam Dagyr and the ten footers entirely. I don't necessarily agree with the Encyclopaedia Britannica that what he set up should really be counted as the first shoe factory in the history of human civilization but, if the freakin' 2023 EB is giving you that win, I don't see why you don't at least make a note of it somewhere. Besides, the QA and putting-out systems he set up (also unmentioned and unlinked) are what began the process that not only made Lynn grow but let it take on the Philadelphia and New York cordwainers, shoemakers, and cobblers and crush them. The dependence of the early industry on protective tarriffs and also on provisioning the Southern slaves with tons of low-cost low-quality shoes through Charleston and New Orleans also goes entirely unremarked on, despite both kind of being a big deal on their own, the irony with Mr Douglass, and the importance to the war effort (and legendarily Gettysburg) of the South having never set up their own mass shoemakers.

2) The current article drones on about Lynn's not especially important relationship with electricity while entirely missing John Brooks Nichols, his adaption of Howe/Singer's sewing machine to work shoe leather, and his yielding to Howe and partnering to fund Howe's patent case instead of just enriching himself. Sure someone would have quickly done that somewhere over the next ten years or so but the fact that it was by a Lynner (Lynnian? Lynnster? Lynnmeister?) and Lynn was the first community to adopt it on a wide scale mattered, particularly cumulatively with the rest of this.

3) The current article inexplicably discusses Matzeliger in the 20th century (he was dead by then) and treats him as a token "African-American" "part" of "mechanization of the process". He had a Dutch name because he was a Surinamese American, which matters (particularly to them). If the previous editor was only trying to say black/Black, the article should just say that. (He was biracial.) He wasn't "part" of a "mechanization of the process". Over years of tinkering, he single-handedly jury rigged an automatic lasting machine the major companies hadn't been able to manage in decades of attempts, something ultimately so complex the patent office had to send someone over to see it in action just to understand what it was trying to do. On its own, that machine instantly increased production by ~14 times, halved the price of footwear, made Lynn the center of world shoe production, and—after he was obliged to sell out ⅔ of his ownership of his invention to buy the parts necessary to fully patent and market it and then sold out the rest of his rights for $15k cash in hand to have a half decent life before dying of tuberculosis—made the United Shoe Machinery Corporation an international behemoth. (Although, yes, they did keep their HQ in Beverly so... y'know... they're even worse than they seemed at first.) Yes, the guy deserves an entire copiously sourced paragraph of his own and in the right century.

Bunch of other problems with things being out of order. Someone may have been trying to keep things thematic but it needs to be roughly more chronological than it is now. Thematic things can be in other appropriate sections. Currently the "19th century" section has paragraphs that cover, respectively 1816–1858; "mid century"; 1883; 1945–2023; 1860; 1841–1848; 1866; 1889. Thematically it makes even less sense: transport and telegraphs; summer resort; early electricity; jet engines; 1860 strike (and no other and completely context free); Frederick Douglass; Mary Baker Eddy; massive 1889 fire... with not so much as a paragraph on the shoe industry that actually built the city during that century. Similarly the immigration is handled as just something that happened because it was 1890 and everyone was doing it. The removal of skilled and personal positions with reasonable hours usually from home in favor of impersonal unskilled machinery operation at all hours in centralized mills... was kind of important in that process... as was unionization and attempts at union busting. The WPA got Bata's name wrong but at least they knew to include him... which this article currently doesn't.

Per the EB, this city was the original center of shoe industrialization. Even if that's overstated, by 1900, it was the center. Dagyr belongs in and the 19th century of this town was a story of shoes and the systematic optimization of their production, not jet engines or bucolic second homes for people visiting from the "real places". Matzeliger wasn't a token African helper. He was a singular and singularly hardworking engineering genius who literally revolutionized—14× production, 50% reduced price—an industry that every human being has been involved with since the Neolithic Age. Even more than Nichols, he didn't remotely see the full value of his work (which sucks) and people at the time were crazy bigoted (see his article). At the same time, he got the patent under his own name and he still saw tens of thousands of dollars for his work ($500k+ 2023 dollars fwiw) which wasn't nothing. You can't do a bio of every Lynnifer but everyone in the town (at minimum) should know more about this guy. Also, of course, Bata, who took Matzeliger's machinery and Lynn's lessons back to Austro-Hungarian Czechia and revolutionized European shoemaking himself. — Llywelyn II   15:41, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Digital Stewardship Online
— Assignment last updated by Tyam448 (talk) 21:24, 6 November 2023 (UTC)