[1] Springfield, Massachusetts became the home of the first federal arms manufactory in the United States in 1794. "The presence of the Armory attracted a skilled workforce to the town. When mechanics and craftsmen left the Armory's employ they often started their own enterprises or took their expertise to local businesses. The ingenuity and inventiveness of these men contributed significantly to the industrial growth of Springfield throughout the nineteenth century....By 1820 the town had evolved from its agrarian beginnings into a manufacturing town. Along with the U.S. Armory, Springfield had a paper mill...and a number of other industries along the Mill River... Innovations in transportation contributed to Springfield's increasing economic growth and success in the early nineteenth century. The town's first bridge to span the Connecticut River was built in 1805. The construction of canals along the Connecticut River, together with developments in steamboat technology, expanded the commercial traffic along the river, increasing Springfield's access to new markets for its goods. By the late 1830's, the ascendant role of the railroads had eclipsed the importance of the Connecticut River for Springfield's economic future. In 1839 the Western Railroad, originating in Boston, connected Worcester to Springfield. Within a few years, rail lines ran both North to South and East to West through the town, giving Springfield the distinction of being 'the crossroads of New England'"  Source: Springfield History, Connecticut Valley Historical Museum.  

[2] Clinton, Massachusetts "straddles the valley of the south branch of the Nashua River...The town's abundant water power potential invited textile manufacturing, and a diverse ethnic population followed the creation of mill jobs. These included Irish, German, Scots and English immigrants who worked in the cotton and fabric mills and made combs. The invention of power looms brought young women from New Hampshire and Vermont to tend the looms. The town was incorporated in 1850 and was already a sizeable community with over 3,000 in population and the fourth largest manufacturing center in Worcester County. Clinton benefited greatly from the ability and ingenuity of the Bigelow brothers, who invented new kinds of power looms and set up profitable mills to house them.

By 1850 five million yards of cloth was woven by 700 mill workers and in the following year an additional 2 million yards of lace, tweed and pant fabric was being turned out of the mills in Clinton. The Bigelows continued to refine their equipment, developing rug weaving looms and wire cloth looms. Ancillary industries sprang up in town, such as foundries and machine shops, to service the mills and companion factories for making clothing, shoes and boots were also established. Clinton became successively the state, national and world leader in the manufacture of carpets, cotton gingham and wire cloth, and by 1885 was the largest carpet maker in the world.

Rural Lancaster...originally included the area now known as Clinton. The first industries in the region were combs and textiles. The Bigelow brothers...came to the Lancaster area to set up a new textile business for weaving ornamental cloth bordering known as coachlace... A power loom to mass produce this cloth [was invented and a company was created] to manufacture it...[by the name of] 'The Clinton Company.' ...This invention dropped production costs of coachlace from 22 cents a yard to 3 cents a yard and created many new jobs in the area.

Within ten years another Bigelow loom was invented for the power weaving of counterpane, a heavy raised-design cloth [used as bed coverlets]...In 1845, Erastus Bigelow received a patent on a new loom that revolutionized the making of gingham cloth, and the brothers went to work and created a new company, Lancaster Mills on Green Street, to manufacture this bright, plaid cloth."  Source: Clinton Online Town History.

[3] Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was cemetery that "attempted to address many of the shortcomings of past burial grounds, particularly their lack of space and grim appearance, by adapting the 'picturesque' style of landscape design for use in the cemetery. The informal, naturalistic beauty of the 'picturesque' style, based on 18th century English landscape gardens, accommodated the psychological needs of the relatives of the deceased and cemetery visitors. The ex-urban site of the new cemetery also dealt with many of the physical limitations of the earlier urban burial grounds. The immediate popularity of Mount Auburn Cemetery reflected the success of this new approach and inspired extensive replication in cities throughout America. The widespread dissemination of the 'rural landscape' type, exemplified by the planning of later cemeteries like Oak Hill in Georgetown, in turn helped establish a new tradition of landscape design in America.

Prior to the 1830s, the deceased were buried primarily in churchyards or city commons. By the early 19th century, however, many old burial grounds had become overcrowded and unsightly spaces in the increasingly dense urban fabric of expanding east coast cities . Dilapidated grave yards, such as King's Chapel Burying Ground in Boston, consumed tracts of prime real estate and provided stark contrasts to the vitality of life in the bustling city centers. The foul smells issuing from the crypts and semi-exposed graves also provided offensive and unwelcome reminders of the proximity of these symbols of death and decay to the activities of daily life. As public health concerns grew over the decomposition of corpses in the heart of downtown, progressive city leaders began to look for alternatives to the traditional churchyard burial .

Coincidental with the growth of physical problems associated with urban burial grounds, new attitudes toward death and commemoration began evolving in America at the end of the 18th century. Conventional interments in small, sometimes unmarked graves in local churchyards became less appropriate as cities grew beyond the more intimate scale of the small town. Waves of new immigrants and shifts in native populations often erased the communal memory of the locations of ancestors' graves, even of famous persons. In some cases, smaller family burial grounds were obliterated entirely by urban development when ownership of the land passed out of the hands of descendants. Growing concerns over maintaining a connection with the past helped generate interest in permanent memorials for the deceased. Related to the movement to erect public monuments for national heroes, the enthusiasm for memorials also reflected a desire to define the history of the new nation and perpetuate the virtues of American civilization. Cemetery monuments, in celebrating the lives of certain worthy individuals, became one means of cultivating American nationalism." Source: "Tomb with a View: Mount Auburn, Oak Hill and the Rise of Rural Landscape Cemeteries in America," by J. Robert Orr. Smithsonian Preservation Quarterly, Summer/Fall 1995 Edition.