The most obvious value of the Russell Panorama exhibit being held at the Kilburn building in New Bedford from July through October is that the 1,275 foot long painting freezes the world from New Bedford to the Pacific in time- 1848
The voyage begins with a view of the city from the middle of the harbor, the city as many of the ancestors of present day citizens of New Bedford would have known it, so the people of the present meet the people of their past.
But while all eyes are on the panorama, which is quite impressive, there is another connection of the present with the past that goes largely unnoticed.
The Kilburn Mill was built in 1904 for the purpose of manufacturing cotton yarn, and closed when it became cheaper to manufacture the product elsewhere, especially where cotton is grown.
Thousands of workers reported to the factory each day in the years the mill was open, and climbed the stairs to the third floor where the machinery was.
According to an evaluation of the Kilburn Mill “Mill Nos. 1 & 2” done on May 5, 1933 by G. W. Young for the Associated Factory Mutual Fire Insurance Companies, the manufacturing floor was made of wood planking.
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The spinning machines stood in multiple rows with space between the rows where the operators stood. Obviously, the floor boards under the machinery did not suffer the wear and tear that the space where the workers stood did. That part of the floor was protected by the machinery that stood above it.
Now without the machinery the floor reveals alternating rows of light and smooth flooring with dark, roughly worn flooring. There is a definite boundary between both, and looking closely one can see that single boards stretch from one area to the other so the floor when first laid was universally smooth and light.
As viewers walk the length of what was once the spinning room floor of the mill, they quite often have to walk across the uneven and well worn, darker parts of the floor as well as the smooth in order to view some sections of the four panels of the panorama corresponding to the four rolls upon which it was stored and shown 170 years ago. People have to walk where the mill workers’ feet wore the floor as they stood in front of their machines.
The grooves and unevenness of that space is the result of the constant movement of the mill workers.
So as they are making the conscious connection with the past by viewing the Panorama that they cannot touch, those viewing the Panorama make an unconscious and physical connection with the thousands of workers who had run the machines since the mill’s opening in 1904 by stepping in the grooves those feet had worn into the floor.
When you come to view the Panorama, be conscious of the mill workers who once worked there, often under horrific working conditions, each time you notice you are walking on the well worn sections of the floor.
There are many ghosts in the room.
They are of those people in the past who viewed the Panorama from 1848 to 1851 and who painted it, and those generations of the mill workers still present in the floor boards.