Industry and high culture in Worcester

American Steel & Wire Company, circa 1905,  in Worcester. At its height, the company employed thousands.

To many, Worcester may be best known as an old industrial city, with a particular focus on things made out of metal. Indeed, some people used to call it "The Pittsburgh of New England.'' 

Bu it  also has such aesthetic  and educational delights as many fine examples of Victorian-era mill architecture and Victorian mansions as well as such treasures as the American Antiquarian Society, the Worcester Art Museum, the Higgins Armory Museum, the Mechanics Hall concert venue, the EcoTarium and Clark University, where Freud gave his only lecture in America and from which came Robert Goddard, the pioneer of rocket technology.  Then there's a leading Catholic institution, the College of the Holy Cross, up on a windy hill.

Many of the rich local industrialists were avid patrons of the arts and education even as some of them were happy to employ children in their factories.

And there's  the Worcester Music Festival, allegedly the oldest music festival in the U.S.,  the Canal Festival (there are canals in Worcester dating back to Industrial Revolution days) and Rock and Shock

Beautful Mechanics Hall, in downtown Worcester.