Celebrating 251 years—Revolution to Cultural Shift in Worcester, Massachusetts
By Piya Samant
It is the 250 year anniversary of the American Revolution.
Juniper Rag is deeply connected to the city of Worcester, the innovative history and the creative culture all around. Juniper Rag was founded after our twenty year careers in the printing industry and one of our co-founders is a major history and Worcester pride nerd. We can’t let the occasion of this historic event happen without sharing the absolute significance with our community. We are total nerds when it comes to connecting dots, seeing impact and long term results of hard work. There is so much magic to the relativity of historical events and where we are now in this geographic area of New England and the greater country for that matter. We set out to write about our revolutionary pride, then the excitement about all the overlaps started connecting so much more. Indulge—
The revolution actually began in Worcester, Massachusetts, 251 years ago
—-not Lexington and Concord, our neighbors about 35-40 miles away. Worcester is located in Central Massachusetts, about an hour from Boston, if the Pike is clear, for those unfamiliar. Colonial leaders like Levi Lincoln, Timothy Bigelow, Sam Adams and John Hancock, along with local activists and the Sons of Liberty, played a role in organizing and mobilizing resistance in Worcester and surrounding area and cementing Worcester’s posture for the industrial age and an intellectual rise with the founding of ten colleges in the city.
The "Worcester Revolution of 1774" refers to a very significant event that happened, where a unification of militiamen, around 4,622, marched into town and shut down the British Royal Courts, defying all British authority and asserting their colonial rights. This peaceful act of working men—farmers, blacksmiths and mechanics gathered, held their ground and not a shot was fired. September 6, 1774, is considered to have been a crucial precursive revolutionary act that further ignited the American Revolution, occurring nine months before the Battle of Lexington and Concord.
To put the situation in better context, the event in Worcester happened after the Boston Tea Party, when the British government retaliated with the Intolerable Acts which included the Massachusetts Government Act, effectively removing the colony's self-governance. The “Farmer’s Revolt" occurred in Worcester, when these organized and inspired militiamen from across the enitre county marched into town and successfully closed the Royal Courts, forcing officials out and to acknowledge the colony's charter and the rights of its citizens.
Why is this significant? This act of this defiance, forcing British judges from the courthouse by forming a human gauntlet (they called it) by Worcester militiamen. It was acknowledged as the first major step toward the American Revolution, as it demonstrated the immense strength and power to organize a colonial resistance and the weakening of British authority. General Thomas Gage, the British commander in Boston, even warned his superiors to avoid attacking Worcester because the patriots were too strong there, eventually opting for Concord instead. That’s right—boom! Revolutionary spirit.
The impact of the “Worcester Revolution” set the stage for a later, larger confrontation with the British, demonstrating that the colonists were willing to challenge British authority. Historians argue that the revolution and gauntlet set up in Worcester at the courthouse by over 4000 men marked the actual transfer of political and military power to the colonists, nine months before the official start of the war at Lexington and Concord.
Deadhorse Hill Restaurant, Worcester, Massachusetts, formerly The King’s Arms Tavern, photo via deadhorsehill.com
Now if we could go back in time—
Worcester 1774 would be an especially interesting place to be a proverbial fly on the wall. Imagine, under two thousand people living in Worcester, and 37 other towns with only post on horseback to communicate. The roads are bad and it takes six days to ride from Boston to Hartford, Connecticut. Names like Timothy Paine, Levi Lincoln, Stephen Salisbury Timothy Bigelow, Nathan Baldwin, John Adams, Isaiah Thomas and places like Hancock Arms Tavern, King’s Arms Tavern, the Sun Tavern, The Daniel Hayward Tavern…no wonder Worcester has become the beer capitol of New England. Its roots were nurtured by the colonists and revolutionaries centuries ago. The King’s Arms Tavern was located at what is now Deadhorse Hill Restaurant, where in June 1774 the Worcester County Convention drafted the non-importation Solemn League and Covenant. You probably ate delicious food in the same place if you are local. There are known to be ghosts and spirits that lay beneath the building in secret tunnels. Who knows, but the history is there, if the walls could share.
Most people know that Stephen Salisbury III, founded Worcester Art Museum. The now adjacent Salisbury Mansion was built in 1772 right down in Lincoln Square, saved from demolition and moved next to the site of the art museum, on land that was once part the the family acreage. The home was used as a school, a tenant house, a gentleman’s club and is now a museum.
At the time of the American Revolution, Worcester, Massachusetts was not yet widely recognized as an art hub in the traditional sense—especially compared to later periods—but visual expression, patriotic symbolism, and political printing played a role in the region’s evolving identity and preparedness for the resistance movement.
Art Origins in Worcester
The printing press was the dominant artistic and communicative tool of the time. The press was the internet of today. Why took weeks and months for mail and communication, was now so much faster and more efficient. As Worcester became home to Isaiah Thomas, he became one of the most important printers and publishers in Revolutionary America. For all you print nerds he is buried at Rural Cemetery on Grove Street in Worcester.
Thomas’ The Massachusetts Spy, a newspaper filled with creative motivational and satirical efforts like political cartoons, allegorical woodcuts, and anti-British commentary fueled revolutionary sentiment. Thomas had the foresight to move his press from Boston to Worcester in 1775 to protect it from British authorities, this move made Worcester a center of revolutionary print culture.
Early Revolutionary values were also reflected in the austere yet dignified architectural designs of New England meetinghouses and civic buildings. These structures emphasized communal values and moral clarity over royal opulence, aligning with emerging American ideals.
Let’s digress for a moment and think of the founding of the Worcester Art Museum in 1896 —we can conceptualize a broader historical context of post-Civil War America, our Gilded Age, and the rise of the Progressive Era. The museums creation reflected national trends in philanthropy, education reform, and cultural democratization, while also responding to Worcester’s own transformation from a mill town to a modern, civic-minded city. It was founded shortly after Metropolitan Museum of Art (1870) in New York, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1870) and the Art Institute of Chicago (1879). All of this was a century away. Stephen Salisbury III was strongly influenced by the idea that exposure to fine art—especially European classical art and antiquities—could educate public taste and foster cultural literacy.
The Worcester Art Museum was intended to be both a democratized repository of art and a place of learning, with a strong emphasis on art history, technique, and appreciation.
The original printing press of Isaiah Thomas
American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts
Increasing communication and organization by April 1775, when Isaiah Thomas, our Patriot printer, smuggled his printing press from Boston to Worcester, Massachusetts in secret, just days before the Battles of Lexington and Concord. He then printed the first issue of, The Massachusetts Spy, from Worcester on May 3, 1775, which included his eyewitness account of the battles, which landed him as the first war. correspondent on the continent as well. This publication helped shape public opinion in favor of the Patriot cause and provided important details of the British actions and celebrated the bravery of local militias, these stories impacted and united communities near and far.
Worcester’s Intellectual Community at this time flourished and stakeholders in the community using their expertise to further the call rose. Timothy Bigelow’s (1739–1790) professional contribution was being a Lawyer, revolutionary leader, and orator. Though not a literary figure in the traditional sense, Bigelow’s written arguments and speeches for independence were influential. As a member of the Sons of Liberty, he collaborated with Thomas and others to spread revolutionary rhetoric. Bigelow helped organize the Worcester Committee of Correspondence, producing formal letters and documents that circulated revolutionary ideas.
Levi Lincoln Sr. (1749–1820) was also a Lawyer, politician, and judge whose contributions helped shape the government. Lincoln, whose name appears in many places in Worcester, including city hall, was known for his eloquent legal arguments and writings that aligned with the republican ideals of the Revolution. He ater became Attorney General under Thomas Jefferson, but during the 1770s, he was part of Worcester’s growing intellectual elite that shaped post-revolution governance. Lincoln’s legal treatises and public writings were rooted in Enlightenment thinking and civic responsibility.
American literary culture was still in its infancy. While there were no formal “authors” or novelists emerging from Worcester at the time, the spoken and printed word was central to the revolution—and Worcester’s literary power was grounded in oratory, journalism, political pamphleteering, and legal writing. Thinking of Worcester back in history, when literary greats like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Emily Dickinson each made profound contributions to American literature and thought—while none of them lived in Worcester, their influence was deeply felt there because of the geographical location, which, helped shape the city’s evolving intellectual and cultural identity during a critical period of reform, transcendentalism, and blossoming civic growth.
The intersection of radical print by Isaiah Thomas, revolutionary law practiced by Levi Lincoln, and public advocacy byTimothy Bigelow made Worcester a vital intellectual outpost in revolutionary New England.
Legacy and Cultural Impact
While Worcester wasn’t producing formal painters, writers or sculptors yet in the 1770s, the use of printed imagery, public symbolism, and handcrafted visual culture made art a tool of resistance, identity formation, and civic unity. Isaiah Thomas’ legacy continues today in the American Antiquarian Society, which he founded in Worcester in 1812—now one of the most significant collections of Revolutionary-era printed materials and ephemera in the country. Thomas also authored The History of Printing in America (1810), a landmark in early American literary history.
Worcester’s central geographic location also made it a strategic and accessible from locations all over New England and New York. Because of the vast intellectual capital in the area ten colleges were established in Worcester as the result of a unique convergence of prime geographic location, incredible innovation and industrial prosperity, cultural values, and civic vision—rather than a single cause. There are identifiable major reasons Worcester became such a higher education hub.
Worcester is geographically central in Massachusetts, making it accessible from all over New England—Boston, Springfield, Providence and New York.Its later position on key rail lines and roads helped it develop into a transportation and commercial crossroads, attractive for educational institutions looking to serve a wide region. About 13 would choose the Worcester area in total.
19th Century Industrial Wealth & Innovation
In the 1800s, Worcester became a center of mechanical innovation and manufacturing, especially in textiles, machinery, and metalwork. This prosperity fueled philanthropic giving and the founding of schools with practical, scientific, and business-oriented missions. Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) was founded in 1865 to educate engineers and technologists to meet industrial demands. Progressive and religious values were present. The city had strong roots in the Women’s Movement, as well as the Abolitionist, Unitarian, and Congregationalist movements—traditions that emphasized education as a moral good and a path to individual and societal improvement.
Many of the colleges were founded by religious groups or reformers, often with missions to educate the underserved or underrepresented, like Holy Cross, Assumption and Worcester State, which was founded to train teachers for Massachusetts public schools, reflecting Horace Mann’s vision of education for democracy. Clark University (1887) focused on graduate research, a radical idea at the time. Today, we are seeing Clark University drastically cut their arts programming.
Worcester has long been a city of immigrants contributing to rich cultural and ethnic diversity— beginning with Irish, Italian, Swedish, Armenian, and others—creating a demand for educational access for working-class and first-generation students. This cultural energy fostered institutions that were more inclusive and practical in their missions. This rich diversity and racially mixed neighborhoods also contributed to unity, a solidarity and closeness among people from across Worcester’s seven hills. Worcester is a big city that has a small town community. It seems that no matter where you travel in the world, Worcester connects people.
Worcester’s leaders saw education as a cornerstone of civic advancement, contributing to civic pride and institutional synergies. The city embraced the idea of becoming a “college town” to enhance its reputation, but the local transportation and lack of a communal downtown area has stifled this vibe in the city, unlike other places like Amherst, that have just a few colleges. In our opinion, if you build it, they will come and we are not talking about a Red Sox minor league.
The presence of one or two strong institutions like WPI and Clark encouraged others to build complementary missions, resulting in a cluster effect, Assumption University (Catholic), Worcester State University (public), and the former Becker College, which began as career focused and later become one of the biggest gaming schools in the country and has now closed and gaming has morphed into Clark University and Lesley University.
Adaptability, Innovation & Art
From it’s roots, Worcester attracted innovative ideas and visionary models of education, such as WPI’s focus on engineering, where Robert Goddard blew up a lab in his work to launch the first gas powered rocket to Clark University’s focus on graduate study, modeled after German universities. Holy Cross’s Jesuit humanistic tradition, one of the oldest Catholic colleges in the U.S. The city became known for educational diversity, accommodating liberal arts, the sciences, medicine, technology, and arts.
Worcester’s emergence as a city in the next century with ten colleges occurred because of the firm and deep roots put down by those who dedicated their lives to independence and radical new ideas, backed by a moral, “good for all” attitude. Worcester, Massachusetts was ideally located, economically vibrant, socially progressive, and culturally committed to learning. These forces combined to make higher education a pillar of Worcester’s identity, helping transform it from a manufacturing hub into a center for ideas, innovation, and opportunity. It must have been quite the golden age in Worcester at this time, golden enough for John Singer Sargent to come and stay a few times to paint the portraits of notables in the area, close enough to Boston and Isabella Stewart Gardener, who bought around 60 of his paintings and whom he exchanged over 200 letters with. For context, in the late 1800’s Sargent was charging 4K for a full length portrait. Today’s equivalent would be around 100K! Group with Parasols (Siesta) (1905) sold by Sotheby’s for 23M in 2005. Both characters were known for their unconventional behavior and they shared an interest in haute fashion and the very best of art, especially those with historical and cultural significance.
CC Lowell, the first art supply store in the US was founded in 1852, so it is easy to imagine Sargent purchasing supplies from the store during one of his extended visits to Worcester.
This store, CC Lowell celebrating 173 years this year keeps our local artist community connected and supplied. They know their clients by name and understand the needs of the artists and their practices. We are so lucky to have this historic treasure in our midst. In the age of online purchases and home delivery, this is a place you can have personalized service. We have to support these local gems or they will disappear.
The founding of the Worcester Art Museum (WAM) did not happen until the end of the 19th century, which marked a transformative moment in the cultural life the city. It not only elevated the city’s artistic stature, but also helped shape Worcester as a creative and intellectual hub in New England. The impact of Worcester Art Museum could be felt in the areas of education, community identity, urban development, and artistic innovation. WAM was founded by Stephen Salisbury III, a wealthy philanthropist, businessman, and patron of the arts who was inspired by the belief that access to world-class art should be available to all—not just the elite or those in major cities like Boston or New York. It opened in 1898 with a mission to “promote the study of art and give instruction in the fine arts.” The real crowning achievement of WAM was as a civic symbol of pride. The museum became a landmark, helping to establish Worcester not only as a manufacturing center but also as a city of innovation, ideas and aesthetics. Have you been inside? The brutalist outer shell gives way to a marvel — showcasing a blend of architectural styles and spaces, including the original Renaissance-style building, the medieval Chapter House, and modern galleries. The Chapter House, brought from France, boasts 12th-century architecture with stone vaulted ceilings and stained-glass windows.
The city of revolution and innovation became known for educational diversity, accommodating liberal arts, sciences, medicine, technology, and arts. Worcester Art Museum and the arts community shifted the perception of Worcester from industrial to intellectual. Education and the arts elevated Worcester and became a source of pride.
Near June Street, John Singer Sargent
