1984.112.003

This is a scrapbook cataloguing important events in Lawrence from the years 1978 to 1981 through a series of newspaper clippings. The most prominent articles are ones titled “Lawrence of Yesteryear”, informative pieces written about the life of mill workers and common citizens during the very early years of the city. Many more of the articles present are also retrospective and are written about Lawrence’s status as a cultural hub in the 1940’s and how the city has changed, as well as where the authors hoped to see the city go in the future. Two particular stories, one about the unorthodox homilies of St. Patrick Priest David D’olimpio and the other about the inauguration of Lawrence mayor Lawrence P. LeFebre in 1978, are the largest and longest running stories in the scrapbook, each of them pieced together throughout several pages. A writer by the name of George Gelineau wrote many of the articles present in this scrapbook, around about one third of them have his name before the title. The book is only filled halfway with clipping’s, the rest of the pages left blank, but the very last story is about a U.S. publisher, Rand McNally, ranking Lawrence and Haverhill as the worst cities in the country. Both mayors fought back with tough words, statistics and a bit of sarcasm, with Mayor Ryan quipping “Well, only the first and the last city on McNally’s list will get any publicity, so I think the joke here is on him, not us”.