Celebrating
Over 100 Years!

Learn With Us in Lowell, MA


Parker Lecture Commitee

John Carson
Chairperson
William Samaras
Brian Martin
Paul F. Lappin
Executive Secretary

Ex-Officio

Michael Fiato
Head of Lowell High School
Julie Chen, Ph.D.
Chancelor, UMass Lowell
Sokhary Chau
Mayor, City of Lowell

In Cooperation with:

Boarding House Park
40 French St.
Pollard Memorial Library
401 Merrimack St.
Lowell National Park Visitor Center
246 Market St.
New England Quilt Museum
18 Shattuck St.
Donahue Family Academic Arts Center
240 Central St.

2022-2023 Events

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Wednesday
8/10
2022
11:00 am

Hot Tamales Brass Band

Since its inception in 1992, the Hot Tamale Brass Band has led the way in Boston for energetic, fun New Orleans Jazz, Dixieland and Second Line Music. They have performed at Mardi Gras, Boston First Night, the Honk! Festival, and over...
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Wednesday
8/17
2022
11:00 am

DINOMAN

With magic, merry mayhem, and magnificent props, the audience is taken on a trip throughout the mesozoic era. How do we know dinosaurs were here? What is a fossil? How are they made? This program is fun and informative for all...
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Thursday
8/18
2022
11:00 am

The Magic of Bonaparte

Screams of Delight! Howls of Laughter! Unbelievable Energy & Excitement! These are common symptoms of witnessing first-hand Bonaparté’s Award-Winning Magic Concert! Plus…as an added bonus, the show includes the dramatic appearance of a fluttering white Dove and an adorable fuzzy Bunny!
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Thursday
9/15
2022
6:00 pm

Michael S. Murphy – “Webster’s Regiment: 12th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment”

In 1861, approximately 1000 men from Massachusetts answered the call from their country and marched off to war to keep the Union together. The 12th Massachusetts fought in just about every major battle in the Eastern Theater of Operations against...
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Thursday
9/22
2022
7:00 pm

Janet Parnes – “Myths and Miracles of Victorian Medicine”

Medicine in the Victorian Age has a lot to tell us about today’s world: how we handle a pandemic, and how far medicine has come. Prepare to gasp, cringe and chuckle, as you discover the horrifying practices and milestones discoveries...
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Wednesday
9/28
2022
7:00 pm

William C. Cross – “Winslow Homer: American Passage”

Like his contemporaries Twain and Whitman, Homer captured the landscape of a rapidly changing country with an artist’s probing insight. His tale is one of America in all its complexity and contradiction, as he evolved and adapted to the restless...
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Saturday
10/8
2022
2:00 pm

Dr. Jean Christophe Cloutier – “The Man the other Side-Jack Kerouac, Bilingualism, and Self-Translation.”

Part of Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Festival. J.C. Cloutier is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the editor of La vie est d’hommage (2016, 2022), which gathers the original French writings of Jack...
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Sunday
10/16
2022
2:00 pm

Phil Primack – “Put it down on Paper: Mary Folsom Blair”

"Put It Down on Paper is the charming, poignant tale of Phil Primack’s unflagging search for the woman who would otherwise have been lost to history—and of that woman’s fortitude and passion. Mary Folsom Blair comes to us directly, in...
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Thursday
11/10
2022
5:00 pm

Lowell City of Learning’s Annual Awards Ceremony

Please join us on November 10, 2022, at 5pm at the Richard & Nancy Donahue Academic Arts Centre at MCC, 240 Central Street in Lowell, for the presentation of the  first Patrick J. Mogan Learning City award to William Samaras,...
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Saturday
11/12
2022
11:00 am

Linda Hoffman – “The Artist and the Orchard: A Memoir”

Artist Linda Hoffman saved an orchard and reshaped her life at Old Frog Pond in Harvard, Mass. When she moved to the farm, she didn’t know anything about apple-growing. More than 20 years later, the farm is one of the...
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Sunday
3/19
2023
2:00 pm

Michelle Marchetti Coughlin – “The Complex Worlds of Colonial Women”

What was life really like for women in early New England? The answer may surprise you. Historian/author Michelle Marchetti Coughlin (One Colonial Woman's World: The Life and Writings of Mehetabel Chandler Coit, Penelope Winslow: Plymouth Colony First Lady: Re-Imagining a Life) will...
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Saturday
4/8
2023
12:00 pm

Dennis DiZoglio – “The Value of Political Capital”

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a mayor? Well after serving three terms as a mayor and being a local and regional government official for over thirty-five years I think I know. So I wrote...
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Thursday
4/13
2023
6:00 pm

James H. Barron – “The Greek Connection: The Life of Elias Demetracopoulos and the Untold Story of Watergate”

“The Greek Connection: The Life of Elias Demetracopoulos and the Untold Story of Watergate” is the internationally acclaimed biography of a controversial journalist and freedom fighter who relentlessly battled for democracy, honor and survival against abusive Greek and American governments...
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Saturday
4/29
2023
12:00 pm

Paul Marion – “Lockdown Letters & Union River”

Paul Marion has been a writer and community activist since the 1970s. He is the author of several collections of poetry as well as the editor of the early writings of Jack Kerouac, Atop an Underwood, and other titles. His...