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Warren Rawson Farm Workers' Dormitory

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c. 1885–1890. 37–49 Park St.
  • Warren Rawson Farm Workers' Dormitory (Peter Vanderwarker or Antonina Smith)

A unique survival of multifamily housing for farmworkers in Arlington, this seven-unit complex documents the importance of Arlington as a center for market gardens in the late nineteenth century. Paralleling the workers' housing for large mill communities, this wood frame building emphasizes how large the Arlington farms of the Rawson, Wyman, and Moore families were by the end of the nineteenth century. The once common steam-heated glasshouses and arc-lighted fields were indications of the strength of the market garden business in Arlington and Belmont. In 1902, the male head of households for this complex, all Irish in birth, included six farmworkers and a steamfitter.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Keith N. Morgan

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