Waltham is a vibrant city, and it can be characterized by its rich multicultural history. Once the home of the very first fully-integrated factory in the entire United States, Waltham attracted migrants from all over the world.

The Boston Manufacturing Company, founded in 1813, and fully functional by 1814, was the brainchild of Francis Cabot Lowell and other investors of The Boston Associates. The first of its kind, the factory drew in people globally looking for work and to make a life for themselves in U.S. The term full integration refers to the process of manufacturing, meaning that this was the first factory to be able to produce textiles and cotton cloth in a singular location, entirely under one roof. Using the power provided by the Charles River, Lowell and his associates were able to plant the seeds for the New England manufacturing revolution. As Massachusetts natives may be familiar with, the mill town Lowell was founded and named in honor of the manufacturing pioneer following his death in 1817.

Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation Historian Amy Green suggests that Lowell’s successes relied heavily on his impressive memory and inspiration from the industrialization of the United Kingdom. In her research she wrote, “[Lowell’s] visits to England’s factories were no secret, he had to be stealthy to conduct what amounted to industrial espionage. Sometimes disguised as a farmer/peasant, he went into the factories and committed to memory every single detail of the power loom and other textile manufacturing machines.” With the skills he learned during his time at Harvard University, throughout his career as a businessman and on various trips to England, Lowell’s legacy in New England is truly unique.

The BMC was one of the sole manufacturing projects operating in Waltham for much of the 1800s. However, competition arrived in town during the latter half of the 19th century as the Waltham Watch Company planted its roots in 1854. With the ability to mass-produce watches in one central location, and in the same manufacturing fashion as the BMC, the Watch Company was able to expand their audiences at home and abroad, thus, fully catapulting their success and drawing in even more workers.

In order to build a workforce properly equipped to meet the demands of the manufacturers’ growing popularities, the executives of each company began recruiting single women in the surrounding towns to become mill workers; these women became known as mill girls. This system that later became known as the Waltham-Lowell system, began expanding its recruitment process to young female laborers at home and overseas as the demand for workers increased alongside the expansion of each company. These girls, sometimes as young as 15, would be paid a fraction of the wages of male factory workers but were offered other benefits such as housing, food and access to religious activities and education. As part of Harvard Business School’s archival history, historians recovered records that included payrolls of female workers at both companies from 1817 to 1881, verifying the vital role these women played in the success of industry during the 19th century.

According to the history department at Boston College, as the influx of migrants into Waltham continued throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, small diasporas began forming all over the city. “Irish immigrants flocked there beginning in the 1850s. They settled within walking distance of the factories on Charles, Felton and School Streets. St. Mary’s Church on School Street, built in the late 1850s, flourished as a spiritual and community center for Irish Catholics. French Canadians followed the Irish beginning in the 1880s. Working primarily at the Waltham Watch Factory, they too settled along Charles and Felton streets. To preserve their Catholic traditions and hold Mass in their native tongue, the French Canadian settlers founded St. Joseph’s Parish, Waltham’s second Catholic church.” wrote undergraduate researcher Brieanna Allen ‘25.

The Irish and the French Canadians were not the only groups of immigrants to settle  in Waltham as a result of the rise in industrialization and manufacturing here in the Bay State. Into the 20th century, the Watch City began to see an influx of Italians, Swedish, and Jewish immigrants as well.

As the entire population of Massachusetts began growing into the 20th century, Waltham was no different. The trending influx of immigration into Waltham has only continued to increase over time. Irish immigrants were among the largest groups of migrants in the Greater Boston Area  for nearly a century, and that did not change, but more immigrant groups began making up large populations here. At the turn of the century, immigrant groups from nearly every continent in the world made up the waves of people fleeing overpopulation, persecution and heavy taxation. With the evolution of manufacturing systems, the railroad industry and other similar technologies — Greater Boston became a hub for immigration.

In recent years, the largest immigrant population in the Watch City has been Guatemalans. Director of the Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development & Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston Lorna Rivera, has characterized her research by following trends of Latino immigration into the Bay State. Tracking immigrants by subgroups in Greater Boston, she deduced that Guatemalans made up the largest subgroup in Waltham and local businesses are reflective of that. She said in her research, “Waltham itself has remained relatively affordable, with a downtown known for its wide variety of ethnic restaurants and retail establishments. Among these are Latino markets, bakeries and restaurants that cater to an emerging population of Central American origin, the majority of whom are Guatemalan.”

Although Guatemalans may be the most populous in the city, they’re not the only large groups of migrants who make up the population of Waltham. According to an article that appeared in the Boston Globe in 2019, Mark Melnik, director of economic and public policy research at The University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute, warned that the significant impact immigrants have has been grossly underrated. The article said, “foreign-born workers comprise nearly 80 percent of the increase in the labor force in Massachusetts since 1990.”

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has seen a large influx of migrants in the past couple of years, some even going as far as to call the pattern a migrant crisis. In March of 2024, Massachusetts House Lawmakers were demanding more federal funding in order to provide housing for unhoused migrants. At the time, the biggest issues the Bay State faced were that these shelters were all at capacity.

Massachusetts has also been a safe haven for migrants and asylum seekers, because it is the only Right-To-Shelter state in the country. This means that Massachusetts guarantees housing for families, but does not protect unhoused individuals.

Despite the changes in immigration policy under various presidential administrations since the 1980s, Waltham still maintained a large wave of immigrants from Guatemala, China, Uganda, India and Haiti in those 45 years.

The return of the Trump administration poses a major threat to these thriving immigrant communities in Waltham. According to a Feb. 2 article in The Waltham Times, there were citizen reports of U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement officers in the city a couple of weeks ago; those claims could not be confirmed nor denied by local and federal authorities. This poses a major issue for the 18.1% of MA’s population that is foreign-born, which is nearly 1.3 million immigrants living and working in the state. Of the various executive orders Trump has signed since resuming office on Jan. 20, some of the attacks on immigration include ending humanitarian parole for asylum seekers from Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela, as well as making efforts to restrict birthright citizenship.

Massachusetts lawmakers have continued to push to protect migrant populations in the Commonwealth from these attacks. During a congressional hearing in Washington on March 5, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu assured other congresspeople, the people of Boston and President Donald Trump that Boston would continue to protect its immigrant population. She said, “I’m the mayor of Boston. I don’t get to decide who comes into our country and where they go after that. Our job is to keep people fed and healthy and safe when they arrive in our city, and we do that in order to make sure that everyone across our community is safe.” Despite threats that the Trump administration poses to the sanctuary state, state officials are working to protect migrant citizens in Waltham and beyond.