American Textile Museum To Sell Its Home, Reduce Hours

The American Textile History Museum in Lowell Mass. is reducing hours and selling its building. “The museum, which draws about 50,000 visitors a year and has an annual budget of $2.2 million, originally opened as the Merrimack Valley Textile Museum in North Andover in 1960. It spent about $8 million to renovate a former manufacturing building in Lowell and, after being renamed, opened in the 160,000-square-foot space on Dutton Street. But it didn’t raise enough for the move to offset the increased costs. That has forced the museum to draw regularly from its endowment, which has plummeted from $7 million in 1999 to its current $2.8 million.”