# Nashua, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire in the 1920s

> A mill city on the Merrimack, crowded with textile work, immigrants, strikes, newspapers, and city government.

- Place: Nashua, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire (42.765, -71.468)
- Years: 1920 to 1929
- Page: https://yorehistory.com/place/nashua-hillsborough-county-new-hampshire/1920s
- Step into it (interactive): https://yorehistory.com/?step=Nashua%2C%20Hillsborough%20County%2C%20New%20Hampshire%2C%20United%20States&at=42.7654,-71.4676&year=1925

## Looking around

You stand in a city of 28,379 people[3] at the start of the decade, with the Nashua River meeting the Merrimack[5] and the old north-south road running through town. The center of gravity is industrial: the Nashua Manufacturing Company’s cotton mills[5][6] and other factories[4] draw thousands of wage earners. Around you are foreign-born workers and their American-born children[3][8], including people from the great immigrant wave that reached Nashua between 1885 and 1925[5]. There is a daily paper to buy or borrow, because the Nashua Telegraph filled thousands of local pages in the 1920s[9], and a French-language paper is also in town. City business is close at hand: annual reports count births, deaths, marriages, schools, streets, and expenses[1]. By 1922 the mills are not only workplaces but battlegrounds, as the New England textile strike reaches Nashua[6] and partial reopening brings disorder.

## Work: Mills set the day

The most telling number is 92 manufacturing establishments with 9,057 wage earners[4] in 1919. Textile work dominated the city’s identity through the Nashua Manufacturing Company’s cotton mills[5][6].

## Who lived here: Many arrivals, many languages

Roughly 31 percent of Nashua’s people were foreign-born white residents[3][8] in 1920. The city’s own history places the widest immigrant wave between 1885 and 1925[5], just ending as the decade opens.

## Law & power: City hall kept count

Nashua was not a village but a chartered city since 1853[5]. Its government made yearly public accounts, including annual reports of expenses and vital statistics[1].

## In the air: Labor was the argument

The sharpest local question was who controlled mill time and mill pay: the 1922 textile strike reached Nashua[6]. When the mills partly reopened, a report said a riot followed an attack on a worker[7].

## Faith: English in parish schools

As across New Hampshire, parochial schools operated under rules that made designated instruction and administration exclusively English[10]. That mattered in a city with a French-language newspaper[9] and many French Canadian families.

## What people feared: Death stayed close

In 1920 the city counted 466 deaths against 786 births[2]. Factory injury, infectious disease, childbirth, and old age all lay behind such totals, though the opened sources do not break Nashua’s deaths down by cause.

## Roads & news: A newspaper city

News came through a dense local press: the Nashua Telegraph archive holds 40,998 pages from the 1920s[9]. French-speaking readers also had L’Impartial, published in Nashua from 1898 to 1964[9].

## Money: Wages, not rents

The city’s economy can be measured better at the factory gate than at the kitchen table: 1919 manufactured products were valued at $15,918,377[4]. Ordinary rents and retail prices remain an online gap in the sources opened here.

## Year by year

- **1920** (here): The federal census counted Nashua at 28,379 people.[3]
- **1920** (here): Nashua recorded 786 births, 585 marriages, and 466 deaths in its municipal vital statistics.[2]
- **1920** (the country): Women voted in a United States presidential election for the first time after ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.
- **1922** (here): The New England textile strike reached Nashua and the Nashua and Jackson mills resumed only partial operation by June.[6]
- **1922** (here): A financial newspaper reported a riot at Nashua after an attack on a worker at the Nashua Manufacturing Company plant.[7]
- **1924** (here): The Mohawk Tannery began tanning hides beside the Nashua River.
- **1927** (the world): Charles Lindbergh flew solo across the Atlantic, a world event followed in American newspapers.
- **1929** (the country): The stock market crashed in October, beginning the economic crisis Nashua carried into the next decade.

## What the sources say

- Nashua published a municipal annual report for the financial year 1920, recording city government, expenses, and vital statistics. (from the sources)[1]
- The 1920 annual report gave Nashua 786 births, 585 marriages, 466 deaths, and a census population of 28,379. (from the sources)[2]
- The federal census counted Nashua at 28,379 people in 1920. (from the sources)[3]
- By the 1930 census Nashua had grown to 31,463 people, so the city added a little over 3,000 residents during the decade. (from the sources)[2]
- The Census Bureau listed Nashua among New Hampshire cities of more than 25,000 people in 1920, alongside Manchester. (from the sources)[3]
- Nashua stood where the Nashua River joins the Merrimack River, and its older transport and economic ties ran south toward Boston and north toward Concord. (inferred)[5]
- The Nashua Manufacturing Company was still the city’s defining textile employer in the 1920s, long before its final liquidation in 1947. (from the sources)[5][6]
- In 1919 Nashua had 92 manufacturing establishments with an average of 9,057 wage earners and products valued at $15,918,377. (from the sources)[4]
- Hillsborough County, including Manchester and Nashua, reported 44.6 percent of New Hampshire’s manufacturing wage earners and 45.1 percent of its manufactured product value in 1919. (from the sources)[4]
- The 1922 New England textile strike affected Nashua; by June 1922 the Nashua and Jackson mills of the Nashua Manufacturing Company were reported as resuming partial operation. (from the sources)[6]
- A June 1922 financial newspaper reported a riot at Nashua after an attack on a worker at the Nashua Manufacturing Company plant. (from the sources)[7]
- In 1920 Nashua had 19,546 native white residents and about 8,792 foreign-born white residents, making the foreign-born roughly 31 percent of the city. (from the sources)[3][8]
- Nashua’s city history identifies Irish and Roman Catholic arrivals from the late 1830s, French Canadians from the late 1860s, and a wider immigrant wave from 1885 to 1925 including Jewish, Greek, Polish, Lithuanian, Armenian, Romanian, Lebanese, Albanian, Italian, and Chinese residents. (inferred)[5]
- The Nashua Public Library’s digital archive lists the Nashua Telegraph for 1901–1952 and 40,998 newspaper pages from the 1920s. (from the sources)[9]
- The same archive lists L’Impartial, a French-language Nashua newspaper, for 1898–1964. (from the sources)[9]
- Nashua had been a city since 1853, after the old Dunstable/Nashua and Nashville division was resolved under a city charter. (inferred)[5]
- In New Hampshire during the early 1920s, parochial elementary schools were required to teach designated branches and administration exclusively in English, while devotional exercises could use any language. (from the sources)[10]
- Nashua’s 1920s housing descriptions by neighborhood are not well represented in the online sources opened here. (not known)
- Local retail prices and ordinary rents for Nashua in the 1920s were not found in the sources opened here. (not known)
- Because Nashua was a New England mill city, many daily routines would have been set by factory shifts, church calendars, school terms, and shopping on Main Street, but the exact rhythm varied by household and workplace. (inferred)

## Sources

1. Sixty-eighth annual report of the municipal government of the city of Nashua, for the financial year 1920. University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository, 1921. https://scholars.unh.edu/nashua_nh_reports/66/
2. City of Nashua: Nashua’s Vital Statistics. City of Nashua. https://www.nashuanh.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/56
3. Fourteenth Census of the United States: 1920, Population—New Hampshire, Composition and Characteristics. U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1920. https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1920/bulletins/demographics/population-nh-composition-and-characteristics.pdf
4. Manufactures: 1919, New Hampshire. U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1919. https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1920/bulletins/manufacturing/manufactures-nh.pdf
5. History of Nashua. City of Nashua. https://www.nashuanh.gov/677/History-of-Nashua
6. Commercial and Financial Chronicle, June 3, 1922. FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 1922. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/cfc/cfc_19220603.pdf
7. Commercial and Financial Chronicle, June 17, 1922. FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 1922. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/cfc/cfc_19220617.pdf
8. Population—New Hampshire. U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1920. https://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/10612982v3p2ch03.pdf
9. Digital Archives of the Nashua Public Library. Nashua Public Library. https://nashua.advantage-preservation.com/
10. 1922 Encyclopædia Britannica: New Hampshire. Wikisource, 1922. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1922_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/New_Hampshire

## The same place in other decades

- [Nashua in the 1890s](https://yorehistory.com/place/nashua-new-hampshire/1890s/md)
- [Nashua in the 1900s](https://yorehistory.com/place/nashua-hillsborough-county-new-hampshire/1900s/md)
- [Nashua in the 1910s](https://yorehistory.com/place/nashua-new-hampshire/1910s/md)
- [Nashua in the 1930s](https://yorehistory.com/place/nashua-new-hampshire/1930s/md)
- [Nashua in the 1960s](https://yorehistory.com/place/nashua-new-hampshire/1960s/md)

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Researched by Yore's AI historian (gpt-5.5) on 2026-10-12 from the sources listed. It is about the place and the time, not about any person. Statements marked "inferred" are conclusions, not records. Cite as: Yore, "Nashua, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire in the 1920s", https://yorehistory.com/place/nashua-hillsborough-county-new-hampshire/1920s