Located twenty-five miles north of Boston, Lawrence, Massachusetts is truly a city of immigrants and industry. Lawrence was built in the 1840's as the nation's first planned industrial city. The massive mill buildings lining the Merrimack River, the striking clock and bell towers and the breath-taking Great Stone Dam are all a tribute to Lawrence's industrial heritage. The harnessed strength of the Merrimack River and its system of canals fueled the Lawrence mills that produced textiles for the American and European markets. By the early twentieth century, with a population of nearly 95,000, the city was a world leader in the production of cotton and woolen textiles in massive mills.

Known as the "Immigrant City", Lawrence has always been a multi-ethnic and multicultural gateway city with a high percentage of foreign-born residents. The successive waves of immigrants coming to Lawrence to work in the mills began with the Irish, followed by the French Canadians, Englishmen, and Germans in the late 1800s. Around the turn of the century and early 1900s, Italians, Poles, Lithuanians, and Syrians began arriving. The wave of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans started in the mid to late 1900s, and the newest arrivals have originated from Vietnam and Cambodia. The current population of roughly 70,000 is largely Hispanic and has given a Latino slant to the local economy and culture.

Today Lawrence remains an urban center with 35% of its economy still manufacturing-based. Despite global trends that have seen manufacturing industries move south and overseas, the city is still a hub of textile, apparel and shoe companies such as Malden Mills, KGR Inc., Grieco Brothers, New Balance and Cardinal Shoe. With the affordable space and close proximity to routes 93 and 495, newer companies in technology, health care and manufacturing such as New England Affiliated Technology, the Robert Able Company and the Gem Group, have chosen to locate in Lawrence.