Waltham, Mass. ? The opening of Francis Cabot Lowell’s textile mill on the banks of the Charles River in 1814 ushered in the Industrial Revolution in the United States.

Now, in the same location, the Charles River Museum of Industry chronicles greater Boston’s role in the industrial development of the nation, from the looms that drove the textile factories, to the steam engines that provided power, to the precision instruments used in the region’s world-famous watch manufacturing industry.

“What makes this museum unique is that most of our machines and exhibits are not behind glass, or ropes, and you can really feel them and get a sense of their intricacies, their dangers,” says executive director Karen LeBlanc.

The museum is about more than just machines, though. It’s also about the history of work conditions.

“We want to give the visitor an opportunity to examine work and what it means to our lives,” LeBlanc says.

Lowell’s mill, considered the nation’s first modern factory, was revolutionary because every step of the production process was done under the same roof for the first time.

Life magazine in 1975 ranked the factory No. 4 on a list of the top 100 events that shaped America, behind the Battle of Saratoga, the establishment of the national capital, and the Louisiana Purchase.

Waltham watches

The original mill building has been converted to elderly housing. The 14,000-square-foot museum, housed in an addition built in 1911, was founded 22 years ago by the late Michael Folsom, an industrial archaeologist. The whole complex is a national historic landmark.

There is a wide array of displays from a paper bag-making machine built in Springfield in 1920 to a tack-making machine made in Bridgewater in 1890. But the museum, which gets about 20,000 visitors a year, concentrates on the textile, automobile and watch-making industries.

The mezzanine is dedicated to Waltham’s famous watch- and clock-making industry, a reputation that lives on in the city’s nickname, The Watch City.

Ten-year-old Justin Miller of Syracuse, N.Y., strolls between an old steam engine, left, and an old fire engine at the Charles River Museum of Industry in Waltham, Mass. The museum chronicles the industrial history of the area and has exhibits built around working machines and the lives of the people who operated and invented them. The museum is housed in Lowell's textile mill where the nation's first modern factory began operating in 1814.

In the middle of the 19th century, the American Waltham Watch Co. pioneered the mass production of watches with interchangeable parts that made personal timepieces affordable to the masses.

Waltham watches were famous around the world, so much so that the Swiss copied them and flooded the U.S. market with imitations.

Presidents Lincoln, Roosevelt and Hoover owned a watch made in Waltham. World War I Gen. John Pershing, Adm. Charles Nimitz, writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, explorer Sir Ernest H. Shackleton and pioneering aviators Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart all also owned Waltham-made timepieces.

Automobile sector

The museum also shows how the Boston area once flourished with the automobile industry. In the early 20th century, there were three car plants within a few miles of each other along the banks of the Charles River the Metz Automobile Co. in Waltham, the Stanley Steamer Car Co. in Newton and Ford in Cambridge.

A 1907 Orient Runabout is an example of a car manufactured in the area. In the early 20th century, there were three automobile plants within a few miles of each other along the Charles River.

They were all closed by about 1920, put out of business by mass-produced automobiles built more cheaply in the Midwest.

The museum features examples of cars built locally, advertisements for the vehicles and bicycles built in the same factories.

“There really isn’t anything here we didn’t enjoy,” says Richard Miller of Syracuse, N.Y., visiting the museum with his wife, Linda, and son, Justin, 10.

Justin wasn’t initially thrilled with the idea of visiting the museum with his parents. But after two hours, “I can’t drag him out of here,” his father says.

“I liked the cotton cutter, the way it goes in, gets all the dirt and seeds out, then flattens it out,” Justin says. “I liked learning how the steam train worked and learned how old telephones were used.”

The museum’s growth plan includes a telecommunications exhibit, which is being built in partnership with the Waltham public schools.

The plan is to have teachers and students work with a professional exhibit designer to create components of the exhibit, then build, test, install and maintain the exhibits, LeBlanc says.

“From the museum’s perspective, the benefits are tremendous,” she says. “What would cost us millions is cut down, and the value to the students and the schools is that it gives them real projects to work on.”