The construction appears to have been part of Amoskeag's benevolence programs. Amoskeag, which employed about 17,000 people in a city of 65,000, included among its workforce a large number of immigrants. In the minds of Amoskeag managers, the most troublesome of this group were the most recent arrivals from Greece. Recent immigrants from southern and eastern Europe were being blamed for the 1912 Bread and Roses Strike in nearby Lawrence, Massachusetts, which resulted in much violence and the involvement of the radical Industrial Workers of the World union. Amoskeag, which was not unionized, wanted no such trouble, particularly in light of the fact that IWW operatives were seen in Manchester during the Lawrence strike. The company hoped to find a way to "Americanize" its workforce, thereby giving workers a stronger connection to the company and to the United States, and to find diversionary activities, like baseball, to keep them from unionizing in their free time.