Random Stories
Ponto Um Market
Walking into Ponto Um, an unassuming shop on Warren Avenue in East Providence, you may be greeted with a cheerful “Bom dia!” or another Portuguese expression. Ponto Um, which translates to Point One, advertises the “Best Variety of Brazilian…
Hurricanes and Hotels at Watch Hill
The year? 1938. The weather? The worst you’ve ever seen. The hurricane that hit Rhode Island shook the coast to its core, wreaking havoc on its beaches. Watch Hill was no exception.
Watch Hill in Westerly, RI, one of Rhode Island’s finest…
Pleasant Valley Parkway
As part of a nationwide “City Beautiful” movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Providence’s civic leaders envisioned the creation of numerous parks through the city as a means to provide refuge and beauty for its citizens as…
1862: Perry Davis' Vegetable Pain-Killer
In the summer of 1840, Perry Davis was sick. Physically, debilitatingly sick. His businesses had failed, one after another. His family was living in penury. He had, however, an enterprising spirit and creative mind. He concocted a combination of…
1869-1947: Eva Belle Clemence
Eva Belle Clemence lived and worked in Providence as an independent artist, a difficult space for a woman to find success in early 20th-Century America. Clemence was born in Worcester, Mass., in 1869, but her father Martin was from Rhode Island,…
Clarendon Court and Reversal of Fortune
Sunny von Bülow, a wealthy Newport resident active in charity and social organizations, was found unconscious and undressed on the floor of her bathroom. Sunny had suffered catastrophic brain damage and would likely remain in a persistent vegetative…
Take a Tour
Westport River Watershed
10 Locations ~ Curated by students in the 2017 Brown University course, "Power & Water: Material Culture and Environmental Impact." The students Julia Bianchi, Lauren Black, Alexander Fredman, Sasha Lieblein, Luke Perrotta, Charlotte Senders, and Liza Yeager. The instructor was Ron M. Potvin. Other entries were contributed by the Little Compton Historical Society and the Westport Historical Society.Taverns to Temperance - A Spirited Tour of Old Barrington Village
5 Locations ~ Curated by Stephen Venuti, Board Member-Barrington Preservation SocietyRhode Island's Black Heritage
8 Locations ~ Curated by Brown University students in "Methods in Public Humanities," Spring 2014Revolutionary War Fortifications of Rhode Island
6 Locations ~ Curated by Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project, D. K. Abbass, Ph.DFeatured Stories
Del's
“Stop at the sign of the lemon!” declares the Del’s soft frozen lemonade slogan. The Del’s symbol, a frost-covered lemon, can be seen everywhere during summer in the Ocean State.
Made from crushed ice, lemons, and sugar, Del’s sells their signature…
Cadman-White-Handy House
The Handy House is not the home of a famous person—Washington did not sleep here! Yet the story of the people who lived here provides an extraordinary window into a world of ordinary lives that is otherwise lost to history.
As you walk through this…
Alfred Beniot's House (Demolished)
Alfred Beniot was one of many youths who spent their childhood laboring in the brutal, unforgiving mills of New Bedford. Born September 3, 1900, Alfred began working in 1912 as a floor sweeper but became skilled at repairing the looms that sustained…
Rhode Tour
A project by the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage, the Rhode Island Historical Society and the Rhode Island Council for the HumanitiesRhode Tour is a statewide mobile historical smartphone application. Captivating places, intriguing people, and exciting events fill Rhode Island's history. Rhode Tour offers a new way to interact with these untold tales of the state's past. Using stories, sounds, and images, history comes alive on Rhode Tour.
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