All Stories: 359
Stories
Whaling and Industry Monument
New Bedford has long been conflicted about its historical identity. The city has been, at different times, a world leader in extracting energy from whales and in using energy to produce textiles. Despite a relative lack of physical reminders of…
Three-deckers on Roosevelt Street
The failure of the Howland Mill Village experiment may have been the final straw for New Bedford mill owners. By the end of the 19th century, they had decided to get out of the landlord business. Along with the financial and management burden of…
Brooklawn Park
“The American holly is quite common here,” wrote Henry David Thoreau. “I heard a lark sing, sweet and strong, and heard robins.” Thoreau, a naturalist and philosopher and author of Walden, was describing the rural North End estate of his friend…
Major General Roger Reckling Blunt
On July 13, 1969, physician and chronicler of Black life Dr. Carl Russell Gross opened the Evening Bulletin, clipped the photograph seen here, and placed it into a file marked “Military.” In the photo, we get a glimpse of Major General Roger…
Captain Reeves Ramsey Taylor
When the US Naval Academy in Annapolis was created by an Act of Congress in 1845, its admissions policies were codified into law. Members of Congress have the privilege of personally nominating the majority of candidates in each class. This is the…
A Public Hearing for Charity Bailey
It was Monday, April 23, 1928. The Providence Public School Committee was holding its regular meeting at Central Fire Station on the eastern edge of Burnside Park. The room was packed. Charity Bailey (1904-1978), an accomplished pianist and recent…
Mary Howard Jennings
In a 1936 Providence Journal exhibition review, the work of college student Mary Howard (1908-2011) fascinated art critic Robert Wheeler. He wrote, “It will be a strange thing if this young artist doesn’t go on a long journey. There is a rough vigor…
Occomy Women
For the better part of the 20th century, the Occomy family called 85 John Street their home. Walter Calvert Occomy and Nellie White Occomy, noted humanitarians and members of the city’s Black churches, purchased the house in 1914 and it was a hub of…
Thomas R. Lewis
Excitement buzzed in the lecture hall at the opening of the 21st Annual Exhibition of the Rhode Island School of Design. Members of the RISD class of 1900 were awarded their diplomas, while other students received prizes. Among the award recipients…
The Jewish Orphanage of Rhode Island
The Jewish Orphanage of Rhode Island (JORI) began as two separate organizations. In 1908, initially headed by the South Providence Ladies’ Aid Society and Mr. Herman Paster, the first charter for a specifically Jewish children’s orphanage was…
Jewish Sites in Central Falls and Pawtucket
It was 1905, and five orthodox Jewish men from Pawtucket signed incorporation papers for a synagogue to be called The Congregation Ohawe Shalom. The only problem was that they had no money for a building, so they were forced to worship in a variety…
Sons of Jacob Synagogue
The founders of the Sons of Jacob, an Orthodox synagogue, had a vision: a soaring edifice in the North End of Providence that would be a symbol of their prosperity and place in the new world. Having fled the pogroms in Russia and Poland and unrest…
South Providence - A personal history
This area was almost totally Irish when I and my compatriots from Austria and Romania began our life in Providence in the early 1880’s on Robinson St. After 1900, Russian Jews fleeing pogroms came to South Providence. Most arrived with little in the…
Touro Cemetery
Jews can have religious services any place, but you need hallowed ground for a burial. Although the Newport cemetery was established in 1677, Touro Synagogue was consecrated in 1763. Touro is the oldest Jewish cemetery in Rhode Island, established…
If these walls could talk…
Solomon Treital is believed to be the first Jew to settle in Woonsocket. This scholarly and deeply religious man arrived in 1866, and soon established himself as a clothier in the downtown Market Square.
Treital’s brother, Max, arrived two years…
Hope Mill
This site was famous during the revolution for an iron forge called Hope Furnace (across the street from the mill) which declined after 1800 to be replaced by the Hope cotton mill. The Hope Furnace was initiated by Governor Stephen Hopkins, and the…
Jackson Mill
Rhode Island Governor Charles Jackson built the first cotton mill here in 1825.
By the late 1880s the mill was owned by Christopher Lippitt and Company and produced sheeting. Fifty workers were employed and 120 broad looms were in operation.
By…
Arkwright Mill
From cotton and bookcloth to fuel cells, films and printing media these two 150 year old mills are state-of-the-art!
The Arkwright Company of Coventry, R.I. began in 1810 as a textile mill owned by James DeWolf. Two mill buildings were constructed,…
Harris Mill
Although the mill across the street is gone, what you see behind the Harris Mill Lofts sign is a classic example of the evolution of a mill over 150 years, starting small and adding on and on.
Between the street and the river a two-story spinning…
Phenix Mill
Like every other mill you are visiting, Phenix Mill was “paternalistic” providing necessities such as housing, utilities, fuel, churches, civic organizations and education. Shopping and professional services grew along with the village and Phenix…
Lippitt Mill
Built in 1809, Lippitt Mill is one of the most important mills in the state, and was one of the oldest American textile mills still in operation until, in 2011, when a bad main valve flooded the second floor with 300 gallons of water a minute,…
Anthony Mill
“A prettier mill you will not find.” Built in 1873 the Italianate Anthony Mill has the distinction of being one of the best mills – architecturally speaking – in the entire state. When it was built, it was the largest building in Rhode Island. At…
Quidnick Mill
This mill in the village first named Greeneville, then Taftville, and finally Quidnick after one of its reservoirs upstream, became the jewel of the Sprague textile empire, one of the most important firms in Rhode Island economic and industrial…
Crompton Mill
Crompton Mill, home of the “Velvet Mills,” the first U.S. company to manufacture velveteens and corduroys, by 1888 employed 600 and operated 40,000 spindles and 1,000 looms in buildings on the west and east side of the river. Sadly the west…
Centreville Mill
This Centreville Mill complex saw 18 new owners from 1794 to 2004 and an explosion and fire in 1871 but, at one time, it had 31,000 spindles and 700 broad looms! At various times it manufactured print book cloth, fancy cassimeres, and braid. Along…
Arctic Mill
Few historic Rhode Island textile companies have survived to the present; but Arctic Mill was home for a number of years to global NATCO Home the 12th largest home textiles supplier. It is still a family owned company which was founded four…
Royal Mill
The mills here at Riverpoint, where the North and South Branches meet, experienced more fires, floods, construction episodes, strikes and changes of ownership than just about anywhere. The textiles are long gone but now they house beautiful…
Valley Queen Mill
From “Kentucky Jeans” to “Fruit of the Loom” to the world’s most popular soaps and cosmetics, the “lower mill” at Riverpoint has seen a lot of fame!
The Greene Manufacturing Company built a small spinning mill here on the South Branch just above its…
Natick Mill (destroyed)
Unfortunately the Natick Mill burned down in 1941 but we include this site on the tour because by 1883 the four original buildings had been joined into a single entity and further extended until it stretched 1,350 feet with a uniform height of six…
Pontiac Mill
In between a fire, seven new owners, labor strikes, and financial failures, this original home of the iconic “Fruit of the Loom” brand was very successful, but shut down in 1970 and is now just a nice place to live. The mill produced uniforms for…