The Roger Williams National Memorial, at 282 North Main St., is home to a spring that was donated to the city of Providence by Judge J. Jerome Hahn in 1932- in memory of his father, Isaac Hahn (1845-1909), a businessman and textile manufacturer,  who became the first Jewish resident of Providence to be elected to public office.   Judge Hahn believed that the spring was a historic and almost sacred place, as it was there that Roger Williams and his followers first found fresh water in the settlement that would become Providence.   Isaac Hahn’s parents came to the United States from Germany in the mid-19th century and made their home in New York City, where Isaac was born and raised. They later moved upstate, where Isaac married Rose Stern. In 1870, Isaac brought his wife and young son to establish a new life for their growing family in Providence. Isaac owned a dry goods store on Westminster Street, and later invested in  banking, factories and real estate. In 1884, he became the first Jewish state representative from Providence in the Rhode Island General Assembly, in which he served one term. Isaac was also deeply involved in the Jewish community, helping to build a new  synagogue for the Congregation of the Sons of Israel and David (founded in 1854, this congregation survives today as Temple Beth-El).

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Rhode Islanders often think that only Newport and Providence are significant to Jewish history in Rhode Island, because they were established early in our state’s history, but this is not true.  Bristol’s Jewish community is equally important.  The story of Jewish Bristol begins in the 1890s, when a small number of Jewish families from Eastern Europe arrived.  These new arrivals included small business owners, professionals, and laborers, drawn by economic opportunity especially at the National Rubber Company which was founded in Bristol in 1864 by Augustus O. Bourn.  The National Rubber Company played a key role in the development of the domestic rubber industry, but went bankrupt in 1887. Samuel P. Colt was appointed receiver, and the company was reorganized as the National India Rubber Company. The revitalized company brought new vigor to rubber production at the Bristol facility, producing rubber boots, shoes, garments, hoses and other items. This drew many Jewish workers to Bristol, and provided a ladder for advancement for those with talent, who started work in the plant but quickly moved up to the offices, and then left to start businesses of their own.  Since they were somewhat distant from Providence, then the main center of Jewish life in Rhode Island, Jews living in Bristol decided to form organizations of their own. In 1896, they founded the Young Men’s Hebrew Association (YMHA). As you can see from the map, there were many places in Bristol where Jews originally worshiped, usually in the home of one of the communal founders.  Within a few years, they found the need for a permanent place to worship. In 1900, they chartered the United Brothers Synagogue, under the Hebrew name Chevra Agudas Achim.   The YMHA and Chevra Agudas Achim soon joined together, and in 1908 they began to worship in a house on John Street. Later, the combined congregation moved to Richmond Street, which became the first home of Chevra Agudas Achim. Construction of a permanent synagogue, at 205 High St., began in 1916.   New arrivals to the community in Bristol came from New York, and brought with them a certain cosmopolitan spirit. The congregation soon became open to considering different forms of Jewish practice. At first the women sat upstairs in the Orthodox synagogue. But very soon the women moved to the main floor. The congregation had no rabbi; instead, a gabbai, or lay leader, ran the services. Relations with the broader community were very good, and the new building received help from both Protestant and Catholic churches in the town. In addition to helping with construction, St. Mary’s Catholic Church, on Wood Street, and St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, on Hope Street, donated pews.  The early 1930s brought the Zionist movement to Bristol in the form of Young Judea, a peer-led Jewish educational movement that was embraced by second- and third-generation Jews. With the idea of building Jewish identity, Young Judea offered a Sunday School with religious and cultural programming for children and young adults. At the same time, the synagogue formed a bowling league which soon became known as the Bristol Jewish Community Center. After World War II, the community experienced a change in membership as many resident Jews left to pursue greater opportunities elsewhere and new families arrived. New families brought new ideas, and the post-war shift in social attitudes created a divide between the synagogue, which increasingly focused solely on religious life, and the community center, which encapsulated the social, cultural and educational needs of the community. The same change in social behavior led to a shift in ritual behavior, with the synagogue moving away from Orthodox toward Conservative ritual practices –  a not-uncommon change for the time. Ultimately, declining membership led to closure of the synagogue building for the decade from 1966 to 1975. In 1975, with growing interest from Jewish families newly arrived in Bristol, the synagogue reopened – again, without a rabbi – offering one service per month. This synagogue schedule has continued to the present day, with Cantor Dr. Joel Gluck as spiritual leader. Thus, we see how a building and a Jewish community can be born and reborn.

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The Moshassuck Cemetery can be found today in Central Falls, near its border with the City of Pawtucket. On December 31, 1870, Abraham Jacobs, who served as chazan, or cantor, for the newly organized Congregation Sons of David, purchased a plot of land in its northwest corner of the cemetery.  Four years later,  Congregation Sons of David merged with Congregation of the Sons of Israel under the corporate name Congregation of the Sons of Israel and David. The newly merged congregation then decided to use the consecrated space in Moshassuck Cemetery for the burial of non-members, relatives of members and for charitable cases – that is to say, not for congregation members. The congregation already had its own large cemetery in Providence for the use of members.  Many other groups would buy into Moshassuck Cemetery over the next 25 years. One of the tombstones there has an interesting and tragic story.  During the Great Depression there was a great deal of labor unrest. In 1934, some of the Labor Day strikes happening in Rhode Island were peaceful, but not at two mills belonging to the Manville Jenckes Co., a textile bleaching company, one of which was adjacent to Moshassuck Cemetery.  During the strike, the owners decided to bring in replacement workers across the picket lines, where it is said that thousands were gathered. When two of the strike breakers tried to push through the picket line, the union supporters would not let them; the Rhode Island State Guard attempted to move the strikers toward the cemetery, and a riot broke out. Strikers and soldiers ran into the cemetery, seeking cover and vantage points. Two men were hit by bullets and died.  In addition, the tombstone of Rabbi Yosef Shaul Rabinowit was hit by bullets during the strike. An article by National Park Service Ranger Mark Mello, “The Saylesville Massacre and the American Tradition,” offers these insights: “Two bullet holes are visible in the stone: a tangible reminder of the violence within the cemetery in September 1934. The engraving on the stone starts with a simple line from the Torah, ‘Stone shall cry from a wall!’ This most likely comes from a passage from the book of Habakkuk, which references the forced labor the Babylonians inflicted on the Jewish people in constructing buildings in their cities. Written millennia before the Saylesville massacre, this line offers a prophet’s damning criticism of a different political system. Across time, workers have cried out in pain when pushed too far. The lines in this stone, etched for posterity, bring these cries to life. The poetic, haunting line takes on new meaning with knowledge of the massacre…  When considering the conditions experienced by Jewish people across the world in the 1930s and what was to come in the 1940s, two bullet holes piercing this already painful plea is ironic. Also, the plight of those protestors, many of whom were laborers in the textile industry, as they dove behind the stones evading messengers of death, is chilling. Perhaps this stone does wail—not just in memory of Rabbi Yosef and the plight of the Jewish people through the ages, but also to the memory of Goroynski and Blackwood, whose lives were lost during the Saylesville Massacre.”  While the mill closed in the 1960s, Rabbi Rabinowit’s tombstone stands as a palpable reminder of this social action and communities impacted by this chapter in Rhode Island’s history.

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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 Reckling Blunt (1930- ), a fourth generation Rhode Island serviceman as he inspects new West Point cadets. He looks confident and we know from other documents collected by Dr. Gross that, early in his career, Blunt gained a reputation for being innovative and demonstrating “a skillful ability to analyze…obstacles and develop thorough solutions.”  Major General Roger Reckling Blunt was born in 1930. Reflecting on his youth, Blunt’s mother told a local newspaper that he was “unsure what he wanted, but he did want a good education.” He pursued his education for many years after graduating from East Providence Senior High School in 1948, which stood at this address. He went on to attend Brown University for two years and acquired a General Liberal Arts degree. In 1956, Blunt graduated from West Point with a Bachelor of Science degree, ranked 72nd out of 479 graduates, and was the only Black graduate in his class. Six years later, Blunt received a Master of Science in Nuclear Engineering as well as a Master of Science in Civil Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 1962, Blunt attended the Nuclear Power Plant Engineer School in Virginia to become a Certified Nuclear Plant Engineer, later taking an Engineer Officer Career Course at The Engineer School of Virginia.  Blunt’s commitment to education complemented his participation in the armed forces. Within the Blunt family, he represented the fourth generation of military service. His great-grandfather, Captain Robert W. Blunt, commanded the First Separate Brigade of the Rhode Island Militia (BRIM), a segregated unit that trained at the corner of Knight and Cranston Streets in Providence. Blunt’s grandfather, Captain Harry W. Blunt, commanded the same unit and served in the Spanish-American War. Blunt’s father, Captain Harry W. Blunt Jr. was presented a gold sword by the members of his company. Major General Blunt later used his father’s sword to cut his wedding cake when he married DeRosette Hendricks at West Point in 1956.  When Blunt first decided he wanted a career in the military, he told his mother, “Mom, if I go, I’m going as far as I can.” Blunt made many advancements throughout a career that began in 1958 as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army. While lieutenant, Blunt worked for the German American Assistance Program as part of the 37th Engineers, the largest organized combat group in the U.S Army. He worked as Assistant Operations Officer in charge of the German American Construction Assistance Program, where he organized and operated a technical school for Atomic Demolition Munition specialists. From 1956 to 1965, Blunt worked for the U.S. Corps of Engineers as Project Manager, Technical Operations Officer, and Project Officer. In 1965, Blunt was promoted to Major, at which point he supervised a group of officers and a battalion of 700 men. Blunt transferred to the U.S. Army Reserves in 1969 and was appointed Major General in 1983. He received the Distinguished Service Medal in 1986.  In the image preserved by Dr. Gross, Blunt is 36 years old and assigned to teach at the Department of Tactics at West Point. He was the first Black officer to be given a teaching assignment at the military academy.  By the end of his active military career, Blunt would go even farther with the start of his own construction company and later as CEO and Chairman of Tyroc Construction and Chairman of the Board and President of Blunt Enterprises, Inc.

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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 story of one such candidate, Captain Reeves Ramsey Taylor (1929- ), nominated at 18 years old and the only Black student to graduate with his class in 1953.  Captain Taylor was born in 1929 and lived most of his early life at 60 Carrington Avenue in Providence. As a young man, he took an interest in the environment. Taylor once wrote a letter to the editors of the Providence Journal about the smoke coming from factories and its effect on people and the city. He was a member of the Sea Scouts and spent two summers as a seaman on fishing vessels. This enticed Taylor to the idea of a career on the sea. He set his sights on Annapolis, the US Naval Academy in Maryland.  While a student at Hope High School, Taylor involved himself in a variety of clubs. He was a member of the band, orchestra, track team, and Omnibus club, which concerned itself with race relations. As part of the band and orchestra, Taylor played the saxophone and clarinet. While Taylor was very musically inclined, he was also into photography and had his own dark room at home. He did some work for Hope High School’s “Blue and White” yearbook as well as for the Hope Log newspaper. Taylor graduated from high school in 1947 on the honor roll and in his last year won the Anthony Medal for English composition.   After high school, Taylor attended Brown University, where he joined the Naval Reserves Officers Training Corps (NROTC), one of eight programs like it in the country initiated under the direction of Brown University alumnus, Senator Theodore Francis Green. The Navy was one of Rhode Island's largest employers at the time. In 1947, after Taylor earned the highest mark on the US Service Academies joint civil service exam, Senator Green nominated him for the US Naval Academy—Taylor was said to have a 13 point lead in his score. The year before Taylor had scored second.  After graduating from the Academy in 1953 and over a distinguished military career, Taylor flew 65 Vietnam missions from the carrier USS Constellation. He led a Minority Recruiting Program for the Navy. In 1968, he was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal. Four years later, Taylor went on to receive the Air Medal-Strike/Flight as well as the Meritorious Service Medal. Taylor received the same Meritorious medal two years later. Taylor retired from the Navy as a Captain in February of 1975.

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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 graduate of Rhode Island College of Education, was there to give a public statement against Superintendent Isaac Winslow, who, according to multiple accounts, told Bailey that he would not appoint a Black teacher to work in the school system. Bailey, at 23 years old, had already shown herself as a gifted musician and educator. In the years leading up to the hearing, she performed with her sister Amy at the Pond Street Church and delivered a memorable performance of the spiritual “Wish I Could Die in Egypt Land” for National Music Week at Brown University’s Sayles Hall. A writer for the Providence Journal captured the scene: “Both in the rendition of the weird, dirgelike piano accompaniment and in her singing of the haunting, plaintive melody, Miss Bailey approached an artistic triumph. Prolonged applause compelled her to give an encore number, the only one of the evening.” At the same time, Bailey applied for teaching jobs. Despite strong letters of recommendation from her professors, supervisors told her that there were no vacancies. And so, Bailey advertised as a governess.  A year later Bailey was fed up. She and a member of the school committee met with Winslow, who explained that Bailey had fulfilled all of the requirements but was “not in a group of candidates eligible to become teachers.” Bailey and her mother then contacted attorney Joseph G. LeCount, legal counsel and cofounder of the Providence Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), one of the oldest NAACP branches in the country.  On April 23rd, a crowd of teachers, students, and community members filled the school committee’s meeting room in the fire station to capacity. LeCount set-up an improvised witness stand. He questioned Bailey first, then Winslow. The following day the Providence Journal printed a partial account of Winslow’s testimony. A few blocks over at the Evening Tribune, the paper’s news editor, John Carter Minkins, an African American, published a big story with extensive testimony from Bailey and Winslow, as well as reactions from the crowd. “I think it’s a lot of bunk,” said one committee member after listening to Winslow defend himself.  Later, local activists leveraged Bailey’s case to mobilize Black voters toward the Democratic Party. They ousted at least one member of the school committee who had backed Winslow and elected Democrats into high offices in exchange for support on civil rights.  Like so many promising educators at that time, Bailey left the oppressive culture of Providence for New York City, where she worked for the Federal Works Progress Administration, studied piano at Juilliard, and taught music at The Little Red School House.  Between 1954 and 1956, Bailey hosted the television show, Sing a Song, a pioneering, interacial children’s program. She recorded albums and published a bestselling book, Playtime with Music, in which she shared her progressive philosophies. Bailey challenged the traditional teachings of music appreciation. As she argued in Playtime, musical rhythm and word pattern should be felt and enjoyed by children without preliminary instruction because, “Children, like all of us, do best and learn most from that which they love to do.”

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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 in everything she paints.” With a life spanning 102 years and an artistic career of abundance, Wheeler’s words were something of a prophecy. While Mary Howard experienced a gap in her creative productivity due to the demands of caring for her family, her “rough vigor” would sustain her artistic spirit throughout her life.  Born in 1908, Mary Cupit Howard was raised in a home on Thayer Street. In her youth, Howard developed a passion for art and found ways to finance her education during the Great Depression. After graduating from Hope High School, her skill proved strong enough to land a scholarship to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). She attended RISD from 1927 to 1933 and gained valuable lessons from her painting professor, John F. Frazier. Following her success at RISD, Howard’s family sold some property, which funded her studies at Yale University. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Yale in 1935.  During her formative college and early career years, Howard produced acclaimed art and received many awards. Howard drew praise for her moody landscapes, her strongly-composed still lifes, and her exquisite portraits. In a studio on Eddy Street, Howard made prints and paintings. Her painting “Portrait of a Girl” won the prestigious Ives Award at RISD. It was displayed with the work of other RISD students in a young artists exhibition in 1932.  In 1936, Howard was the only woman in the state chosen to work on the RI Federal Art Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the agency created to fund and oversee public works projects and that provided income during the financially challenging 1930s. In November 1936, an exhibition was held at 30 Benefit Street featuring work by the young artists of the FAP-WPA. Among these artists was Mary Howard, who, in the words of Wheeler, evoked a “tonic sadness” through her atmospheric and memorably dark landscapes. Howard’s other works for the FAP-WPA included small prints of fishermen’s shacks, old houses on Benefit Street, and a large mural for the State House cafeteria depicting a family enjoying a picnic, described as “a delicately colored pastoral scene symbolizing the production and consumption of foodstuffs.” During the WPA years, Howard also painted a portrait of RI Governor Theodore Francis Greene, displayed in the Library at the University of Rhode Island until at least the 1960s.  After her marriage to Atlanta-born artist Wilmer Jennings, Mary Howard (now Jennings) was busy running a household and participating in social and civic clubs. She had three children, Corrine, Wilmar, and Laurel. Later, Howard put her vigor into teaching; She earned a Master’s degree in Education from Rhode Island College in 1969 and, for 17 years, worked in the Providence public schools as a third grade teacher. After retiring, Jennings began painting again and joined the Providence Art Club, Wickford Art Association, and RI Watercolor Society. With her lifelong talent and artistic spirit, Mary Howard Jennings created atmospheric paintings and lasting public works. She died on February 12, 2011.

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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 academic and civic pursuits. Looking back at the lives of the Occomys’ three daughters gives us some sense of a family whose activities shaped the past in ways that resonate in the present.  Ruth Occomy (1891-1945) came first. Born in 1891, she graduated from Hope High School and assisted at the Providence Shelter for Colored Children, where she decided to enter nursing. The Lincoln School for Nurses in the Bronx—at the time one of the few training schools that admitted Black students—initially rejected her application, citing her small stature. Known for her strong personality, Ruth persisted in gaining an acceptance, completed her degree in 1921, and followed up with a year of courses at Columbia University Teachers’ College.  While Ruth studied nursing, her younger sisters, Katherine (1893-1980) and Nell (1897-1953), attended Hope High School. In 1910, Katherine and her husband Lawrence welcomed a son. After a few years, Katherine moved to New York City where she worked as a maid and presumably pursued her career as a dancer. In 1919, the youngest Occomy sister, Nell, graduated with a teaching degree from the State Normal School (now Rhode Island College). Because of discriminatory hiring practices in Providence public schools she moved to Harlem to seek work.  Nell flourished in New York City. She taught junior high and, like Ruth, enrolled in a post-graduate program at the Teachers’ College. In the 1930s, she honed her talents as an arts and culture writer, weighing in on debates of national importance like birth control, writing profiles of Black playwrights, and working as editor-in-chief of The Krinon, magazine of Phi Delta Kappa, a Black sorority founded in 1921 in New Jersey.  Ruth’s profession took her further from home. After a 1927 send-off that included lectures and a chorus of 200 men at Olney Street Baptist Church, Ruth sailed to London to study tropical diseases with Dr. Pauline E. Dinkins. The two then departed for Monrovia, Liberia, where Ruth worked as a missionary nurse for several years. Even when seriously ill with malaria, Ruth was not ready to abandon her post, explaining in a letter to her parents that the hospital had noticeably improved the health of a community living in the “most humble of circumstances.”  Regardless of where their careers took them, the Occomy women felt the pull of home. Nell returned to 85 John Street with her husband Leslie E. Becker for the birth of their first child. She enjoyed friendships with Providence artists, including Nancy Elizabeth Prophet. Ruth returned to the Occomy home in the 1930s to stay. She practiced nursing until suffering from an illness that ended her life in 1945. Katherine came home in the 1930s and lived at 85 John Street for the next five decades. She worked as a palm reader and raised her son, while living at home with mom, dad, brothers, grandchildren, and a handful of family friends. Katherine’s activities garnered less publicity than her sisters’, but even so we know something significant about her. She fulfilled her mother’s desires for an enduring family legacy through 85 John Street:  “I give and devise to my daughter Ruth E. Occomy for and during her natural life the real estate situated at #85 John Street, then to the survivors of my children and their heirs [to] forever share and share alike” - Nellie White Occomy, 1941

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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 was young Thomas R. Lewis (1880-1958), a student artist who earned a scholarship based on his abilities in the evening life drawing class. Addressing the lively crowd was Professor Poland of Brown University, and at the time President of RISD, who proclaimed, “The people of Providence and of Rhode Island are beginning to feel that we have made for ourselves a place that nothing else can fill, and that we are essential to the public wealth.” If anyone in the building manifested the words of Prof. Poland that night, it was Thomas R. Lewis, who later broke the status quo as a Black entrepreneur and made essential contributions to RI’s economy through jewelry making and philanthropy.  Born on April 5, 1880, in Providence, Lewis was raised in the pre-World War II caste system where Black men were largely limited to work in physically demanding fields. As a popular athlete in high school, Lewis could certainly find work as a waiter or bellhop. However, while employed as an errand-runner at Gorham Manufacturing Company, Lewis became interested in a career as a silversmith. A Black jeweler in the early 20th century had little hope of being hired, and Lewis’s family was not supportive. Lewis’s mother died during his childhood, and his father and sister thought his goal of becoming a jeweler was not viable. Eventually, Lewis was forced out of his home. He continued to practice his craft and attended evening classes at RISD while living in a small room with a friend.  Lewis graduated with a certificate from RISD in 1902. He worked as a laborer for at least another year at Gorham before finding a place with a small manufacturer where he produced, according to his employer, designs of “extraordinary quality.” After six years there, Lewis ventured into forming his own company. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the Thomas R. Lewis Company employed an integrated workforce, with upward of 65 employees, and created designer goods that sold in luxury stores such as Saks and to the high-end cosmetics manufacturer Richard Hudnut. Lewis’s designs included lavish cigarette cases, powder compacts, and exquisite dog collars.  In 1925, a lacquer explosion in Lewis’s shop at 171 Eddy Street sparked a fire and led to damage throughout the building. Despite this, Lewis enjoyed continued success in the jewelry industry by producing great designs and giving back to his community. Most notably, the Lewis Company aided in the employment of men and women from Providence’s Black communities. Lewis knew many of his employees from their childhood, and taught them the skills they needed to work with diligence. A philanthropist, Lewis was involved in the YMCA and What Cheer Tennis Club where he sponsored social events and helped to put up tennis courts on Willett Avenue in East Providence.  At one point in his career, Thomas Lewis was reported to be one of the highest paid jewelry manufacturers in Providence. He was a respected member of the New England Manufacturing Jewelers and Silversmiths Association. While wider acclaim proved elusive, Lewis took pride in his work, his designs, and his community. In pursuing his dream, Lewis became a pioneer in the jewelry design and manufacturing industry. He died in 1958.

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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 Browns, the well-known wealthy merchants of Providence, along with other partners in 1765.  It was named in honor of Hope Brown, mother of the four Brown brothers, Nicholas, Joseph, John and Moses who founded Brown University and Moses Brown School.  The furnace starting making bar (“pig”) iron and nails, then, during the Revolution, cast cannons and cannon balls.  The vast number of Hope cannon went to privateers (pirates) outfitting their commerce raiders in Northern seaport towns to attach British ships.  Between 1778 and 1781 about 3,000 high quality cannon were produced for military and naval use.  Eight of these field pieces were in a battery used by General Washington at the siege of Yorktown.  In 1806 The Hope Cotton Factory Company bought the Hope Furnace Estate and mill privileges and built a 44-by-22 ft mill.  In 1821 it was sold to two partners who built another mill which burned in 1844.  A Providence based partnership bought the site and founded the Hope Company, building the present  large stone mill, four stories high with full basement, 183-by-55 feet, which began operating in 1847 with 430 looms producing 40-inch sheetings and employing 165 workers, 65 males and 100 women.  The railroad arrived in 1874 and ran one freight and six passenger trains daily. More buildings were added in 1871, 1891 and 1916.  In the early 1900s the mills manufactured lace and the complex was known as the Valley Lace Company and continued until 1972 when various commercial tenants occupied the buildings until the complex fell into receivership. In June, 2020 Paramount Development Group of Boston bought the property planning to “use the latest design and technology to rejuvenate the 18th century mill and all of its hydro-electric capabilities” and develop it into 193 affordable and market rate apartments.  Also a Hope Historical Museum is planned for the small square building on the front right of the building which was the mill office.  Planned completion is by the end of 2023.

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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 1901, the mill was owned by B. B. & R. Knight and stood three to four stories high. The Knights went out of business in 1928-1929.   In 1932, the site was bought to operate a linen-supply business.  Today, only a one-story, stone outbuilding and some smaller structures survive.  In the modern era the property passed through various owners and is currently occupied by a landscaping company.

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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, one of which burned down in 1851. With the construction of a new building in 1883, the company became Interlaken Inc., and was engaged primarily in the manufacture of cloth for book binding.  It was purchased by an English firm, Winterbottom Mills, in 1892, but continued operating under the Interlaken name. Interlaken absorbed the nearby Harris Manufacturing Company in 1900 making Interlaken the largest bookcloth manufacturing company in the world at the time.  A new plant was built in 1922 to manufacture tracing cloth for architects and draftsmen; it was called Arkwright Finishing Company, and was nominally a separate business until a formal merger in 1959 as Arkwright-Interlaken, Inc. The name was changed to Arkwright Inc. in 1973. It gradually phased out its textile operations and moved to the coating of film. The last cloth was produced in 1983.  Arkwright was bought by Dietec Group, headquartered in Cles, Italy in 2008.   Winterbottom, the parent firm, was bought out by Venesta International in 1961.  Venesta was bought out by Ozalid Group Holdings in 1972, who were in turn bought out by Oce Van Der Grinten (a Dutch firm) in 1977.  Now the north complex is occupied by SIHL a global manufacturer of films, printing media, thermal papers, packaging films, etc. 

Response Technologies, a material science and engineering company in West Warwick, moved to the south complex (next to the river) in early 2020, and in December, 2020 was acquired by Bell Textron to advance its fuel cell technology offerings.  Meanwhile a part of the company in West Warwick was renamed Response Medical and is in the forefront of producing high quality medical masks.

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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 mill was built in 1813.  Then Elisha Harris replaced it with a cotton factory 34’ X 50’ to make heavy cotton sheetings.  Success led to expanding it to 34’ X 106’ but by the 21^st Century only two derelict buildings remained there. Like many mill owners, Mr. Harris became a politician as well.  As a Republican he served several terms in the Assembly before being elected Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island in 1846. The following year Harris was elected Governor of Rhode Island and served a 1-year term. After leaving the Governor’s office, he razed the 1822 mill on the south side of Main St and, in 1850, built the new and larger mill across the street that you see now.  New owners made additions in 1883 and in 1911 the Weave Shed (the large brick building) was built.  Following industry trends toward consolidation and specialization in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Harris Mill later produced book cloth for Interlaken Mills (just up the river, now Arkwright Mill), one of the nation's largest suppliers of the cloth used by the publishing industry. In 1900, Interlaken Mills purchased the Harris Mill as part of its attempt to consolidate and control all of the processes for its book cloth production operations.   In 1942 a booklet put out by the mill boasted it was producing “Industrial Gray Fabric of high tensile strength, using 150 bales of cotton per week.  It has 36,896 spindles, and produces 72,699 pounds, or 1,040,917 miles of yarn per week. It operates 872 Draper Automatic Looms, and weaves 319,248 yards of cloth each week…and employs 425 people.”  In 1956, the Harris mill ceased textile operations and was purchased by the Victor Electric Wire and Cable Corp for light manufacturing, until that company left the state in 2000, In 2006 redevelopment plans failed and the mill went into receivership.  In 2011 there was a fire in the main mill but the complex was saved.  The same company that developed the Anthony Mill took over Harris Mill in 2014, and redeveloped it as an upscale 156-unit, three-story loft apartment complex called Harris Mill Lofts. For a pleasant quarter-mile walk take the Phenix-Harris Riverwalk on the old railroad bed just across the river on Lincoln St, on the left.

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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 “achieved an importance unrelated to its size” providing services for surrounding villages.  Check out the village square in the next block up the street, and the 1871 Phenix Hotel which still exists.  Outside of Providence, Phenix was THE place to shop in the 1800s until Arctic surpassed it! A spinning mill was built here next to the river by the Roger Williams Manufacturing Company in 1809.  It burned in 1821.  The Phenix Company rebuilt, and added a new stone mill in 1821 along with a water wheel and force pump for fire protection; but the company failed in 1830 and was bought by a new partnership that produced what was said to be the first 2¼-to 3-yard wide sheeting made in the country.  Additional construction by 1882 produced a mill 328’ X 43’, capable of operating 21,536 spindles and 430 looms.  The 122 by 192-foot weave shed across the street was built in 1902. Textile manufacturing continued until 1960 when the factory was purchased by a pharmaceutical company, Scott Laboratories.  It later housed various other manufacturers, including Adams Scientific, a biotech company that moved out in 1994.  In the summer of 1995, fire destroyed one of the complex’s smaller buildings, which Adams Scientific had used.  By 2003 the mill was vacant and sold at tax sale for $1.  Then, on March 30, 2005 the main four-story building burned to the ground.  The remaining three-story building is now condominiums and the weave shed across the street is occupied by Ricci Furniture.

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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, forcing the operations to move to Westerly.  Thankfully, unlike most mills, the wood-frame mill buildings never experienced a fire.  The mill is now being redeveloped for low-income housing. The Lippitt Manufacturing Company built this 106’ x 34’ cotton mill in 1809.  The building’s clerestory monitor (the highest windows) is one of the earliest examples of this form of mill lighting.  By 1887, the mill ran 10,640 spindles and 238 looms.   During the Depression following of War of 1812 the Company survived by supplying yarn to convict weavers in the Vermont prison. In 1889 all of the Lippitt Company assets were sold to the firm of B.B. & R. Knight. In 1925, the Knight family sold the Lippitt Mill property to Joseph Hayes, owner of the Riverpoint Lace Works. The Hayes family stopped manufacturing lace here in the early 1970s, but continued with dye and finish work on fabric.  They retained ownership of the property until it went into receivership in 2008. Pawtucket Development Group LLC is now using low income housing tax credits for the renovation of the mill to be completed by the end of 2021.  The project will consist of 65 units, of which 20 will be market rate units and the remaining 45 will be available to tenants at or below 60% of area median income. 

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“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 night, the owners would have a light on in every window and it was a sight to behold.  People would actually come from all around the state just to behold the spectacle.   As one of the earliest attempts at cotton manufacturing in the United States, Richard and William Anthony built the first cotton mill here, forming the Coventry Company in 1805.  Anthony village is Coventry’s earliest mill village—and one of the earliest in the state, region, and country.  In 1810, the Coventry Company built its second factory in Anthony.. At the time, it was the tallest building in the state. It was 125 feet long and six stories high. The lower three levels were of brick and the upper of wood.  It was destroyed by fire in 1988.  The Coventry Company’s machine shop was one of the leaders in making machinery for the textile industry and developed the famous Sisson Power Loom. The current handsome building was built in 1873 to be 316’ X 80’ with 166,000 sq ft in the main building and had a capacity of 33,132 spindles and 736 looms.  For years it produced textiles including narrow fabric, using Italian knitting machines and Italian and American needle looms.  The weave shed, built on the other side of the river was built in 1910. The Berkshire-Hathaway Company owned the mill for some time but closed its doors in Sept 1962. Within a few weeks, a group of business and professional men purchased the mill and brought in new industry.  By 1996 there were six separate factories in the complex, including Concordia Fibers which remains today in the weave shed which produces custom engineered fiber-based products and services. In 1999 Anthony Mill was sold to Wayne Mills Company, Inc., of Delaware to produce narrow fabrics, tapes and light webbings.  In 2012 the main mill was renovated into luxury loft apartments by Brady Sullivan Properties, and was reborn as the Lofts at Anthony Mill apartments.

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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 history.  But the Spragues lost it all in the financial panic of 1873. Replacing a cotton mill built in 1811, in 1847 the A. & W. Sprague Manufacturing Company built this 450’ X 50’, four-story, granite mill designed by William Sprague, a sixth generation Sprague.  He became superintendent of the mills, built a beautiful home in Natick and started a large farm where the Rhode Island Mall now stands.  Needing even more water power the company took over 260 acres to create the Tiogue Reservoir (Tiogue Lake).  The Sprague empire acquired more mills naming them to rhyme: Natick, Arctic, Baltic (in Connecticut) and Quidnick.  Four generations of Spragues lived in the Sprague Mansion next to the Cranston Print Works Mill and the family produced two governors who went on to become senators.  Disaster struck when Amasa Sprague, who supervised the Print Works was brutally murdered in 1843, but the family carried on although with less interest in the mills.  The family helped create banks in the area, start the parent paper of the Providence Journal, develop the Providence, Hartford, and Fishkill Railroad (now the Washington Secondary Bike Path), and by 1873 became the wealthiest family in Rhode Island only to lose it all in the financial panic of that year. The mill became part of the Union Company. In 1884 the Quidnick Manufacturing Company bought the site. They operated 31,460 spindles, 877 looms, and employed 500 in the manufacture of print cloths, sheetings, and twills. The main mill is now occupied by Clariant International a Swiss multinational specialty chemicals company.  Other portions of the site are used by Rhodes Technologies  currently in bankruptcy due to the opioid class-action suit.

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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 building, built in 1882-85, burned in 1992 due to arson (see video).  Production finally ended in bankruptcy in 1984.  The current tenants include Mike’s Estate Services  a high end estate liquidation and consignment shop which makes for an interesting visit, both for the beautiful goods and to see the inside of the mill.  Also, for a nice break, go left/south on Manchester St., to just beyond the end of the mill on the right to Crompton Village River Park’s boardwalk for a view of the mill pond and part of the complex (see the map image). In 1807, the Providence Manufacturing Company built a stone mill on the east side of the Pawtuxet River. The mill, called the "Stone Jug", was three stories, 117’ X 33’ with 2,190 spindles, and was very likely the sixth cotton mill and the first stone textile mill built in Rhode Island.   It was named after English inventor Samuel Crompton, inventor of the spinning mule. The company failed in 1816, and the mill was apparently idle until 1823 when it was bought by the Crompton Company who began calico printing.  More mills were added in 1828 and 1832.   In 1866 a new owner produced print cloth, and later velveteens and corduroys in a new building west of the river (which burned in 1992). The Crompton Company expanded into several Southern states but couldn’t outlast foreign competition and filed for bankruptcy in October 1984.  When it went out of business it was the oldest textile firm in the country, having been in continuous operation for 178 years having started right here in Crompton, Rhode Island.

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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 with ring spinning, weaving, carding, spooling, and warping cotton, it bleached and dyed cotton, rayon and merino yarns.  Now it houses a boxing gym, flea market and thrift shop, among other tenants. Replacing a sawmill and gristmill, Colonel Job Greene erected Rhode Island's second Arkwright cotton spinning mill of two stories, 40’ X 26’ at Centreville in 1794 on the west side of the river but the company failed and the building no longer survives.  In 1807 a wood-frame mill of three stories was built on the east side of the river.  It survives today but was moved in 1873-1874 to the northwest corner of the site to be used as a storehouse where it is in altered and deteriorated condition. The site went through numerous changes in ownership finally being bought by Benedict Lapham of Burrillville, Rhode Island.  He built a 3-story addition in 1861 which still stands, adjacent to the dam.  In 1871, he built with local stone the 4-story mill, 303’ X 70’, which prominently marks the site.  (The one-story addition on the south side was built in 1965.) The mill suffered a fire and explosion around 1871; the mill, probably the present complex, was rebuilt.  A stone storehouse opposite the main mill was added in 1896 and the mills at the north end of the site were built between 1907 and 1909.  By the early 20th century, the mill was owned by Robert B. Treat and contained 31,000 spindles, 700 broad looms and employed 350 persons.  In 1903 it was sold to Robert Knight of B. B. & R. Knight.  It was the last mill acquired by the Knight Company, which made extensive enlargements and reorganizations.  About 1920 the Centreville Mills were manufacturing print book cloths.  In 1958, the Centreville Cotton Mill was owned by the Marston Braid Company.   The complex now survives with a variety of tenants.

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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 12^th largest home textiles supplier.  It is still a family owned company which was founded four generations ago in Warwick by Arthur Galkin in 1917 whose motto was “Find the future before anybody else.”   They have been spectacularly successful at that and later moved their world headquarters just up the river to the Warwick Mill. The Arctic Mill site was first developed in 1834 by Rufus Wakefield who produced woolen goods. Wakefield’s stone mill, 60’ X 40’, passed through a number of hands until it was finally torn down by A. W. Sprague, who bought the site in 1852 for $11,400. The Spragues built a large stone dam with a 30-foot fall, the highest in the state, and a large four-story stone cotton mill.  However, the building burned in 1865 but was rebuilt in the same year.  At the time it was the largest single mill in the state. In 1885, the property was bought by B. B. & R. Knight, who operated 35,824 spindles and 1,039 looms in the mill. The Knights withdrew from textiles in the 20th century;  but the mill continued to be used for textile manufacture at least until 1939.  It is now occupied by the NEWCO Self Storage. By the 1920s, Arctic had surpassed all other West Warwick villages in population. It was not only a major manufacturing center, but a commercial center whose department and specialty stores drew shoppers from all of central Rhode Island. The continued construction of densely developed commercial and residential buildings through the mid-twentieth century gave Arctic a more urban aspect than any of the town’s other villages. Arctic was central Rhode Island’s "Main Street" until the construction of Warwick’s shopping malls in the 1960s and 1970s altered patterns of commerce in the state. If you have the time take a pleasant stroll down the ½ mi Riverwalk across the street in the back of the West Warwick Community Policing parking lot.  It follows the river down to Royal Mill but unfortunately the final bridge is washed out so you have to return to your starting point.

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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 apartments and a health clinic, and have a marvelous textile museum open to the public. The Greene Manufacturing Company built a small spinning mill here in 1812.  In 1816, the company failed, started up again two years later, had a flood damage the dam in 1821 and a fire in 1827, but was able to rebuild and enlarge to operate 3,600 spindles making it, by then, the seventh largest textile operation in Rhode Island. More mills were built in 1836, 1844 and 1855 and by the 1870s, the site became part of the Knight chain with the famous Fruit of the Loom brand.  By the late 1880s it was operating 15,904 spindles and 501 looms producing cambrics, sheetings, and twills from 850,000 bales of raw cotton a year.  The lower mill was replaced by a new building later to become the current Valley Queen (now the Original Bradford Soap Works).  A fire in 1919 destroyed the entire upper mill, but it was rebuilt by 1921 and a weave shed on the other side of the river was added. Sensing the threat posed by southern competition and rising labor agitation, the Knights sold their complete holdings to a New York-based conglomerate in 1920 which continued to use the Knight name.  Fourteen months later, their speedups and wage cuts caused a massive strike which actually started here in the weave room.  It closed every mill in the valley.  The National Guard had to be called in to stop the rioting.  Although the mills eventually reopened, the company slid quickly into bankruptcy collapsing in the Great Depression.  In 1935 the bankrupt Knight Corporation liquidated the Royal Mill, which at that time housed 94,000 spindles and 2,838 looms employing 1,325 operatives The complex was purchased for one dollar at a foreclosure auction in 1936 by Saybrooke Corporation of Hope, RI and converted for woolen manufacture, but it failed in 1946.  A few tenants struggled to survive but by 1993 the building was practically empty save for a few apparel firms as renters. Would-be rescuers were few due to the challenges of size, underground oil tanks, lead paint, asbestos and PCBs.  In 2004, the town sold the Royal Mill, again, for a dollar.  Finally, Streuver Brothers, Eccles & Rouse, a Baltimore developer, used state and federal historic tax credits to convert it into a successful 250-unit Apartments at Royal Mills.  And to top it off, working with the Pawtuxet Valley Preservation and Historical Society a wonderful Royal Mill Heritage Gallery was created in the lower “Turbine Hall” which is a must see!  It is open to the public but you should call 401 821-0223 to be sure they are open and can let you in.  See the second image in this tour for where to park and how to get there.  Also visit the public riverside deck in between the two buildings. Finally, the 1890 granite building across the street that was the storage shed is now occupied by the Thundermist Health Center.

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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 junction with the North Branch in 1812, but by 1816 the company had failed.  In 1834 the company constructed a dam and a stone mill on a newly acquired water “privilege” downstream from the original mill.  A third mill was built in 1844 and enlarged in 1855 to become one of the seven largest cotton mills in the state.  Before the Civil War the primary product of the mills was a cotton twill fabric known as “Kentucky Jeans.”  Following the Civil War the market collapsed and the company suffered financial losses. In 1884-1885, the property was purchased by the Knight Company, one of the world’s leading cotton manufacturers of the famous "Fruit of the Loom" brand. The Knights owned the mill until 1931 when it was bought by its present owners, the Original Bradford Soap Works. This firm, founded in Providence in 1876 by English immigrants James Rodgers and William Murgatroyd, produced soaps for the textile industry. With the collapse of the Rhode Island textile industry in the mid-2Oth century, Original Bradford diversified by producing chemical and cosmetic soaps.  Today they produce products for such global brands as Dove, Paul Mitchell, Clinique, Johnsons Baby, Olay, Palmers, Neutrogena, Cetaphil and others.

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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 stories. It was Rhode Island's largest single mill structure and one of the largest in the world, comparable in the magnitude of its elongation to the Lowell and Lawrence mills in Massachusetts or those in Manchester, New Hampshire. If you walk up on the bridge over the river and look downstream you can see what became, by 1886, the largest mill dam in West Warwick, a granite barrier 20 feet high and 166 feet across with an impressive waterfall.  On the left side of the dam you see the remains of the 50-foot-wide raceway to the mill that ran along 800 feet and into the mill, where the water flowed through a turbine chamber, then out a 500 foot long, 30-foot wide, granite block tailrace to rejoin the river. Starting near the bridge you can drive down the hill on the dirt road (Water Street) along the river and past the empty lot and an auto salvage business to get an idea of the size of the site.  This ill-fated mill was started by Perez Peck and others as the Natick Manufacturing Company in 1807.  They built the Natick Red Mill, “to manufacture cotton yarn by water-powered machinery,” and in the 1820s and 30s added other mills near the river.  They were then bought by the A. & W. Sprague Manufacturing Company. The mills prospered until the 1880s when a series of events caused a forced sale. The Knight Company bought the mill in 1882 and continued running it in the late 1920s when competition from Southern mills, and depressed economic conditions, resulted in labor unrest and strikes that forced the company into bankruptcy. The Natick Mill, once the pride of the Knights, saw a great deal of rioting in 1922.  At one point a machine gun (see picture) was mounted on the roof of the Natick Mill and National Guardsmen manned the weapon and patrolled the streets.  Eventually concessions were made and the workers went back to work but in truth, the day of New England's supremacy in the textile industry was over. The Knights declared bankruptcy in 1935.  The mill, which had not operated since 1930, was bought in 1935 by Nicola Zenga at public auction for $10,000.  The vacant mill was badly damaged by flames on the night of Feb. 22, 1938 and was eventually torched on the Fourth of July eve in 1941.

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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 Union soldiers during the American Civil War and by the late 1880s the mill employed 1,500 workers to operate 27,000 spindles in a complex of 38 buildings.

A cotton spinning mill was built here in 1810, sold in 1827 to a partnership which collapsed in the depression of 1829, bought at auction by John H. Clark, who built a stone mill in 1832 and a bleachery in 1833 which were to be sold to what became the giant B.B. and R. Knight company that added buildings in 1863 and 1866. The bleachery burned in 1870 and was replaced by a new 160’ X 53’ building. By 1912 the Knight family was the largest cotton manufacturer in the world, but, with labor unrest building and increasing competition from the South, the family sold it in 1920 to Consolidated Textile Corporation of New York which barely survived the labor strikes and eventually stopped production in 1970. After one failed attempt at conversion, a new owner, using $9 million in historic tax credits, invested $35 million to create 150 apartments in the restored buildings in 2016.

The brand “Fruit of the Loom” started in 1856 when the owner, Robert Knight, had a friend that owned a small shop in Providence that sold cloth from the mill. His friend’s daughter painted images of apples and other fruit and applied them to the bolts of cloth. The ones with the apple emblems proved most popular. Knight thought the labels would be the perfect symbol for his trade name, Fruit of the Loom – an expression referring to clothes, paralleling the phrase "fruit of the womb" meaning "children", which can be traced back to the Bible (Psalm 127:3). The business has gone through much turmoil in the textile industry but world famous “Fruit of the Loom” clothes are still on the market today.

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The “Pawtuxet,” named by the Native Americans as “the river of many falls,” had numerous cataracts due to the underlying hard crystalline rock of the area producing an average fall of 4.7 feet per mile and it never ran dry! It had everything needed for cotton production. By 1840 textile manufacturers occupied the 17 most suitable waterpower sites along the Pawtuxet River.

The river’s watershed covers 232 sq mi in central Rhode Island. The river has 588 miles of tributaries which flow east to eventually enter Narragansett Bay at Pawtuxet Village on the Cranston/Warwick line. Starting at elevations of 500 to 600 feet in the west and 800 feet in the northwest the river flows as two major branches, the North and South branch which join at “Riverpoint” in West Warwick at about 300 feet above sea level. There they contain enough flow to power large textile mills. The river descends about 250 feet within five miles through Coventry, West Warwick and Warwick. Over 15 very large cotton mills were built on this stretch in the 1800s. Most of the buildings are still present.

From the beginning of occupation many small dams were built to provide water power for grist and sawmills. Virtually all of these dams still exist although the small mills are all gone. The map in the Watershed image shows the 167 dams as black squares on the rivers. The red dots are the mill sites on this tour.

The Mill Tour Route Image shows the shortest route to drive the 12.4 miles of the tour starting at the Pontiac Mill in Warwick. Of course you can drive it in reverse or do any portion of it as desired. More detailed images of the lower river and branches show the relatively large drops in elevation along the way which provided the vast water power needed to run the thousands of textile machines in the large mills.

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Recognizing that diversity is our strength, Mary Santos Barros (1923-2018) was a strong and tireless advocate for equal education for all, Cape Verdean advancement, and many other causes in New Bedford. She demonstrated how others can build an inclusive community that treats all people with respect and dignity.

Mary’s concern for her own children and the children of others informed her active advocacy through Parent Teacher Associations (PTA)—coalitions of parents and teachers that advocate for public education and serve as a resource for community families. During the mid-20th century, many women used PTAs to organize on their children’s behalf. Mary often served as president of these PTAs. She also served on the executive committee of the Committee of Concerned Parents for New Bedford schools and was instrumental in the building and dedication of the Alfred J. Gomes Elementary School in 1977, named for a local Cape Verdean attorney and leader.

Using her experiences working in the PTA as a launching pad, Mary became more politically involved. Mary recognized that in order to accomplish certain objectives, one has to be active on many levels. Through a grassroots campaign, going door-to-door, to meet and listen to her constituents, she was elected to the New Bedford City Council in 1989 and served two terms as Ward 4 councilor. Upon her election she remarked that she would be “in the City Council for all the people of Ward 4.” Mary, like Rosalind Poll Brooker before her, brought her knowledge of the community to the Council to fight for changes from within City Hall. Her time in political office was marked by her support for affordable housing, drug rehabilitation programs, anti-poverty efforts, and continued educational advocacy through legislation.

She also brought her advocacy to the state level as a social worker for the Massachusetts Department of Social Services and as a member of the Massachusetts Board of Education from 1975-1979. She was recognized “for her distinguished service through the establishment of increased opportunities for the youth and exemplary parent participation.” She was also elected as a city and then a state Committeewoman to the Democratic Party Conventions.

Mary was a strong advocate for all people, particularly people of color, and especially Cape Verdeans. Her own Cape Verdean heritage was important to her and she did much to help Cape Verdeans in New Bedford and the land of her parents. When natural disasters assaulted Cape Verde, Mary, using her organizing skills, worked with others to lobby on state and federal levels to raise funds and send needed supplies to the islands. A believer in political empowerment as well, Mary helped many Cape Verdean immigrants become American citizens and served as a voice for immigrant parents, often taking them to school committee meetings and interpreting for them.

Her legacy is a powerful example that served as a role-model for her own children and all community members, as she spread the knowledge that they can empower themselves and strengthen the community.

Thank you to the family of Mary Santos Barros for their contributions to Mary’s biography and providing photographs. Their stories showcased Mary’s special qualities and tireless efforts on behalf of her family and community.

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When 20,000 textile workers went on strike in the 1928 New Bedford Textile Workers Strike, 18-year-old factory worker Eulalia “Eula” Mendes (1910-2004) became a leader in her mill and community by encouraging Portuguese industrial migrant workers to participate in the strike. Later, she traveled nationwide to support other fights for justice and equality.

Eula left Portugal with her working-class family in 1912 and settled in New Bedford, a textile city with a large Portuguese-speaking community. At the young age of 14, Eula became her family’s primary breadwinner as a bobbin worker in a textile factory. In 1928, when the city’s textile workers went on strike in opposition to a 10% wage cut planned by the factory owners, Eula began attending meetings run by regional and national labor organizers.

She became a leader at her mill and in her community by promoting Portuguese worker participation in the strike. Eula translated the speeches of labor leaders into Portuguese and gave speeches herself. She became an organizer for the communist-influenced Textile Mill Committee (TMC), which demanded a wage increase, a 40-hour workweek, and an end to child labor. Eventually, Eula became a member of the TMC’s executive committee serving in a leadership role as secretary.

The TMC organized thousands of workers into pickets, rallies, and parades that attracted the attention of law enforcement and city officials. The National Guard and local police used force and arrested many strikers, including Eula. She noted that she “was arrested a number of times... We sometimes stayed [in jail] for just a few hours, sometimes overnight or sometimes even days or weeks, but we were usually let out on bail. And a few days later maybe we were arrested again.”

After six months, the strikers accepted a smaller pay cut and returned to work. For Eula, the 1928 strike sparked a life of union organizing. She traveled nationwide with the International Ladies Garment Workers and other unions to support other uprisings in the fight for justice and equality. Eula’s activism continued with her Communist Party affiliation in New Bedford and the region, and she refused to sign a Loyalty Pledge to promise that she was not a Communist.

The strike did not accomplish all the goals the TMC hoped for, but it did change the relationship between textile workers and mill owners in the city and New England for decades to come. After years of being ignored by the established mill craft unions, ethnic communities found a voice through the TMC and developed a new interest in unions, which encouraged them to come together to advocate for greater representation.

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Confectioner and abolitionist Polly Johnson (1784-1871) specialized in sweets and provided safe lodging to freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad at her 21 Seventh Street home in New Bedford. She and her husband Nathan helped several formerly enslaved people on their journeys to freedom, including renowned abolitionist Frederick Douglass and his wife Anna. As a businesswoman with confectionery and catering businesses, Polly worked hard so that freedom seekers could find “sweet freedom” in New Bedford.

Polly’s early wages as a domestic worker were likely used toward the purchase of four properties on Seventh and Spring Streets, including her and Nathan’s confectionery and catering business. By 1836, New Bedford’s wealthy families regularly purchased Polly’s confections and cakes for parties and weddings. Her confectionery shop at 23 Seventh Street sold such items as ginger snaps, candy sticks, Jackson Balls, John Brown’s Bullets, and spruce gum. Polly specialized in candy, cakes, and ice cream. In 1844, the abolitionist Caroline Weston, then teaching in New Bedford, tried to persuade her cousin, the antislavery orator Wendell Phillips, to speak in the city by promising that “Polly Johnson shall freeze her best ice & ice her best cakes'' if he came. Ever conscious of social justice, Polly’s confectionery shop sold “free labor candy” made from sugar grown on sugar plantations that employed free workers instead of the enslaved.

In 1849, Nathan left New Bedford for the California Gold Rush leaving the properties, valued at more than half a million dollars today, in Polly’s name. Polly ran the business by herself until her death in 1871. Nathan never returned during those 22 years. Polly used her work ethic and business sense to continue the confectionery, paying off her home’s loan, having an addition made to the home, and furthering her abolitionist efforts. Polly was well-read on the social issues of the time and regularly attended antislavery meetings. She provided safe lodging to several other freedom seekers while Nathan was away. New Bedford was a welcoming place for freedom seekers due in part to its tolerance of diversity and a spirit of equality in its maritime trades. It is estimated that during the 1850s, the population of black freedom seekers in New Bedford ranged from 300 to 700.

Polly was well known not only for her cakes and sweets, but also for the care she and Nathan provided to freedom seekers along the Underground Railroad. People arrived in New Bedford looking for the home of the Johnsons. A passionate abolitionist and a successful businesswoman, Polly helped New Bedford become known as a city of tolerance and diversity. She stands as an inspiration for current generations who seek to affect change for a cause important to them.

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Equality was the vision driving Elizabeth Carter Brooks’ (1867-1951) work as an educator, social activist, and architect. She wove these seemingly separate paths into a long life of advocacy for African Americans of New Bedford and beyond in a time when African Americans faced many obstacles and overt racism in both the South and the North in the United States.

In 1901, Elizabeth became the first African American woman hired as a public-school teacher in New Bedford. She taught at the William H. Taylor School for over 25 years. When she retired the New Bedford’s Superintendent of Schools noted that “her work was characterized by a sympathetic understanding of children...Thousands of children in New Bedford will remember Miss Carter and her kindly influence over them for many years to come.”

As a social activist, Elizabeth organized local, regional, and national groups that supported African American achievement. In 1896, nearly 200 clubs across the country combined to establish the National Association of Colored Women Clubs (NACWC). Elizabeth was elected vice president of NACWC in 1906 and served as the group’s fourth president from 1908-1912. During her administration, Elizabeth set up a scholarship, started a newspaper, and strengthened the NACWC. She was the first Association president to travel across the country meeting with local and regional organizations. African American women’s clubs like the NACWC, and the local chapter of the Martha Briggs Educational Club, are rooted in a long history of activism against racism and sexism including anti-lynching and voting rights campaigns. They promoted education and training as the means to lift up and advance women of color. The NACWC and its affiliated clubs continue the work set out in their original mission.

Elizabeth joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) soon after it was formed and later headed the NAACP’s regional and local New Bedford branches. Elizabeth used her educational expertise and activism to organize the Elizabeth Carter Brooks Jr. Girls Club. Meeting on Friday afternoons, the young women studied African American history, explored current events and advocacy, worked with senior community members, and promoted kindness and good deeds.

As a child, Elizabeth enjoyed cheering up elderly people. She noted how they “all seem to feel that I understand them.” Yet she saw a lack of loving care for the city’s elders. With the endorsement of the Women's Loyal Union, she raised enough money and support in 1897 to create New Bedford's first organized home serving elderly women of color. Eleven years later, she designed the Home for the Aged’s permanent location at 396 Middle Street. A stately establishment, the Home provided a comfortable life for the city’s aged residents until the 1990s.

Through her educational, architectural, and organizing skills, Elizabeth Carter Brooks’ activism enriched the lives of New Bedford’s students, elderly, and people of color. To honor her legacy, the New Bedford Public Schools dedicated a school building in her name. Elizabeth’s activism and accomplishments are still remembered in the city and the country. Her work lives on in the women still fighting for equality today.

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Jennie Horne’s (1920-1998) influential career in social services was fueled by her idealism, her love of people, and a desire to contribute to her community in New Bedford. During a time in which information on how people of color could access social programs was not always available, Jennie worked to make sure it was. She advised families on new initiatives that offered educational and job opportunities for everyone, particularly encouraging women of color to join the workforce. Wherever she went people shared their goals and dreams, and Jennie always responded positively with a smile and an offer of help. She is remembered as an “encourager, a connector, and a helper” who always lent a hand to raise others up.

Jennie started as a secretary in the main office of New Bedford’s ONBOARD (Organized New Bedford Opportunity And Resource Development), an anti-poverty community action project agency. Through ONBOARD, she helped acquire grants for city programs that provided education, employment, and recreation opportunities for minorities and poor people. Jennie then went to the West Central Community Center, eventually serving as its director. There she initiated several programs to aid the disadvantaged.

One of Jennie’s greatest gifts was her knowledge of the people who lived in the West End. She kept mental notes on the talents and needs of the people in her neighborhood. Robert Horne remembers his mother as seeming “to know instinctively who to call on in the West End to ask for assistance and also who in the West End might need the assistance that the [West Central Community Center] could provide.” She knew who had the sewing skills to lead a sewing class or the bookkeeping skills to organize and operate a neighborhood credit union.

Jennie also worked for Model Cities, a federal urban assistance program that—along with ONBOARD—was part of the War on Poverty, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s legislative agenda that sought to attack the root causes of poverty and provide opportunity for all. In 1968, New Bedford was one of 151 cities chosen in the Model Cities project, whose mission was to address the effects of prejudice and neglect on urban communities. While at Model Cities, Jennie was involved in improving public school reorganization, public housing development, and relations between police and the community. Model Cities eventually became the Community Development Block Grant Program. Later, as a member of the Mayor’s Citizen Advisory Committee, Jennie helped to channel federal Community Block Grants during several different mayoral administrations.

With boundless energy, Jennie served on several PTAs, nonprofit boards, and women’s organizations, including as president of the Martha Briggs Educational Club. Founded in 1920 by women of color, today the Martha Briggs Educational Club provides scholarships to local minority high school students. In 1939, the Club purchased the Sgt. William H. Carney House at 128 Mill Street where it has been headquartered ever since. For a century, the Club has been led by women of color like Jennie Horne and exists as a forum to self-organize from and advocate for their community. Its members have always been dedicated to education and the role that community service plays in making lives and community richer.

Jennie is remembered as personifying the motto of the Martha Briggs Educational Club: “Lifting as we climb.” Throughout her life, Jennie Horne was a tireless advocate for the disadvantaged. Through her government positions, involvement with community organizations, and everyday encouragement, Jennie worked to bring aid and assistance to those who needed it most. In 2020, residents and friends of New Bedford honored Jennie by selecting her as one of two women represented by large murals at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Jennie exemplified how one woman can light the way for others, who in turn can light the way for those who follow.

Thank you to the family of Jennie Horne for their contributions to Jennie’s biography and providing photographs. Their stories showcased Jennie’s special qualities and tireless efforts on behalf of her family and community.

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