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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Known more for his impact after death than for any particular achievement in life, Providence native Ebenezer Knight Dexter remains one of the city’s most influential figures, having bequeathed the majority of his estate to the town for the establishment of a military training ground and an almshouse for the poor.

Born in Providence on April 26, 1773, Dexter enjoyed the advantages that came with being a member of a prominent, wealthy family. His mother, Phebe Harris, and father, Colonel Knight Dexter, both had family that dated back to the original settlers of Providence, and his father was a part of the town’s business elite. In his younger years, Ebenezer acquainted himself with several prominent men, including Rhode Island Governor James Fenner, U.S. District Court Judge David Howell, and Rhode Island Senator David Howell, Jr. In addition to his successful career in real estate and trade, his connections to Rhode Island’s political elite helped him to gain the position as U.S. Marshal for Rhode Island.

Because of his success in business, Dexter was able to retire at an early age. In retirement he lived quietly, and it was not until his death in 1824 that he made his biggest impact on Providence. In his will, Dexter left the town of Providence two separate plots of land that were to be used for the benefit of those living in the area. One, a nine-acre lot on the West Side, between Cranston Street and High Street, became the Dexter Training Ground and per his wishes, was to be used as a gathering spot for townspeople and as a training site for the state militia. Notable uses of the site include the failed attack by the Dorrites during the Dorr Rebellion in 1842 (the fuse to the cannon, aimed at the state arsenal, was extinguished by mist in the air), and as the point of muster for the 14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (Colored) during the Civil War in 1863.

The second plot of land that Dexter left to the town was his 40-acre Neck Farm on Providence’s East Side. Feeling “an ardent desire to ameliorate the condition of the poor, and to contribute to their comfort and relief,” Dexter wanted an institution built on the property that would aid the destitute of Providence. For 129 years, Dexter Asylum gave food, shelter, and opportunity to the city’s poorest citizens, in exchange for their labor. In 1957 the property was sold to Brown University and the buildings were demolished soon thereafter. All that remains today of Providence’s first indoor relief facility is the imposing eight-foot high, three-foot thick stone wall, built in 1832 to surround the asylum.

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The congregation of Ebenezer Baptist Church was born from the first independent African-American church in Providence. In 1819, black congregants withdrew from the First Baptist Church and built the African Union Meeting and Schoolhouse. In 1884, an independent congregation born from this community was organized under the name Ebenezer, worshipping on A Street and later at 135 Dodge Street in the city’s West End. The beautiful and unusual Richardsonian Romanesque church the congregation now occupies at 475 Cranston Street was originally built for the Cranston Street Baptist Church, a white congregation formed by missionary Moses H. Bixby in 1869. New York architect Arthur Bates Jennings designed the church, which was dedicated in 1893. By 1969, the white congregation had dwindled and the church buildings were sold to neighboring Ebenezer, which had grown to be one of the largest and most active African-American congregations in the city. Reverend Carl H. Balark Jr. has led the church since 1992 and continues the tradition of strength and action. He was the first African-American to lead the Rhode Island Council of Churches. Notable speakers at the church include Jesse Jackson and Sallye Davis, who spoke in 1971 to raise funds for the legal defense of her daughter, activist Angela Davis. Mrs. Davis said at Ebenezer’s pulpit, “If Angela gets out [of jail] tomorrow, I would carry on the fight. We can’t be content until all of us are free.”

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After World War II, Providence's fortunes were shifting. Textile jobs had moved south. Industry was leaving. Jewelry manufacturing went offshore. Between 1950 and 1980, the population of the city declined by a third. These western neighborhoods were hit hard. As part of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System and urban redevelopment efforts, I-95 was cut through here. The redevelopment of the high school campuses also meant significant demolition, leaving few traces of the neighborhood that was. Take a look at the two postcards, one looking eastward into downtown from Cathedral Square, just behind McVinney Auditorium, and the other looking westward up Westminster Street, to get a sense of how these streets and neighborhood once appeared.

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Providence was once a city of churches. All Saints' Memorial Church is one of the last of the religious communities that grew on “Christian Hill” in the 19th century. Within a stone’s throw were the Stewart Street Baptist Church, the High Street Congregational Church, the Union Congregational Church, as well as the Second Free Will Baptist Church and Mt. Zion AME Church, two anchors of the African-American community that grew here. All Saints’ Episcopal congregation was originally formed as St. Andrew’s in 1846 but relocated here in 1868 with a new name to honor Bishop John P.K. Henshaw, the first independent Bishop of Rhode Island. Edward Tuckerman Potter's Gothic Revival design was left without a tower due to financial difficulties. The exquisite interior features elaborate woodwork and remarkable stained glass windows, including the Sanctuary Window (c. 1875) over the altar by the Henry E. Sharpe Company of New York. Today's congregation embraces the diversity of the neighborhood, including many from Providence’s strong Liberian community.

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Canonicus was the Narragansett sachem who offered refuge to Roger Williams and his party in 1636, but before this place was named that in a fit of Colonial Revival fervor, it was popularly called Hoyle Square. In 1953, Rhody Photo News said the district was “our 20^th century version of the Streets of Bagdad,” where you could find “a derelict headed for a mission soup kitchen brushing up against a well-to-do housewife on a bargain hunt.” Cranston and Westminster were both busy highways in the early 18^th century, providing access to western towns and Connecticut. Rochambeau marched his armies down Cranston Street in June 1781 to meet Washington and defeat Cornwallis at Yorktown. Back then, those soldiers marched past the Hoyle Tavern, where the Citizens Bank stands now. The tavern, built in 1739, became a focal point for gatherings and entertainment as the city grew. The tavern was demolished in the late 19^th century and the bank constructed in 1921. Redevelopment projects of the 1960s have drastically altered the life of the square. The north side of Westminster suggests the busy commercial area that once thrived here. 

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This nine-acre park was a gift from one of the greatest philanthropists in Providence’s history, a man whose charitable giving still has an impact on city life. Ebenezer Knight Dexter (1773-1824) descended from land-rich colonial Rhode Islanders. In addition to this park, dedicated in Dexter’s will to military purposes, a forty-acre tract on the East Side was donated for the support of the poor and indigent. This public space played an important role in the Dorr War and was a mustering and encampment site during the Civil War and World War I. The 14^th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (Colored), the first African-American company from Rhode Island to serve in the Civil War, was raised in Providence and bivouacked here. Historic reenactors can still be found leading an encampment now and then. The park on a summer day is as diverse as the neighborhood. Strollers walk the long sycamore allées and watch soccer or kickball games; children fill the playground. Dexter himself watches over it all, cast in bronze by Gorham Manufacturing in 1893.

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Repurposing older structures is a tenet of historic preservation. Here the West Broadway Neighborhood Association practices what it preaches. Since 1983, the WBNA has been one of the strongest and most active neighborhood associations in the city. This 1930s Art Moderne Texaco station is a classic Walter Dorwin Teague prefab design, but instead of pumping gas, this service station has become a fueling place for community. Don’t miss the gas pump out front. Once a grand avenue of wealthy mansions to rival Broadway, Westminster Street became a part of the Route 6 transcontinental highway, running from Provincetown, Massachusetts across the country to Long Beach, California. When the Interstate network was built, traffic was rerouted, and gas stations like this one had to look for a new purpose. Kari Lang has led the WBNA for twenty years and made the organization a model of engagement and community. Neighbors come here to find out about solar panel installation, home composting, community, politics, safety, and neighborhood events.

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St. Mary's is a Gothic Revival monument to the Irish history of Providence. As textile mills changed the industrial landscape of the city in the early 19th century, Irish from Ulster came to work in those mills, many just down the hill in Olneyville. Facing discrimination from Yankee Providence, the lot for St. Mary's had to be purchased through an intermediary. At the end of the Civil War, a full third of Providence's residents were native Irish. The stone church, designed by Irish-born architect James Murphy, was begun in 1864; much of the labor, including digging the foundations and cutting stone masonry, was done by the Irish congregation, coming here after a long day in the mills to donate their work to the construction of this magnificent act of faith and community. The church, consecrated in 1869, became the heart of a complex of schools and convents, but has adapted to the city’s changes. The parochial school is now owned by the city. The convent has become office space. Spanish language masses occur as well as English. A chapel is dedicated with Peruvian icons brought by the new congregants, one of many Latin American countries represented in St. Mary’s 21^st century congregation.

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This extravagantly embellished house is still called the Wedding Cake House in spite of its current desperate search for rehabilitation. The first owner John Kendrick was an inventor whose American Supply Company dominated the global market in loom and reed harnesses, a crucial element of textile mill power looms. The c. 1867 mansion attributed to Broadway architect Perez Mason reflects the euphoric froth of new money. For a while owned by railway and button-fastener tycoon George Prentice, in 1915, the house was purchased by Italian immigrant dressmaker Anna Tirocchi. In the elegant salons of the Wedding Cake House, Anna and her sister Laura fitted Providence’s elite in their couture creations that echoed Paris fashions. At Anna’s death in 1947, everything was wrapped in tissue paper and put away. Some forty years later, RISD Museum curators were stunned as if entering a fashion time capsule when Laura’s son invited them into the house to catalog and preserve the collection.

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Providence’s exquisite jewel box of a French neo-classical temple, the Bell Street Chapel, was built in 1875 for art dealer and engraver James Eddy after a design by storied Providence architect William R. Walker. Eddy dedicated his church “to God, to Truth, and to all that ennobles Humanity.” Eddy was a radical progressive for the time, participating in the causes of temperance, women’s rights, and the abolition of slavery. He rejected the organized religions of his day, but could find no one to lead a congregation according to his vision. The church remained empty until after his death in 1888. The first service was Eddy’s memorial, featuring reformer and activist Anna Garlin Spencer, who organized an independent church in accord with Eddy’s thoughts and was Rhode Island’s first female ordained minister. Spencer fought against misogyny, racism, and poverty. Among her friends were history’s greatest fighters, including Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass. Spencer was a groundbreaker. Today’s Unitarian Universalist congregation continues the fight for social justice with Reverend Margaret Weis at its helm.

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Completed in 1892 to serve the wealthy Episcopalians of Broadway, and home for ten years to the African-American Church of the Savior, this Alpheus C. Morse-designed Romanesque Revival church has been Sts. Vartanantz Armenian Apostolic Church since 1940. Armenians found refuge in the United States after being driven from their homeland by the Ottoman Turkish brutal pogroms in the 1890s and Armenian Genocide of 1915. The immigrant arrivals called their new home in Providence the “Citadel” (mitchnapert) for the community’s strength and activism. The congregation donated their labor to build new altars, a new baptismal font, new pews, and to replace floors. The rich, timber-trussed hammerbeam ceiling over the nave resembles a protective ark. The commitment to faith and service remains as strong today as when they first arrived, representative of their history as the first nation to accept Christianity as its national religion in 301AD. This community gives aid and support to those in need at home, as well as to Armenians across the globe facing conflict and persecution.

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This extravagant pile was designed in two phases (1875 and 1888) by renowned Providence architects Stone, Carpenter & Willson, but tradition states that the emphatic personality of its owner determined the eclectic mix of shapes and styles. Jerothmul B. Barnaby was a king of Providence retail with a massive department store downtown. He was known to race his four-in-hand recklessly down Broadway and left a tightly entailed estate to his daughters that was contested by his wife Josephine Barnaby at his death in 1889. Josephine was thought to be easily manipulated, and indeed she fell under the spell of her physician Dr. Thomas Thatcher Graves. While on a visit to Denver in 1891, she received a gift of poisoned whiskey by mail and quickly died. Graves’ trial was a national sensation. He was convicted of America's first murder-by-mail and committed suicide in prison in 1893 while awaiting an appeal. The house today is undergoing a painstaking renovation to recapture its original splendor. Don't forget to peek down Sutton Street to see the fabulous Moorish Revival carriage house where the wedding reception for Barnaby’s daughter Mabel was held. The carriage lift, still functional, was used to lower the banquet down to the elite crowd.

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At its opening in 1926, the Columbus Theater was touted as “a testimonial to the Italian people.” The late Beaux-Arts theater was built, designed and decorated by Italians: owner Domenic Annotti, architect Oresto DiSaia, and muralist George DeFelice (whose work can also bee seen at Holy Ghost Church and the Rhode Island Statehouse). The theater, of course, is named for the famous Italian explorer and has 1,492 seats inside, where elaborate plasterwork and DeFelice’s murals (“The Music Sensation”, “The Echo of Music”) make this a rare and virtually intact showplace. The theater was equipped for movies and vaudeville at its opening, but followed a twisted path like the neighborhood. Arthouse after World War II became pornography by the 70s. The theater was the focal point of lawsuits, complaints, and multiple revitalization efforts until in 2009 it was closed for fire code violations. In 2012, a group of local musicians worked with owner Jon Berberian to re-open the space as a music co-operative that has become one of the hottest live-music venues in town.

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In 1885, there were fewer than 500 Italian-born in Providence; within a generation, over twenty-thousand. In Italy in 1889, Bishop Giovanni Battista Scalabrini’s society sent missionaries to Providence and formed the Holy Ghost parish to serve the spiritual and physical needs of this growing community. Plans for this Italian Romanesque church were made in 1901 and completed in 1909. Father Flaminio Parenti, the “Shepherd of Federal Hill,” led the flock here from 1922 to 1964 and continued the beautification of the church. The work of the Scalabrinian missionaries continues today as a lay organization, the Scalabrini Dukcevich Center, which provides support and services to all those in need. At Holy Ghost, there are masses in English, Italian and Spanish. Communities of Colombians and Guatemalans have joined the congregation, breathing new life into the old traditions. Holy Ghost remains the “Mother Church” of the Italian diaspora in Rhode Island and a beautiful testament to the faith and fortitude of the community.

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While some radicals fought against a system that they saw as rigged, other radical acts came from the world of privilege. Alida Sprague Whitmarsh was born into a wealthy family but devoted herself to helping the poor working women of Providence. In 1887, she and Harriet Richards formed the Mt. Pleasant Working Girls Club & Library, later Sprague House, to provide training and assistance to the young Irish women working in the mills. In 1910, recognizing the great need in the densely settled Italian neighborhood, they occupied a tenement in this house and relocated here entirely in 1914, becoming Federal Hill House. Settlement houses provided medical and food aid, language classes, and skills training to immigrants trying to navigate a new country. Early emphasis was on assimilation, but sensitivity to native cultures developed over time. Federal Hill House was known for its baby clinics and free milk, sewing, pottery and language classes, and social organizations for boys and girls. No longer Irish and Italian, today’s immigrants come from across the globe. Federal Hill House has a 130-year tradition of providing community and support to thousands of city residents, both newly arrived and native born. 

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If Garibaldi Park and the Gateway Arch are the welcoming arms of Federal Hill, DePasquale Square is its beating heart. The quatrefoil fountain and wide plaza were built as part of the Federal Hill revitalization effort. Back in the day, however, this was Arthur Avenue, a transverse artery of the “Italian Colony.” Tens of thousands of immigrant families packed into narrow streets and triple-deckers. The historic building rising four stories over the square is the Cappelli Block, completed in 1909 by Antonio Cappelli, who was among the earliest Italian arrivals on Federal Hill, when Irish immigrants dominated the avenue. An unregulated building boom resulted in tight streets and small flats without plumbing—the bathhouse in Garibaldi Park was a critical necessity. Along these streets, too, were the Hill’s famous pushcarts, which sold every variety of fruit and vegetable. Imagine the laborers of a hundred years ago who struggled to build a new life here, working in the mills, living in small tenements without water or light, and doing their daily shopping amid the vendors who stood along these storefronts.

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The Federal Hill Riots of 1914, often called the “Macaroni Riots,” epitomize the struggle of immigrant communities in Rhode Island. As World War I was breaking out, food prices spiked. Laborers gathered on street corners to listen to “agitators” blame business owners. A mob formed that attacked wholesale grocer Frank P. Ventrone’s business block here. They smashed windows and hurled macaroni into the street. Police intervention quelled the disturbance, but the next day new confrontations sparked an even bloodier riot in which eighteen were injured, including 15-year-old Quinnio Oddi, shot by police. Over two weeks, there were five violent confrontations between Federal Hill residents and the police. The violence manifested the desperation of Providence’s immigrant working poor. Child labor was the norm; long hours earned little pay; laborers were easily replaced and had no assurance of work; they had no voice in government. In the midst of this poverty and social unrest, radicals like Luigi Nimini agitated for change. Nimini published his Italian-language newspaper Il Ragione Nuova from his shop at 206 Atwells and founded the Karl Marx Club at the corner of Atwells and Dean, the same corner where radical speakers riled up the crowd in August 1914.

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A darker side of Federal Hill’s history was made from this unassuming storefront. The Coin-O-Matic was the headquarters of the Patriarca crime family, one of the most ruthless and powerful criminal organizations in the United States. Raymond L.S. Patriarca was able to sink roots deep into the soil of the city and extend his reach across New England. From the fifties through the eighties, Patriarca ran his cash-only tobacco vending business as a money-laundering front for more sinister operations, including human trafficking, gambling, prostitution, theft, extortion, and murder. He wielded influence as far away as Miami and Las Vegas. He was a perennial target of the FBI, but his hold on power ended only at his death in 1984. Well-remembered Mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci launched his political career as an anti-corruption candidate after serving as a special prosecutor in a murder and conspiracy case against Patriarca. Many in the neighborhood still remember the days of Patriarca, and more than one of his former associates haunts the benches and bocce courts of Federal Hill.

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In 1842, this Federal-style house was the headquarters of a political revolution. The owner Burrington Anthony was a supporter of Thomas Wilson Dorr and his effort to expand voting rights. At that time, only white men of property could vote, disenfranchising much of the state, particularly the growing numbers of mill workers in this part of the city. In May 1842, Dorr came to this house a pretender-governor. Brandishing a sword and threatening bloodshed, he gave a fiery speech to the armed men that had gathered there. A pair of raided cannon was positioned in the middle of the avenue, facing down the hill into the city. In the early hours of May 18th, surrounded by dense fog, two hundred men marched from this house through winding streets to a small arsenal on the Dexter Training Grounds. Bells across the city tolled the alarm, but Dorr's cannon fizzled, and so did his revolution. Dorr was tried for treason and imprisoned, but ultimately pardoned. Anthony survived unscathed, living in this house until his death in 1853. A new state constitution expanded the franchise but retained restrictions, particularly targeting foreign-born citizens. Notably, most racial qualifications were removed, making voting rights in Rhode Island more color-blind in 1843 than gender- and class-blind.

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In the spring of 1975, women with sledgehammers marched on what was then called Franklin Park to attack a dilapidated bathhouse. Built in 1911 to serve the crowded Italian immigrant community, the bathhouse had outlived its usefulness. The women threatened to call the site “Mayor Cianci Park” after Providence’s first Italian-American mayor, Vincent “Buddy” Cianci. Federal Hill had been the epicenter of the Italian immigrant experience in Rhode Island. Tens of thousands of new arrivals in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries got their start in America on Federal Hill. Their children and grandchildren wanted their neighborhood revitalized. Buddy turned the PR disaster into a coup. The bathhouse was demolished. The park rehabilitated and renamed Giuseppe Garibaldi Park. “This is the gateway to Federal Hill,” the mayor said at the rededication ceremony the following October. Within a few years, the gateway arch decorated with “La Pigna,” a symbol of hospitality, welcomed visitors into the hometown of the Italian diaspora, a neighborhood dedicated to the celebration of Italian culture and contributions to Rhode Island.

Watch a video featuring Taylor Polites, Curator of the West Side of Providence Rhode Tour, sharing his inspiration and insights on the development of this tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hTkBitQ5sM.

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