“Over ten years ago, two women, both lovers of antique Colonial furniture, decided to popularize its beauty by making artistically perfect, made-to-scale doll’s furniture. Equipped with a child’s circular saw, they opened a tiny shop in the tiniest State in the Union. “ Tynietoy Catalogue, c.1930

Responding to a halt in trade during World War I that saw an end to the importation of European toys, Marion Perkins made her first piece of miniature furniture, a ladderback rush chair, in 1917. Encouraged by fellow member of the Handicraft Club in Providence, Amey Vernon, the two set up a small workshop space at the Club, first in the basement of the John W. Mitchell House, and subsequently in the carriage house of the Truman Beckwith House, which allowed space for a showroom as well.  This was the beginning of the Toy Furniture Shop and their line of Tynietoy furniture. Perkins had studied in the department of Decorative Design at the Rhode Island School of Design, and after working briefly as secretary for Rhode Island’s Governor Lippitt she embarked on a career as an interior designer. Perkins used her practical knowledge and expertise to create high quality miniature furnishings, at a scale of one inch to one foot. Much of the furniture was modeled on the American colonial period, which Perkins would have been familiar with from the Pendleton House Collection of American and European decorative arts, donated to the RISD museum by Charles Pendleton in 1904.  Well-known Providence artist, Sydney Burleigh assisted in the design of the furniture and dollhouses, and as the company’s output expanded, the manufacturing moved to larger quarters on Market Square, where the RISD auditorium now stands. The company had around sixty employees by 1927 made up of RISD students and veterans from the First World War, who were responsible for hand painting the details and decoration of the pieces, as well as assisting with the construction of the dollhouses and furniture. Thus, Perkins can been seen as part of a wider national movement after the War, which saw a renewed interest in the socially beneficial impact of design, demonstrated locally by RISD’s rehabilitation program for wounded veterans, established in 1919. Tynietoy offered six different models of dollhouse, all based on traditional New England house styles, the most expensive of which was the Colonial Mansion, partly inspired by Pendleton’s residence in Providence at 72 Waterman Street, which was itself used in the design of the interiors of Pendleton House. The quality of the Tynietoy furniture, combined with the fact that it was made to scale, set it apart from other companies producing miniature furniture during the period. The company was at its most active in the 1920s, and was duly credited with enhancing appreciation for colonial style American furniture, both nationally and internationally, evidenced by the fact that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York acquired the first room of miniature furniture Perkins exhibited at the Handicraft Club. After the stock market crash in 1929, the business began to struggle, although it managed to stay afloat until the early 1950s.  From business records, it appears that the company was taken over by new management in 1940, the year in which Vernon died. Perkins died in December 1947. The story of Tynietoy offers a rare example of female entrepreneurship in a period when women were not encouraged to work, let alone run a company. Perkins, much like the founders of the Handicraft Club, aimed to promote an appreciation of hand-crafted design, both within the local community and further afield, offering her own form of historic preservation in miniature. 

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In 1892, Providence resident and Irish immigrant James Hanley opened the American Brewing Company. Beer was as big a business then as it is now. Hanley teamed up with Philadelphia architect and brewmaster engineer Adam C. Wagner to build a state-of-the-art, industrial-scaled brewery. The two men utilized the latest brewing techniques that required precisely controlled temperatures by way of new steam-powered De LaVergne mechanical refrigeration equipment that came on to the market in 1890. The American Brewing Company built two climate control systems for the lagering of beer, which required longer and more controlled cooling and aging than the ales and porters that had long dominated American tastes. The plant was a massive three-story building with a temperature-controlled basement level “stock house” for cooling, a process once done in underground caverns or above-ground ice houses. The American Brewing Company was one of 17 brew companies in Providence that supplied the city and surrounding region with America’s drink of choice.

But not all was smooth sailing for the grand brew masters of pre-WWI America. One big issue for the industry was the temperance movement, and in Rhode Island, John F. Collins, a man who would eventually become the mayor of Providence during the Great Depression.

In the 1890s, Collins was a fresh-faced graduate of St. Charles College in Maryland, who returned to his hometown of Providence to look for work. He took a job working at American Brewing, where he learned about the beer industry first hand. Collins left the company, going back to school, and eventually earned a law degree from Boston University.

At the same time, the temperance movement that sought to restrict the consumption of alcohol was gaining steam and targeted ethnic and working class men’s drinking as a social problem. Further, during WWI many Americans viewed beer as “German” and beer drinking as unpatriotic.

After WWI came the passage of Prohibition in 1920. At the time, John Collins took a job as special assistant to the United States Attorney for Rhode Island, prosecuting the law banning the sale of alcohol. John Collins did his job well and successfully prosecuted The American Brewing Company, which shut its doors in 1922. After the repeal of Prohibition, Collins went on to become a one-term Mayor of Providence from 1939 to 1941.

Throughout the ordeals of the temperance movement, WWI, and Prohibition, James Hanley bided his time and eventually opened another brewery in Providence in 1934, shortly after the passage of the 21st Amendment ended the unpopular prohibition against alcohol.

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Johnson & Wales University is a world renowned leader in experiential education, with degree programs in arts and sciences, business, culinary arts, education, hospitality, engineering and design, and more. Fittingly, the Providence campus is located in the heart of the 19th and 20th century retail hub of downtown. Though Johnson & Wales has over 16,000 students and several campuses around the country today, the school had very humble beginnings in Providence.

Luongo Memorial Square was named in honor of Thomas S. and Vincent Luongo, World War I veterans who lived nearby. Before the name change in 1938, this was Decatur Square and is today a rare space in the city that evokes 19th century city life. The confluence of Fountain and Carpenter echoes the organic flow of streets and squares in early Providence. Hidden behind the major thoroughfares of Broadway and Westminster, these smaller squares often housed the working class. When the industrial bottom dropped out of Providence, many left these dense neighborhoods for the suburbs. Homes were abandoned to decay and corruption. Organizations like the WBNA and the Providence Revolving Fund served as advocates and change-makers, working hard with public and private partners to reanimate this once-moribund public space. Take a look at the before and after photos. Through research, WBNA Executive Director Kari Lang discovered that a horse fountain once adorned the square and commissioned one of similar design to recreate the aesthetic of old Providence in this now dynamic part of the city.

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