"Seeing all kinds of people… people who were experiencing human anguish and confusion and hurt. They had the courage to look at what and where they wanted to be in their lives. I help shepherd them where they want to grow to their best self." – Freeman T. Freeman  

In 2000, Thayer Dietrich, a member of the Rhode Island LGBT Pride Committee, suggested a performance to raise funds for Pride events while showcasing the talents of local Lesbian musicians. Mary Ann Rossoni, a musician herself, joined the efforts and together they produced the first Goddess Show at the Avon Cinema in Providence. At this sit-down event, the audience of 200 (predominantly Lesbians) enjoyed the sounds of Lesbian solo and group acts singing in a variety of genres. Some songs were original pieces by the musicians themselves. The Goddess Show proved successful both in fundraising and in elevating the visibility of Lesbian artists within the Lesbian community.

In those days, for many, it was still too threatening to be out due to professional, family, and other community concerns. The performers were not ashamed of being Lesbian but worried about the repercussions. In the initial show, only Mary Ann Rossoni and Laura Berkson were formally out as Lesbians. The Goddess Show gave an opportunity for closeted Lesbians to safely perform. More importantly, their music could be heard and appreciated. They initially volunteered their performances, though Mary Ann, who believed musicians should always be paid for working, did insist they receive small stipends.

The Goddess Show offered a rare and unique opportunity for both Lesbian performers and audiences. While many of the event’s performers remained “closeted” for some years, the Goddess Show created a much-needed space for Lesbians to perform and for women to be together in a welcoming women-centered space. Generally, the musicians did not perform music with strong Lesbian themes, but there definitely were undertones of women’s love for each other.

Lesbian musicians, especially if they were out, had limited opportunity to establish broader audiences. Generally, they were underrepresented in most music venues. This was true even for most LGBTQ Pride events as well. Ironically, though these women would have “their night” at the Goddess Show and raised significant (and much needed) funds for Pride events, they weren’t usually invited to perform on the main stages at RI Pride events (a few were, sure, but those performances were generally very limited).

Andy Smith, a writer for the Providence Journal, interviewed Mary Ann about the event in 2001. Unfortunately, the headline read something like “a Rhode Island Pride event.” So, several residents of RI, not really aware of the meaning of Pride, mistakenly thought the show was music about proudly living in Rhode Island. What a shock for them when they entered a room filled with 200 Lesbians and heard the sounds of women musicians not really singing about Rhode Island!

Mary Ann Rossoni planned and organized the Goddess Show for nearly 13 years. She set up the musicians, created the schedule, and generally kept things moving while a crew of volunteers would assist with many other tasks. Over time, The Goddess Show shifted from a sit-down event into a more “club” type atmosphere (for example, at the Hi-Hat Club at Providence’s Davol Square). As more people got involved, the acts started to include a broader array of performers. The annual Goddess Shows continues today at Askew Bar and Lounge, though the focus has changed and it no longer highlights or includes only Lesbian performers.

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The Jewish Orphanage of Rhode Island (JORI) began as two separate organizations. In 1908, initially headed by the South Providence Ladies’ Aid Society and Mr. Herman Paster, the first charter for a specifically Jewish children’s orphanage was granted to “support and maintain orphan children between the ages of six and twenty one.” Very soon after obtaining the charter, the Ladies Aid Society withdrew their support to organize another home. At the same time, Mr. Paster obtained another charter, called Machzeka Hadas Orphans on Willard Ave in South Providence, which housed 17 children within its first few months of operation. The home operated by the South Providence Ladies’ Aid Society and their co-sponsors, the Montefiore Lodge Ladies Hebrew Benevolent Association, was named Hebrew Orphans Home and Day Nursery, located at 151 Orms St. next to the present day Sons of Jacob synagogue.

In January of 1910, the two homes merged and created The Jewish Orphanage of Rhode Island with Mr. Maurice Karpeles as President of the board. This new leadership was committed to obtaining a centrally located building to house the dependent children of the Jewish community, and purchased a large Victorian home located at 1213 North Main Street. This new forty-five bed location was led by superintendent Mr. Henry Woolf, along with board members such as Mrs. Ida Silverman, Mrs. Ida Bolotow, Col. Harry Cutler, Mr. Jacob Shartenberg, and countless others.

With the growing number of children living in the orphanage, the board decided it was time to purchase land and build a home that could accommodate more children, and allow them the comforts of a real home and of their community. In 1922, the board purchased land on Summit Avenue in Providence, and the cornerstone was laid on October 21, 1923. Construction of the New Jewish Orphanage of Rhode Island was completed, and the building was dedicated on October 5, 1924. This new state of the art home came fully equipped with tennis courts, a basketball court, and plenty of room for the children to enjoy the outdoors while making friends with the neighborhood children.

Throughout the years, the home saw several Superintendents, who in their various ways kept life for the children as normal as possible. Perhaps the most remembered Superintendent, Mr. Maurice Stollerman, was brought to JORI in 1926. Mr. Stollerman was ever the children’s advocate. He attempted to appoint guardians for all children considered full orphans so they might have an established emotional connection with a family during their time in the home. He also initiated steps that allowed the children who would be aging out of the home an easier transition to life on their own.

The children placed in the Jewish Orphanage were often sent to the home because their families could not afford to provide for them. Mr. Stollerman saw to it that if they did have a living parent or relative, that the families could regularly visit their children. Additionally, siblings in the home were often kept together, in the hope that they would feel some semblance of normalcy.

Though this orphanage was a home for displaced children, they were treated as the sons and daughters of the community, and were always taken care of spiritually, emotionally, and physically. The whole orphanage would participate in the Passover seder, and attended religious confirmation classes and services at Temple Emanuel. They held an annual Thanksgiving dance, at which funds for the home would be raised, and the children would put on plays, and showcase their musical talents in the JORI Band. Life at the Jewish Orphanage was not like life in many of the other institutions in Rhode Island.

The orphanage operated until 1942, when foster and adoption arrangements were made for the eight children who remained in the home.

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It was 1905, and five orthodox Jewish men from Pawtucket signed incorporation papers for a synagogue to be called The Congregation Ohawe Shalom. The only problem was that they had no money for a building, so they were forced to worship in a variety of buildings in the city. By 1918 they had raised $80,000 to buy land on which to build a synagogue. The congregation had grown to more than 350 families, most living in Central Falls and Pawtucket. The land for the new synagogue, at the corner of High and Jackson Streets, was less than a block from the border with Central Falls.

However, before construction could begin, an old theater on the site was razed, and a three-story tenement house was moved to the back of the property. It became the venue for the congregation’s social events. The Ohawe Shalom Synagogue was dedicated in 1921, and for decades, it was the only one in the two cities. The two buildings became the lodestar for the immigrant Jewish families in the neighborhood, many of whom had arrived in this country from Eastern Europe and Russia, with no money, few skills, and little education.

The synagogue is still there, but the building behind it is gone. As the Jews migrated to the suburbs, membership sharply declined. The synagogue finally closed in the late 1970s, and today it houses the Immaculate Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Church.

A few blocks from the synagogue, along Central Street in Central Falls, were small stores--delis, grocery stores, even junk shops--owned by the Jewish immigrants in the neighborhood. Drive down this narrow street to see a few remaining shops, although they are no longer owned by Jews. Or you could have walked the half a mile to downtown Pawtucket to shop at Shartenberg’s, the largest department store, which was at the corner of Main Street and Park Place. The business was founded by Jacob Shartenberg, a German Jew, in the late 1800’s as The New Idea Store.

Soon after the turn of the century, it became Shartenberg’s, and for decades it remained one of the most popular and prosperous businesses downtown.

By the end of the 20th century, the building had been demolished and replaced by a parking garage. But for more than a century, Mr. Shartenberg and other Jews who emigrated from Germany in the mid-to-late 1800’s played an important role in the business life of downtown Pawtucket.

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The founders of the Sons of Jacob, an Orthodox synagogue, had a vision: a soaring edifice in the North End of Providence that would be a symbol of their prosperity and place in the new world.

Having fled the pogroms in Russia and Poland and unrest in Austria in the late 1800s, they were determined to prosper in Providence. Their first synagogue was begun in 1896 when a small group of men met on an upper floor of a house on Shawmut Street and Chalkstone Avenue, right in the middle of a dense Jewish population. Those founders then purchased land on the corner of Douglas and Orms Street, and in 1906 finished construction on the first floor. At a cost of $50,000, they now had a home!

In 1906 Sons of Jacob was not the only synagogue in the neighborhood. The surrounding blocks were filled with Jewish families and businesses, and there were over two dozen houses of worship chartered in the neighborhood, then called the North End and now Smith Hill. However, as the demographics changed, the smaller congregations gave their scrolls to Sons of Jacob and joined themselves to this, more substantial, group.

In 1922, the upper floors were added to accommodate the worshippers; the second floor was for the men, and the third floor for the women, as is the custom for separate seating for men and women in Orthodox congregations. The finished building, designed by Harry Marshak, a local architect, was modeled on a building erected in 1836 in Kassel, West Germany, thus giving another tie to the founders’ former lives. With a substantial building, Rabbi Isaac Blik became the first full-time spiritual leader.

Examine the first floor with its murals around the Ark. Look at the names inscribed on the windows and walls. How proud they were of their new-found success! Go upstairs and marvel at the ceiling medallions depicting the zodiac. The pictures over the front bimah, or speaker’s platform, describe Perkei Avot (teachings of the fathers). The huge chandelier, with its massive weight and brilliant light, adds gravity and grace to the structure. These incredible illustrations, as well as the Zodiac scherenschnitte (cut paper work), were done by Sam Shore, the first president of the synagogue after it moved to Douglas Avenue.

As time went on, the area changed. One factor was the construction of Routes 146 and I-95, when a huge swath of buildings was destroyed and people were forced to move. Another factor was the increasing wealth of the residents, and their desire to live in more up-scale areas. Some went to the suburbs of Cranston and Warwick, and others to the East Side of Providence.

While the people moved, the building remained. The vibrant community was no more. Even while a minyan, the gathering of 10 Jewish men over the age of 13 to have public prayer, continued to be held most mornings, the building gradually deteriorated. Without a thriving community willing to do repairs, problems with the roof and buttresses arose.

The Rhode Island Jewish Museum was founded in an attempt to save the building as an artifact of great cultural importance. It is the last surviving and active synagogue of that era in Providence. When repurposed as a Museum, its legacy will be saved for future generations.

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This area was almost totally Irish when I and my compatriots from Austria and Romania began our life in Providence in the early 1880’s on Robinson St. After 1900, Russian Jews fleeing pogroms came to South Providence. Most arrived with little in the way of possessions – perhaps treasured candlesticks, a prayer book and some clothes stuffed into a box.

There was work at jewelry factories like Ludwig’s or Lederer’s. Others of us peddled - walking the streets with a pack on our backs until we were able to save enough money to buy a horse and wagon. The pay at the factories was $3 per week, but rent was only $4 per month. Few people in the neighborhood owned a single-family house.

My family lived in a four room flat in a new three tenement we bought on Willard Ave: the other two flats were rented out. We were lucky to have gaslights and a bathtub in the bathroom. My neighbors, who were not so fortunate, went to the nearby bathhouse. There were, of course, very poor people living in our neighborhood. They received help from Jewish volunteer aid agencies, such as the Montefiore Ladies Association and the South Providence Ladies Aid Societies.

My home was a stopping point for many immigrants until they could find a job and a place to live. We often had “guests” staying with us, sometimes for a month or more. They were newly arrived immigrants – either our relatives or ‘landsleit’ (Yiddish), who were people from our town in Europe who had no family to take them in. Their arrival meant doubling up on bedrooms or giving up the parlor to a family. Even with the crowding, no one was turned away. We helped them find work and get settled.

We also had health insurance through beneficial associations. For a small sum weekly, you could join a beneficial or assisting society which offered a form of insurance. Some offered sick benefits like the Miriam Association while some had death benefits to pay some funeral expenses.

It was difficult to find kosher food in the neighborhood before the turn of the century, but by the 1920s we could buy kosher meat around the corner from my house. Although many of us went to separate synagogues to pray in the familiar tongues of our native lands, we had one social center where celebrations and meetings took place - Bazar’s Hall. Bazar’s even hosted a branch of the Providence Public Library where the Yiddish books were extremely popular.

Education was of utmost importance and we children actually attended two schools. First we attended the nearby public elementary school, and after our regular school day, we went to the Talmud Torah (Hebrew School) on Chester Avenue. It had a dual purpose as spelled out in its charter: “For Hebrew Education and to keep children off the streets after school hours...”. High School is where we first met people from outside of our neighborhood.

This was our life. Up until World War II, South Providence was a vibrant Jewish community. After the War, people began to move to other parts of the city, and to the suburbs. Urban renewal – hospitals, schools, and parking lots – have since taken over my neighborhood, which now only exists in photos and memories.

Author Geraldine "Jerry" Foster shares her family's personal experiences of life in the heart of Jewish South Providence from the early 1900s to today.

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Jews can have religious services any place, but you need hallowed ground for a burial. Although the Newport cemetery was established in 1677, Touro Synagogue was consecrated in 1763.

Touro is the oldest Jewish cemetery in Rhode Island, established by the Sephardic Jewish immigrants originally from Spain and Portugal, who, fleeing the Inquisition, had next gone to Amsterdam and London, then to Brazil and finally Barbados. Arriving in Newport, they set up businesses dealing with shipping and commerce. Finally settled, they needed to buy land for a cemetery. While their congregation, Nephuse Israel (Scattered of Israel), did not have a building, they are considered the second oldest Jewish congregation in the United States. Land was bought by Mordechai Campanal and Moses Pacheco at the corner of what is now Kay and Touro Streets.

Who is buried in the cemetery? Almost all of those early settlers had Hispanic names: Alvares, Levy, Lopez, Rivera, Rodriguez, Seixas, Touro, and, interestingly enough, Hayes (see Longfellow’s poem below). Some of them died at a young age: Jacob Lopez (1755 - 1764), while others far exceeded the life expectancy of their era: Mrs. Judith Levy (1700 - 1788). In total, there are 44 burials, with the most recent being Edwin Rosenstein (1866). As a specifically Jewish cemetery, only Jews were buried there.

A fence was put around the plot, for which Judah Touro, Abraham’s brother, donated $11,000 in 1842. However, by 1850 the cemetery was rarely being used, as the Jewish population of Newport had fallen. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow visited the site and wrote a melancholy poem, The Jewish Cemetery at Newport, about how deserted it was;

The very names recorded here are strange,

Of foreign accent, and of different climes;

Alvares and Rivera interchange

With Abraham and Jacob of old times.

But ah! what once has been shall be no more!

The groaning earth in travail and in pain

Brings forth its races, but does not restore,

And the dead nations never rise again.

In contrast to this view, Emma Lazarus, the famous Jewish poet who wrote the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, wrote a rebuttal of Longfellow, In the Jewish Cemetery at Newport, with a feeling of hope at the end:

For youth and happiness have followed age,

And green grass lieth gently over all.

Nathless the sacred shrine is holy yet,

With its lone floors where reverent feet once trod.

Take off your shoes as by the burning bush,

Before the mystery of death and God.

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Solomon Treital is believed to be the first Jew to settle in Woonsocket. This scholarly and deeply religious man arrived in 1866, and soon established himself as a clothier in the downtown Market Square.

Treital’s brother, Max, arrived two years later, and a few more Jews followed, but it wasn’t until the big migration of Europeans to American shores in the 1880s that a Jewish community began to take shape in Woonsocket.

By 1894, the city directory recorded 28 Jewish names, and by 1900, there were at least 65 Jews living among the 28,204 people in the growing textile-mill city.

According to the “History of Congregation B’nai Israel,” the first Jewish congregation organized in 1883 as Congregation of the Lovers of Peace. Most of the congregants were laborers, craftsmen, peddlers and merchants, and Solomon Treital was their first president.

Although they were devout, the Lovers of Peace were not wealthy, and they could not afford their own synagogue. They first worshipped in a loft over a store near Market Square, and then in a building on Main Street, and then went “from loft to loft, from meeting hall to meeting hall for one and half decades.”

At the start of the 20th century, the young congregation had grown enough in numbers and solvency for Treital to declare that the time had come to found their own house of worship.

The “History of Congregation B’nai Israel” reports that “through tremendous self-sacrifice on the part of each congregant,” the congregation in 1904 was able to purchase a vacant Presbyterian church at 200 Greene Street, giving Woonsocket’s Jewish community its first home.

The squat Queen Anne at the corner of Greene and Bernon streets had, among its selling points, a cavernous room suitable for a sanctuary and just enough room on its tiny lot to build a sukkah, or hut, for the holiday of Sukkot.

The Jewish community, newly renamed Congregation B’nai Israel, mustered its meager resources and set about remodeling the old church into a synagogue. And so it was fitting, when consecration ceremonies were held on July 31, 1904, that “citizens of all faiths were in attendance.”

By 1913, the congregation had grown to 85 members, and by 1914, the city had a very active YMHA (Young Men’s Hebrew Association) and YWHA (Young Women’s Hebrew Association). By 1917, CBI was able to hire its first ordained rabbi.

The congregation continued to grow, albeit slowly, over the following decades, and the Greene Street synagogue thrived. The building wasn’t big enough to host all the events that the Jewish community held, so halls and homes were frequently used for social activities, but the temple was the focal point.

“It was a vibrant Jewish congregation,” said Irwin Shorr, who was among the last boys to celebrate his Bar Mitzvah in the building, on Oct. 21, 1961. “I think at the height of its existence, there were at least 200 Jewish families in Woonsocket.”

Shorr, who now lives in Olney, Maryland, said services were held in the sanctuary on the main floor, while the downstairs held a kitchen and rooms that were used for junior congregation, parties, holiday events and receptions.

Life for Woonsocket’s Jews “revolved around Jewish life when I was a kid,” Shorr said. “My Bar Mitzvah was the most important event of my life. Period.”

In 1962, Woonsocket’s Jewish community proudly dedicated its magnificent and architecturally important synagogue on Prospect Street. This new building had more than enough space to consolidate Jewish life under one roof, with room for everything from a Hebrew School to a Judaica museum.

As for the old Queen Anne, for the next 40 years or so, it was sometimes vacant and sometimes the home of religious groups, until a theater company took it over. And then, around 2000, Pastor Mike Kropman purchased the building for $30,000 for his Church of the Acts.

Kropman describes his church as non denominational. Which is why the Star of David carved into the wall above the bimah, the plaque honoring members of the 1904 “Committee on Building,” and the frame of a sturdy sukkah still stand as testament to Woonsocket’s first synagogue.

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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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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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The Smith Hill Library was built in 1932 as part of a Providence Public Library campaign beginning in the mid-1920s to create branch libraries throughout the city. Designer Albert Harkness was a renowned Providence architect of the time who also did the Providence Music Mansion (88 Meeting Street) and the East Side Friends’ Meeting House (99 Morris Avenue), all in the Colonial Revival style.

This building has typical hallmarks of its period: Harkness designed this building to follow to the floor plan specified at the time for all Providence library branches, and the Colonial Revival style of this one-and-a-half-storied building is typical of 1930s institutional design. But the library has many exterior decorative elements that make it interesting: the corner bricks form Colonial-style quoins; mortared stone was chosen rather than concrete for the foundation; and the pattern of the brickwork is a complex and striking version of “monk bond.” Upon entering the building, the projecting central entrance pavilion lends grandeur while a modern curved double stairway, with elegant aluminum rails leads visitors to the main library level with shelves, window seats, and paneling of mahogany woodwork.

In 2008, financial hardship forced the Providence Public Library to announce intended closures for many branch libraries. In response, library patrons citywide came together to form a new organization, the Providence Community Library (PCL), to support the branch libraries. On July 1, 2009, all nine branch libraries became property of the City of Providence and leased to the PCL.

The Smith Hill Library has its long history of community outreach, responding to the needs of its users. It held well-attended citizenship classes in the late 1920s, even before moving to its current location. Today, a century later, it continues this tradition: a typical day’s schedule includes children’s drawing and art classes, financial and business workshops, homework help with local college students, reading groups, and GED courses. The Smith Hill Library describes itself as a “safe and lively meeting place and learning center for people of all ages.”

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Created as Exchange Place in the 19th century, Kennedy Plaza stands out in a neighborhood defined by change. It’s served same role for over a century: the city’s central transportation hub. Today, as many as 69,000 people move through the site daily! In addition to being the geographic center of downtown and the main transportation hub, the plaza also serves as the city’s gathering point for civic events. The steps of City Hall make Kennedy Plaza an ideal spot for oration. Thousands of people stood here to listen to President Theodore Roosevelt in 1902, to witness the magical acts of Harry Houdini in 1914, and to see presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in 1960. Following his assassination, Exchange Place was renamed to honor the President in 1964.

Kennedy Plaza is also home to several statues and monuments honoring Rhode Island veterans. The large Soldiers and Sailors Monument recalls Rhode Island’s involvement in the Civil War, including the 14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery Regiment, an African-American unit. The Hiker Statue commemorates Rhode Islanders’ involvement in the Spanish American War. Today, Kennedy Plaza remains a gathering place for the community, anchored by the Alex and Ani City Center, which features arts and music programming, as well as seasonal roller derby and ice-skating.

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Few places in downtown evoke such fond memories like the iconic Shepard Company Department Store, a fixture of the 19th and 20th-century Providence shopping experience. Built in the 1870s, Shepard’s initially was 6,400 square feet. By 1903, it grew to include 301,000 square feet, occupying an entire city block!

In it's prime, Shepard's also helped to orient visitors in downtown Providence. Meeting “at the clock” friends and families used the large 19th-century cast iron clock outside the Westminster Street entrance as a point of reference. Though once successful, the Shepard Company went bankrupt in 1974. Fortunately, the exterior of the building and its iconic clock still remain largely unchanged.

Today the Shepard’s Building serves various educational institutions, an example of repurposing an iconic space to serve the neighborhood’s needs.

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No organization embodies Providence’s moniker, “The Creative Capital”, more than AS220. Founded in 1985, this organization supports artists by providing housing, studio, exhibit, and performance space in downtown Providence. AS220 began in one room above the Providence Performing Arts Center at 220 Weybosset Street, when Umberto Crenca and friends decided Providence needed a space dedicated to supporting artists and artistic expression. “AS” stands for artists space or alternative space and 220 honors the room at PPAC where it all began.

Today, AS220 houses four rotating gallery spaces, a performance stage, a black box theater, a print shop, a darkroom and media arts lab, a fabrication and electronics lab, a dance studio, a youth program, 47 affordable live/work studios for artists, a bar and restaurant, and is a destination for over 51,000 people each year.

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A fixture of the capital city, the Providence Public Library (PPL) has continuously served the downtown community for over a century. Founded in 1875, the PPL opened at its present Washington Street location in 1900. It added the Empire Street expansion in 1954. While its original Italian Renaissance-inspired design evokes comparisons to Boston’s Public Library, visitors congratulated the architects for valuing function over form. The first librarian, William Foster, stressed the Library’s important community service role by establishing community “contacts” to best serve the city. A revolutionary concept at the time, the result has been a tradition still in practice as the PPL continues to foster partnerships (or “contacts”) with a myriad of community groups on innovative initiatives.

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Providence’s tightly-knit community of artists and collectors created the Providence Art Club to congregate, create, and display art. It is the second oldest art club in the country after the Salmagundi Club in New York City. The westernmost of the club’s four buildings is the Fleur-de-Lys Studio (1885), built by Sydney Burleigh as workspace for himself and fellow club artists. Designated a National Historic Landmark, the studio is a masterpiece of Arts and Crafts architecture with finely rendered detail. On the street level corner is inscribed the phrase “Fair among the Fairest.” Not everybody appreciated this building; H.P. Lovecraft found it so revolting that he set his horror story “The Call of Cthulhu” (1926) there.

Among the founders of the Providence Art Club was Edward Mitchell Bannister, a celebrated African American landscape painter. Bannister’s work Under The Oaks earned him first prize at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, although he had to overcome prevalent racist attitudes. Bannister discovered from a newspaper that he had won the prize, and when he arrived at the gallery to claim it, the clerk demanded to know “what it was to [him].” Bannister later wrote: “In an instant, my blood was up: the looks that passed between him and others in the room were unmistakable. I was not an artist to them, simply an inquisitive colored man; controlling myself, I said deliberately, ‘I am interested in the report that Under The Oaks has received; I painted the picture.’ An explosion could not have made a more marked impression. Without hesitation he apologized, and soon everyone in the room was bowing and scraping to me.”

Bannister’s wife, Christiana Bannister, is historically significant in her own right. An entrepreneur and self-proclaimed “hair doctress,” Bannister ran successful hair salons in Boston and downtown Providence which allowed her husband to pursue his art career.

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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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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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There was a time when, if a bride wanted to walk up the aisle at the Old Stone Baptist Church, she had to hoist herself, gown and all, through one of the church’s back windows.

Most churches place the pulpit and the main entrance at opposite ends of their building, allowing for formal processions up a center aisle. When it was built in 1752, however, the two entrances to the Old Stone Church stood behind the pulpit, making for an awkward and subdued entrance for the bride. The solution? A ladder, a window, and a congregation willing to keep their eyes averted while the bride fixed her dress.

In the late 1950s, the church added an entrance hall opposite the pulpit. Brides at the Old Stone Church no longer climb through a window in order to make a grand entrance, but for many congregants, it’s a fond memory of one of the church’s more interesting customs.

The Old Stone Church was also known for its annual Rhode Island clambake. The church held the first clambake in 1864, and by 1875, an astonishing 4,000 people attended the event. The clambake served as a fundraiser for the church, drawing people from neighboring communities regardless of religious affiliation.

In the morning, cooks placed heaping mounds of Rhode Island clams and quahogs, along with locally-grown potatoes, onions, and corn, into a pit lined with a bed of hot rocks. The cooks alternated layers of food with moist rockweed, slowly steaming the feast for hours. The Manchester family of Little Compton were for many years a critical part of the clambake: Abe managed the event, Debbie collected tickets, and Lizzie cooked the chowder.

Crowds gathered southeast of the church behind the Pleasant View Cemetery and sat at long tables. The Old Stone Church clambake was always the social event of the season. People dressed in their finest clothes and munched on iced watermelon to cool off in the summer heat. Many local stores closed and gave employees the day off. The popular event halted during World War II due to rationing, but in recent years, the church has begun to revive the delicious tradition.

During the years that the clambakes weren't held, the church grounds became the site of an annual bazaar. Farmers bought and sold livestock, demonstrated crafts and skills, and held an antique auction on the church lawn. Reverend Bob Hollis remembers a toy table that Millie Waite arranged where a nickel would buy children the bag of their choice, with a surprise toy inside. The atmosphere was festive and exciting, with people spending days putting up booths and preparing for the festival.

Even though the church isn’t technically in Adamsville—it’s just over the line in Tiverton—for Adamsville residents, it has played a long and important role in the religious and social life of the village. After all, if your congregation is willing to put up with climbing through a window to get married, it’s clearly something special.

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“Bay Village First to Go Solar, Makes History Again!” shouts the enthusiastic headline on the New Bedford Housing Authority website. Accompanied by a video, the announcement about New Bedford’s oldest public housing project has an upbeat feel that is at odds with the mixed legacy of public housing in the city.  Built from 1939 to 1941, Bay Village consisted of twenty-two brick buildings containing 197 multifamily units with one to four bedrooms. The sprawling nature of the complex evokes the post-World War II suburban housing boom more than the tightly packed public housing “projects” that followed. In theory, early public housing provided the working poor with clean and modest housing during their inevitable rise to the middle class, and suburban-style housing provided by the government would help to ease that transition.  Bay Village replaced much older, working-class housing stock on this site, much of it dating from the whaling era. The project was supported by federal Housing and Urban Development funding as part of nationwide "slum" clearance. 115 homes and businesses were razed including Monte Pio Hall, the oldest Portuguese social club in New England, and the “Irish House,” once home to itinerant whalers and other seafarers.  When completed, Bay Village represented a step up in amenities for most of its occupants. The apartments contained indoor plumbing and more space for families accustomed to crowding into one or two rooms. There was a playground and open area for children to play. On the other hand, the construction of Bay Village destroyed an existing community, and replaced the older housing, however substandard, with far fewer units, leaving some people displaced.  Bay Village foreshadowed the destructive urban renewal projects in New Bedford during the 1960s and 70s. The New Bedford Redevelopment Authority demolished entire neighborhoods to create a waterfront industrial area to service the fishing industry and to build a highway link to Interstate 195. This highway, Route 18, eventually connected the declining industrial areas of the north and south ends of the city, passing close by Bay Village. Many longtime New Bedford residents remain bitter over the loss of 203 homes and 113 businesses, many of them historic. Route 18 created a literal divide in the city, cutting off the waterfront from the rest of the city.  Bay Village provided the means for many people to move from substandard, often dangerous housing to safe and affordable homes that are still in use—and still being improved—more than seventy-five years later. Urban renewal helped the fishing industry to grow into the largest in the country. The destruction of much of New Bedford’s historic buildings spurred the creation of a vibrant preservation movement that recalled the glory days of New Bedford whaling. In recent years, the city has taken steps to reconnect the historic downtown areas of New Bedford with the working waterfront. However, some scars will always remain. 

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Walking down Resevoir Avenue today, the sweet fragrance of Popeye's Chicken and Biscuits mixes with the aroma of traffic. Strolling through Reservoir Triangle and the surrounding neighborhoods, the scent of Cambodian and Spanish food wafts out of kitchen windows. Buckets filled with garden soil, sprouting chili peppers, lemongrass, cucumbers, and squash serve as makeshift gardens of fresh produce.

Every community has its own food culture, history, and traditions – its own foodways. Over the past half-century, the foodways in the neighborhoods surrounding Mashapaug Pond have changed dramatically, reflecting the community’s shifting demographics and the influx of new ethnic groups. Nonetheless, foodways continue to be an important part of life in these close-knit neighborhoods.

In the 1950s, the Hide-Away Diner occupied the site where Popeye’s now stands near the southeast corner of the pond. Built from an old Pullman railroad car, the twenty-four hour diner was a popular local haunt. As the noontime sun sparkled off of Mashapaug Pond, workers at the Gorham Manufacturing Company slipped out to spend their lunch breaks at the diner. Sounds of sizzling hamburgers, clanging pinball machines and chatting workers filled the cozy restaurant. Nearby, children beamed over mountains of ice cream swirling with flavored syrups, seltzer, strawberries, and bananas – the signature “Bumper” dish of the The Hut, a popular ice cream parlor.

But on the opposite side of the pond, in the neighborhood of West Elmwood – now the Huntington Expressway Industrial Park – paved streets gave way to dirt roads. Backyards bustled with chickens, cows, goats and ducks. Neighbors walked door-to-door selling surplus garden vegetables. Vendors sold fish and crabs out of trucks. Kids collected turtles and crawfish from bubbling brooks, picked huckleberries and wild strawberries to make rich jams and jellies, and pilfered ripe peaches, apples, and plums from neighborhood trees. Chewing on sassafras roots dug from the shores of Mashapaug Pond, the taste of root beer filled their mouths.

Demolition crews have long since torn down Reservoir Triangle’s diners and ice cream shops. The fruit trees and lush gardens of West Elmwood have been flattened to make way for the industrial park. Today, area residents have different shopping and dining haunts.

At Sunny’s Market on the pond’s southeast shore, for example, residents and visitors can find food products from countries around the world, reflecting the neighborhood’s growing immigrant population. Delicacies favored in neighborhood homes range from Cambodian style fish poached in coconut milk to Arepa, a Dominican cornmeal cake served as a dessert.

“Walking down the street, I can smell Asian food, Cambodian food, Spanish food…I love the smell of food,” said Sokeo Ros, a Cambodian resident of the Reservoir Triangle neighborhood. Ros appreciates the rich diversity of foodways shared by his neighbors today.

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