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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Built in 1822, the Allendale Mill on Woonasquatucket Avenue currently serves as apartment housing for the North Providence community. Although the building’s existing structure provides hints of its historic past, most simply ignore it as just another defunct mill, unaware that both its design and operation served as a model for later textile mills.

The man behind its construction was Providence luminary and civic leader, Zachariah Allen, born 1795. He was a founder of the Providence Athenaeum and the Rhode Island Historical Society, as well as a trustee of Butler Hospital. A successful legal professional and respected author, Allen constructed Allendale Mill out of a desire to return to his family’s roots in manufacturing woolen textiles.

Allen was as much innovator and inventor as academic and businessman. Learning from the failures and deficiencies of past and present textile mills, Allen’s design for Allendale was way ahead of its time.

The entire structure was designed from the ground up around a single key element: fire safety. Allendale’s double-thick floors, complex staggered-framing, general floorplan and original slate shingles all contributed to the plan for the “slow-burning mill,” a term attributed to Allendale and later applied to other mills that used such a design.

In addition to its safer construction, Allendale was at the forefront in terms of practical and accessible fire protection for workers. Among Allendale’s signature hallmarks was its own hydrant and sprinkler system, which complemented industrial-grade pumps and water-hoses situated at ‘hot-spot’ locations throughout the mill.

Allen believed that his commitment to providing a safer work environment would constitute lower insurance premiums for his mills, but his insurers disagreed. Thus, Allen decided he would need to form his own insurance company. Together with other like-minded business owners, Allen collaborated with the Boston Mutual Insurance Company to form the Allendale Insurance Company. This new firm would deal only with manufacturers that held their facilities to the highest standards in construction, maintenance, and quality, and would use the Mill at Allendale as a benchmark for further industry standards that would help to shape the development of modern workplace fire codes and regulations that continue to safeguard workers today.

Allen’s insurance enterprise continues to operate as FM Global, headquartered in Johnston, RI.

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Encased deep within the historical foundations of Providence is the neighborhood of Olneyville. Originally established as Olneyville Square in the 18th century, the area prospered as a market for both European settlers and nearby Narragansett Indians.

Christopher Olney owned the 95 acres of farmland that now exists as the approximately half square-mile section of Providence called Olneyville. A Revolutionary War captain, Christopher Olney began as a major in the Providence County militia and rose to the rank of colonel prior to the start of the war. He secured the longevity of Olneyville Square through the establishment of Christopher Olney & Company, which operated two paper mills and a gristmill along the Woonasquatucket River. Picking up momentum, the neighborhood continued to expand rapidly during and after the Revolutionary War, and before long, Olneyville was viable. Olney’s large foundries allowed for production in metallurgy and other industries that carried the local economy well into the Industrial Revolution.

In the 19th century, Olneyville’s central railway junction and abundance of millwork attracted aspiring Americans from all over the globe, sewing the multicultural roots that would develop into the pluralistic identity that Providence embodies.

Today, Olneyville continues to stand as a dynamic and vibrant community, known for its rich and diverse heritage, and its pride as a cultural center for artistic expression in the Providence area. Consequently, this influx of young, creative and wealthier residents has given rise to a new issue: gentrification. Its two-faced impact on the local area has been met with both warmth and contempt. On the one hand, the new residents bring economic capital, which aids in local development. On the other hand, the increased economic and cultural activity has driven up the cost of living substantially, forcing longtime residents to find less expensive housing elsewhere.

Situated within the neighborhood is the WaterFire Arts Center on Valley Street. Repurposed from a former 1920s US Rubber factory, the multipurpose facility now serves as a space where artists can seek to express their creativity and interact with the community at large. Among their best-known productions is WaterFire Providence, which features a riverboat lighting, live music, food, and entertainment for the whole family.

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Between 1860 and 1880, Providence’s population doubled in size. With this flood of newcomers seeking employment in rapidly expanding industrial and manufacturing sectors came the high demand for housing. Areas to the the west and northwest of the city center were bought and opened up for development, close to employment bases like Brown and Sharpe, Nicholson File Company, and American Locomotive Works. On October 1, 1883, the Providence Journal wrote on the proliferation of construction of new homes in the Smith Hill area: “The 10th Ward continues to grow more rapidly than any other ward in the city…for both the amount invested and the number of buildings erected.” It was around this time that a major developer and investor Andrew Dickhaut completed several groups of small, “cookie-cutter” cottages as rental investment properties in Smith Hill on Fillmore, Bath, Lydia, and Duke Streets. Upon their building, the cottages on each of these streets represented an important alternative to multi-family housing common to their time period -- the cottages were small, but private, single family homes. Today, the homes on Bath Street make up the largest surviving group of small workers’ dwellings in Providence. The Dickhaut Cottages that line the east side of Bath Street off of Orms Street occupied approximately half of a long block, about 1.25 acres. Typical of such late nineteenth-century residential development, these houses are built close together on narrow lots, and are at the sidewalk line. The houses built by Dickhaut and his heirs fall into two categories.  The ones on Bath Street, all made of wood, are “Type A” clapboard-sheathed with a three bay façade, hooded entrance, side hall plan, and a pair of windows in the gable end.  “Type B,” built in 1891 on Duke Street, had more elaborate features like decorative shingle panels and turned-spindle porches. According to the 1892 Directory of Providence, when the houses were organized by street address, several tenants appear to be employed at local mills and factories as machinists and laborers. Early occupants represent a typical immigrant neighborhood for the time: Irish, Armenian, Scandinavian, and Jewish. We can deduce that these original occupants were successful enough to rent single family homes within a rapidly growing neighborhood, rather than sharing closer accommodations with others -- either other families or their own extended ones. These houses were modest and usually built with only the basic amenities. While the early tenants did not own the properties in which they dwelled, which was a clear sign of upward mobility, these occupants were able to afford a small bit of rented land with a modicum of privacy.

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Before discount department stores became popular, New Bedford had Mars Bargainland. In the 1960s and 70s, the enormous high-ceilinged space contained a treasure trove of cut-price clothes, toys, and household items. A bit further inside the massive building shoppers found Food Mart, where workers boxed their groceries and slid them down rollers to be collected outside at street level. For many New Bedford residents, the memory of Mars Bargainland is still vivid, but few people remember this building’s original purpose. Designed by architects Charles Makepeace of Providence and Benjamin Smith of New Bedford and built between 1896 and 1917, Whitman Mills contained the highest density of looms in the region. The endless floors were relieved by tall windows, and spire-like chimney stacks exhausted plumes of smoke from the coal-fired boilers that powered the mills’ steam engines. The complex included an engine house, pipe house, pump house, machine shed, and office building, visually unified by Romanesque Revival details. Behind the mills loading docks extended into the Acushnet River, and across Riverside Avenue stood a large weave shed. The 1917 issue of the Official American Textile Directory gave a sense of the output of the Whitman Mills at their peak. $2 million of cloth were produced per year. Adjusted for inflation, this would equal more than $48 million in 2016. Whitman’s primary products included “Plain and Fancy Cotton and Silk Goods and Cotton Yarns,” produced on 138,128 ring spindles, 36,960 mule spindles, and 4,932 looms powered by steam and electric power. William Whitman, who built the mill, was a leader in New England’s textile industry for more than four decades. Whitman headed one of the world’s largest cotton textile manufacturing organizations and served as president of the Association of Wool Manufacturers. He also developed tariff policy related to the textile industry and advised Congress on trade matters. Despite Whitman’s business expertise, the mills he developed were not immune to economic pressures, and this one was no exception. Although the mill closed in 1932, the complex housed a variety of businesses including a cannery, in addition to Mars Bargainland, but they filled a small fraction of the space and employed a total of only about 500 people, less than a third of the Whitman Mills’ peak of 1,750 employees. Today, where once thousands of machines created continuous deafening noise, more than one-hundred elderly residents live in cozy studios and apartments. Named Whaler Place with unintentional irony, the development references the city’s more illustrious past rather than the textile industry that sustained the city long after the end of whaling. The floors once covered with a layer of cotton fiber now gleam with refinished wood and plush carpeting. The 18-foot ceilings are perhaps the only reminder of the buildings’ former use.

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In 1847, a building without precedent in New Bedford began to rise north of the harbor in a grassy field along the banks of the Acushnet River.

The building was five stories tall, of rough-hewn local granite, and about as long as the distance between streets in the older whaling center of town. A steam engine designed and built by Providence’s George H. Corliss powered ten thousand spindles, which began producing cotton goods in 1849. As the city’s first successful large-scale textile mill, Wamsutta set the standard for those that followed.

Wamsutta Mills became known for its production of top quality cotton shirting and sheeting. Business thrived, and in 1853, Wamsutta built a second mill adjacent to the first, followed in 1862 by Wamsutta 3. Production declined during the Civil War due to labor and material shortages, but the company added a fourth mill in 1870. Wamsutta 4 was powered by another Corliss steam engine, the largest of its kind in the world. When the company added Wamsutta 5, the engine doubled in size, surpassing the famous steam engine that Corliss provided to power Machinery Hall during the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.

By 1892, Wamsutta owned seven mills and was the largest cotton-weaving factory in the world. Five years later, it operated more than four-thousand looms and employed more than two-thousand workers. By the mid-1920s, Wamsutta updated its facilities from steam power to electric and refurbished its machinery. When the Great Depression struck the nation in 1929, more than two-dozen textile mills closed in New Bedford. Wamsutta, however, managed to survive and thrive throughout World War II. The company adapted its product line to include items needed for the war effort: uniforms, hot air balloons, gas mask material, and canvas supplies.

Wamsutta closed in 1958 when the company’s owners relocated its operations and much of its equipment to South Carolina to take advantage of cheaper labor costs. In 2006, Wamsutta Mills 4 & 5 were redeveloped as loft-style apartments. Many other Wamsutta structures remain including Wamsutta 6, a weave shed, the mill pond that provided water for steam engines, and an historic ice house and weave shed.

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