Rhode Tour

A. and L. Tirocchi Gowns

2017-12-08T20:23:26+00:00

Life wasn’t easy for immigrants at the turn of the century, but Italian sisters Anna and Laura Tirocchi chose their path well. After less than a decade of life in America, they were known in Providence as premier dressmakers with little serious competition. To their credit, this success did not appear to come with the conceit of rising in society, and they created a business that supported and fostered young immigrants and working-class women in the city.

The Tirocchis began their dressmaking business downtown, and in only four years amassed enough elite clientele to move shop.The building they had been working in was beautiful, but it was also surrounded by the hustle and bustle of traffic, competing shops, and downtown life. When Laura married Dr. Louis Cella in 1915, they set their eyes on moving to the fashionable West Side of Providence – specifically, to Broadway Street, home to the wealthy and fabulous. 514 Broadway had been built in 1867 by prominent local architect Perez Mason and had housed two impressive businessmen: John Kendrick from 1867-1880, and George W. Prentice from 1881-1915. It was set up and furnished to present the appearance of wealth, and the Tirocchis capitalized on the space and effect. Surely both the family and their upper-class clients appreciated the display of affluence that the house created, inside and out. Its Italianate and Second Empire architecture – featuring sunburst gables and a mansard roof, capped with a three and a half story tower – stands out, even among the other beautiful homes of Broadway.

The large house became the perfect mix of public and private for the Tirocchi-Cella family; Dr. Cella took space on the first floor – eventually, they renovated and created an addition to the house that he relocated his practice to - and the public dressmaking business occupied the opulent second floor, while the sewing (and living!) took place on the third.

A. & L. Tirocchi Gowns flourished in the teens and twenties, despite the increasingly difficult economic situation for dressmakers. Ready-to-wear clothing at department stores had become more popular since it was introduced in the decades beforehand – the sisters’ saving grace was their elite clientele and their Italian training.

Anna Tirocchi’s beautiful gowns made waves in the Providence community and changed enough with the times that she was still a relevant designer more than thirty years after her debut. She and her sister made business connections in New York, Rome, and Paris that they visited with some regularity, bringing back brochures of the newest fabrics and fashions. Anna also invested smartly and bought several properties to rent, as well as a beach house on the Narragansett Bay. This relative affluence enabled her to support her workers and community in more ways than simple employment: shop girls were invited along on vacation, given housing when necessary, and had their wedding dresses made for free. In one instance, Anna wrote to a judge with familiarity, begging for leniency on the part of a community boy who had once worked for her when he was brought to court. The workers at A. & L. Tirocchi gowns functioned as apprentices; they were given rounded, practical instruction for years as they worked, and after a period of time they were able to strike out on their own as dressmakers in their own right.

The business ended in 1947 with Anna’s death, and its archives and collections were donated to RISD and URI in 1989. The house has undergone a few restoration efforts in the years since, most recently by the Dirt Palace collaborative, which plans to turn it into artist residences.

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William M. Rodman

2017-08-09T17:08:33+00:00

Violence in Chepachet!

“Infantry! To the Rescue!” shouted a lieutenant as the militia prepared to overtake the rebels at a tavern in Chepachet, wrote William M. Rodman in 1842. Rodman (1814-1868), a merchant tailor with a shop on Westminster Street, served as Master Clerk of Providence Marine Corps during the Dorr Rebellion. The Providence Marine Corps was one of the militias mobilized to counter the perceived threat posed by Dorr’s return to Rhode Island in June 1842. Rodman, who later became mayor Providence, recorded his account of the events that transpired:

The Infantry immediately started at double quick time from the rear of the column, and were instantly joined by our Company, which with its Guns and Ammunition Cart, rushed into the Village -- The two Companies instantly surrounded the Tavern, where the assailing rebels had taken refuge, and after the passing of one or two pistol shots, (the exact account of which seems to be difficult) the prisoners were secured save one who took flight across a field. He was ordered to stand, but refused to do so, whereupon Lieut. Tower ordered his platoon to fire, which order was promptly obeyed, but the prisoner was not taken, he having succeeded in secreting himself in the dense foliage of a tangled bracken; this scene over, the Col. ordered the remains of the column march into the village. A national salute was then fired by our Company, from the brass pieces, which made the hills and valleys echo with the glad notes of joy -- joy for the triumph of law over misrule, and mobocracy -- joy, for the victory of truth over error--joy, for the safety of our institutions, our lives, our privileges, our kindred and our homes.

After their victory, the soldiers ransacked Sprague’s Tavern and other residences and captured 140 prisoners. When they reached Providence, they were met with a remarkable welcome:
Brilliant was the spectacle, which old Westminster presented. From the side walk to the house tops, all was life, aye, life in its most attractive forms -- and with boquets [sic] and wreaths, only excelled in beauty by their own personal attractions, they literally smothered the advancing columns.
Given his profession as a tailor, it is perhaps no surprise that Rodman noted what he and his compatriots had donned as uniforms: “Scarlet cap, trimmed with Brass -- Black fountain plume, with scarlet tips, Blue coat trimmed with scarlet, with scarlet epaulets and white pantaloons. Black belts. Cartouch box, etc.”
27 Westminster Street was the location of Rodman’s tailoring firm and on the path of the parade following the Charterite success at Chepachet
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Kendrick-Prentice Tirocchi House

2017-04-20T20:18:46+00:00

The Wedding Cake House

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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