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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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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Imagine the Fox Point waterfront in the 1940s. Cargo ships lined up to get into crowded docks. Longshoremen bustled along the busy quays. Crowds waited to welcome packet ships bringing new immigrants and news from Cape Verde.

Many of the longshoremen who worked the docks had themselves come into this port on the packet boats.  Until the 1950s, most of the packet boats were repurposed schooners and aging whalers. Crewed by skilled seamen, these vessels made regular trips between American ports and the islands of Cape Verde off the African coast, transporting people, letters, food, and freight.

Cape Verdean immigration to Providence, and greater New England, began the early nineteenth century, when men from the islands were recruited by whaling companies looking for good seamen and inexpensive labor. By the early twentieth century, Portugal’s oppressive colonial rule of the islands, combined with drought and starvation, forced families to consider leaving Cape Verde. Many immigrants moved to Providence and New Bedford, joining family members and friends already in the United States.

The waterfront neighborhood of Fox Point, bounded to the north by Power Street, became the heart of Cape Verdean Rhode Island until the late twentieth century. Today, some Cape Verdeans still live in the area, but most were forced to relocate as urban renewal projects dramatically changed the neighborhood. Beginning in the 1950s, Brown University also bought and developed land in the neighborhood; the ensuing gentrification made it prohibitively expensive for working class families to live there.

At the same time that longtime Fox Point residents were being forced to move elsewhere, the Fox Point docks were also changing. After World War II, “containerization,” the increasing use of shipping containers, drastically decreased the numbers of jobs available on the docks. Many longshoremen actively resisted the changes. In 1971, a historic strike on the west coast shut down the ports for 130 days. The Cape Verdean longshoremen who worked in Fox Point were members of Local 1329 of the International Longshoremen’s Association, the first labor union in the United States founded by Cape Verdeans. Local 1329 played an important role in the national labor union and in the lives of the Cape Verdean longshoremen and their families. Ultimately, resistance to automation was not successful and by the end of the twentieth century almost ninety percent of longshoremen jobs had been lost to automation.

These docks are filled with the memories of work, change and resistance, and the journeys of people and things from Cape Verde to Providence. Though the Cape Verdean community is no longer concentrated in Fox Point, more Cape Verdeans still live in Massachusetts and Rhode Island than anywhere else except Cape Verde. Many of them still gather each year in India Point Park to celebrate the islands’ independence from Portugal on July 5th, a day filled with festivities, educational events, and food.

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