The Roger Williams National Memorial, at 282 North Main St., is home to a spring that was donated to the city of Providence by Judge J. Jerome Hahn in 1932- in memory of his father, Isaac Hahn (1845-1909), a businessman and textile manufacturer,  who became the first Jewish resident of Providence to be elected to public office.   Judge Hahn believed that the spring was a historic and almost sacred place, as it was there that Roger Williams and his followers first found fresh water in the settlement that would become Providence.   Isaac Hahn’s parents came to the United States from Germany in the mid-19th century and made their home in New York City, where Isaac was born and raised. They later moved upstate, where Isaac married Rose Stern. In 1870, Isaac brought his wife and young son to establish a new life for their growing family in Providence. Isaac owned a dry goods store on Westminster Street, and later invested in  banking, factories and real estate. In 1884, he became the first Jewish state representative from Providence in the Rhode Island General Assembly, in which he served one term. Isaac was also deeply involved in the Jewish community, helping to build a new  synagogue for the Congregation of the Sons of Israel and David (founded in 1854, this congregation survives today as Temple Beth-El).

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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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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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When 20,000 textile workers went on strike in the 1928 New Bedford Textile Workers Strike, 18-year-old factory worker Eulalia “Eula” Mendes (1910-2004) became a leader in her mill and community by encouraging Portuguese industrial migrant workers to participate in the strike. Later, she traveled nationwide to support other fights for justice and equality.

Eula left Portugal with her working-class family in 1912 and settled in New Bedford, a textile city with a large Portuguese-speaking community. At the young age of 14, Eula became her family’s primary breadwinner as a bobbin worker in a textile factory. In 1928, when the city’s textile workers went on strike in opposition to a 10% wage cut planned by the factory owners, Eula began attending meetings run by regional and national labor organizers.

She became a leader at her mill and in her community by promoting Portuguese worker participation in the strike. Eula translated the speeches of labor leaders into Portuguese and gave speeches herself. She became an organizer for the communist-influenced Textile Mill Committee (TMC), which demanded a wage increase, a 40-hour workweek, and an end to child labor. Eventually, Eula became a member of the TMC’s executive committee serving in a leadership role as secretary.

The TMC organized thousands of workers into pickets, rallies, and parades that attracted the attention of law enforcement and city officials. The National Guard and local police used force and arrested many strikers, including Eula. She noted that she “was arrested a number of times... We sometimes stayed [in jail] for just a few hours, sometimes overnight or sometimes even days or weeks, but we were usually let out on bail. And a few days later maybe we were arrested again.”

After six months, the strikers accepted a smaller pay cut and returned to work. For Eula, the 1928 strike sparked a life of union organizing. She traveled nationwide with the International Ladies Garment Workers and other unions to support other uprisings in the fight for justice and equality. Eula’s activism continued with her Communist Party affiliation in New Bedford and the region, and she refused to sign a Loyalty Pledge to promise that she was not a Communist.

The strike did not accomplish all the goals the TMC hoped for, but it did change the relationship between textile workers and mill owners in the city and New England for decades to come. After years of being ignored by the established mill craft unions, ethnic communities found a voice through the TMC and developed a new interest in unions, which encouraged them to come together to advocate for greater representation.

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Despite the popular misconception, the figure that hangs under the arch as you ascend Atwells Avenue onto Federal Hill is not a pineapple, but a pinecone. A symbol for abundance and quality, the pinecone, or, La Pigna, is a nod to the rich Italian culture that has dominated “The Hill” since immigrants began to arrive there in the late 19th century.

Atwells Avenue is perhaps the best neighborhood to go to for a meal in the Renaissance City and it boasts 15 different Italian restaurants from which to choose. Reinforcing the Italian connection, running through the center of the neighborhood are green, white, and red traffic lines that follow Atwells Avenue, a thoroughfare named for the man who once owned the land now known as Federal Hill. That man, Amos Maine Atwell, was not Italian, but he was a prominent figure in the town during his time. Atwell was born in 1765 to Amos and Betty (Searle) Atwell. His father, a Providence blacksmith, merchant, and ship-owner, was known for building the first brick house in the town. In 1788, when the town existed almost completely on the east side of Providence River, Atwell began to parcel out his land on the west side and sell it for agricultural and residential use. The younger Atwell was known for his service as colonel in the American Revolution and his membership in the Rhode Island General Assembly in 1790-91. In 1789, Atwell was one of over 75 charter members of the Providence Association of Mechanics and Manufacturers, a group created for “the purpose of promoting industry, and giving a just encouragement to ingenuity – that our own manufactures may be improved to the general advantage, not only of the manufacturers themselves, but of the state at large.” According to the Providence Association of Mechanics and Manufacturers, Atwell was regarded as one of the “brightest [stars] in the galaxy of Rhode Island Masonry” for his service to the Mt. Vernon Lodge No. 4. Because of his status as the first Master of the Lodge (1799) as well as Deputy Grand Master (1813-1814) he was buried with full Masonic honors after he passed away in 1815. At that time there were virtually no Italian immigrants in Providence, and in fact, it was the Irish community that occupied most of Federal Hill and Atwells Avenue. However, as the 19th century progressed, Italian immigrants made their way onto The Hill, and by the 1920s, the area was predominantly Italian.

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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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This brick structure, with pedimented portico supported by four columns, was built in 1954 as the home of Congregation Beth David, a Conservative Jewish congregation founded in 1892 that previously worshipped on nearby Chalkstone Boulevard. The building was designed by Thomas Russillo, an architect of some repute responsible for many Rhode Island institutional buildings and private homes, and is sited in a residential neighborhood whose large, substantially built three-decker houses are typical of the Smith Hill area. Jewish immigrants began arriving in Providence in the late 1860s, first from Germany and then from eastern Europe, particularly Poland, Lithuania and Russia. Providence was prosperous in that period and jobs were plentiful. They settled in Smith Hill, one of Providence’s most affordable areas, living peacefully among the Irish immigrants already there. Members of both groups became shopkeepers, tailors, bakers, machinists, and soon lawyers and doctors, as well as workers in the textile, jewelry and rubber industries, drivers of Providence’s then-flourishing economy.   In 1970 the Beth David congregation merged with Anshei Kovno Congregation (founded at the turn of the century by immigrants from Kovno, Lithuania). The merged congregation, called Beth David-Anshei Kovno congregation, left Providence in 1980 to join with the Beth Am congregation in Warwick. This building was then first rented and ultimately purchased by a new church, the Gospel Tabernacle Outreach Ministries (GTOM), whose home it remains today. GTOM’s missions and ministries respond to the area’s current population, largely African American and Hispanic. GTOM sponsors a Hispanic Heritage Month and works to promote education in the community with a scholarship fund and recognition awards for successful students. The organization also offers instruction in life skills such as literacy, financial responsibility, employment, and entrepreneurship. They also host a Men’s Ministry, and they run a food pantry and a food kitchen open to all. In many ways, the spirit of the original Congregation Beth David as a place of worship for new immigrants lives on in GTOM.

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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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In 1847, the Eighth Baptist Church of Providence was founded at the corner of Davis and Common Streets. It was one of many Baptist churches in the city to be founded by former members of the First Baptist Church in America, located on the East Side, which had been founded two centuries earlier by Roger Williams. Residents of the Smith Hill area wanted a church closer to their homes. By 1857, the original building was relocated to Jefferson Street so it could expand to meet needs of its growing congregation. The church renamed itself the Jefferson Street Baptist Church. During the late nineteenth century, Smith Hill changed greatly in its ethnic and religious character, becoming a home for immigrants from Ireland, Scandinavia, Nova Scotia, and (most importantly for this story) Armenia. This reflected general trends in the city of Providence, which by the early twentieth century had a population that was 70% immigrants or the children of immigrants. This shift led many Protestant churches to close as many immigrants practiced other religious beliefs. Often the churches were torn down or converted to highly secular purposes – but the Jefferson Street Baptist Church would avoid such a fate. In an act of preservation, the Jefferson Street parish and neighboring Park Street Free Baptist Church decided to merge into a single congregation in 1912. Although the Jefferson Street Church was older, the decision was made that the newly-formed United Baptist Church would keep the Park Street structure and sell the Jefferson Street one. Meanwhile, the Armenian community in Providence grew. In 1888, Providence was recorded as having a small Armenian community of thirty-five persons; nine years later, this had grown to five hundred. In 1897, the Very Reverend Vaghinag Sisagian became the first pastor of the Armenian community in Providence. The community rented a location at 50 Exchange Place (present-day Kennedy Plaza). Plans to buy or build a building of its own never came to fruition until 1913, when the Armenian congregation purchased the then-vacant Jefferson Street Church. It was consecrated in 1914 by Bishop Moushegh Seropian under the name of St. Sahag and St. Mesrob Armenian Apostolic Church. The creation of Interstate Route 95 in the 1960s greatly altered the landscape of Smith Hill. Jefferson Street, once a longer street that connected with Smith Street just behind the State House, became a small lane on which Sts. Sahag and Mesrob is the only major building. Parking and accessibility to the church became a major issue. Between 1961 and 1971 church membership had declined from 831 to 337. The church leadership considered the creation of Route 95 to be the principal cause of this decline. In an effort to take advantage of these drastic changes, Sts. Sahag and Mesrob decided to capitalize on its location in one of the most prominent locations in the city – just above where Route 95 intersects with Route 146. The distinctive blue cross, added in the 1930s, had become a noted landmark not only to those on the highway but also to pilots approaching T.F. Green Airport in Warwick. By 1979 the original cross had become corroded, and it was replaced by a larger cross that is 14 feet high and 15 feet wide. Since 1994 the church has stood out even further from its surroundings by prominently flying both the American and Armenian flags, which was originally done to commemorate the Armenian Youth Federation Olympics held in Providence that year, but the flags remained even after the games were over. Saints Sahag and Mesrob remains an important center for the Armenian community in Providence. With Route 95 now an accepted part of the city landscape, church membership has rebounded. Although Roger Williams likely never foresaw a time when there would be Armenian Apostolic Christians in the New World (nor for that matter the invention of neon lights), the neon blue cross of Sts. Sahag and Mesrob stands as a monument to his vision of religious freedom for all.

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The urban landscape of southern New England displays an iconic form of domestic architecture seldom found elsewhere: stacked three-unit apartment house commonly called a “triple decker.” Thousands of such structures were built between 1880 and 1930, principally to house an ever-growing and largely immigrant working population. Although the social and economic forces that created the style have long since vanished, a surprising number of triple deckers have survived, thanks due to their basic livability and potential for adaptive re-use.   Although constructed by a myriad of small-time designer-builders, most triple-deckers share a common set of design characteristics, determined largely by maximizing practicality while minimizing less-desirable aspects of urban tenements. Three features in particular are predominate. First, generally there is one apartment per floor, with adequate roominess (1000-1200 square feet), numerous windows on all sides, and generous porches on the front and often on the rear. Second, the room arrangement is typical of middle-class single-family homes,  typically including a parlor, dining area, kitchen, bath and two bedrooms. Third, architectural integrity provided visual interest: while not professionally designed, most copied popular Queen Anne Style features such as strong vertical lines (stacked columned porches and window bays), visual interest (contrasting siding textures and colors), and decorative details such as art-glass windows. Triple deckers were marketed to a specific type of buyer: successful new home-owner. Within the building, one unit could be the homeowner’s residence, while the other units either provided rental income or could house members of an extended family. Thus, this sort of home ownership not only provided a taste of middle-class respectability, but also offered an entry to middle-class economic security. However, society at large did not share this vision in the long run, principally due to anti-immigrant bias.  Passage of strict building codes coupled with immigration restriction brought an end to new construction by the later 1920s. Oakland Avenue, the western edge of the Smith Hill neighborhood, features a fine display of surviving triple-deckers, a streetscape little changed for nearly a century. Most of these were built during the 1920s, when clearly this was a middle-class neighborhood.  Although urban decay previously left its mark, many of the structures have been rehabilitated, finding use as housing for students at nearby Providence College.  In most cases, original details have been lost, but the overall impression is intact.  Well-kept examples abound, an image of what much of Providence once was.

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St. Mary's is a Gothic Revival monument to the Irish history of Providence. As textile mills changed the industrial landscape of the city in the early 19th century, Irish from Ulster came to work in those mills, many just down the hill in Olneyville. Facing discrimination from Yankee Providence, the lot for St. Mary's had to be purchased through an intermediary. At the end of the Civil War, a full third of Providence's residents were native Irish. The stone church, designed by Irish-born architect James Murphy, was begun in 1864; much of the labor, including digging the foundations and cutting stone masonry, was done by the Irish congregation, coming here after a long day in the mills to donate their work to the construction of this magnificent act of faith and community. The church, consecrated in 1869, became the heart of a complex of schools and convents, but has adapted to the city’s changes. The parochial school is now owned by the city. The convent has become office space. Spanish language masses occur as well as English. A chapel is dedicated with Peruvian icons brought by the new congregants, one of many Latin American countries represented in St. Mary’s 21^st century congregation.

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Completed in 1892 to serve the wealthy Episcopalians of Broadway, and home for ten years to the African-American Church of the Savior, this Alpheus C. Morse-designed Romanesque Revival church has been Sts. Vartanantz Armenian Apostolic Church since 1940. Armenians found refuge in the United States after being driven from their homeland by the Ottoman Turkish brutal pogroms in the 1890s and Armenian Genocide of 1915. The immigrant arrivals called their new home in Providence the “Citadel” (mitchnapert) for the community’s strength and activism. The congregation donated their labor to build new altars, a new baptismal font, new pews, and to replace floors. The rich, timber-trussed hammerbeam ceiling over the nave resembles a protective ark. The commitment to faith and service remains as strong today as when they first arrived, representative of their history as the first nation to accept Christianity as its national religion in 301AD. This community gives aid and support to those in need at home, as well as to Armenians across the globe facing conflict and persecution.

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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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If Garibaldi Park and the Gateway Arch are the welcoming arms of Federal Hill, DePasquale Square is its beating heart. The quatrefoil fountain and wide plaza were built as part of the Federal Hill revitalization effort. Back in the day, however, this was Arthur Avenue, a transverse artery of the “Italian Colony.” Tens of thousands of immigrant families packed into narrow streets and triple-deckers. The historic building rising four stories over the square is the Cappelli Block, completed in 1909 by Antonio Cappelli, who was among the earliest Italian arrivals on Federal Hill, when Irish immigrants dominated the avenue. An unregulated building boom resulted in tight streets and small flats without plumbing—the bathhouse in Garibaldi Park was a critical necessity. Along these streets, too, were the Hill’s famous pushcarts, which sold every variety of fruit and vegetable. Imagine the laborers of a hundred years ago who struggled to build a new life here, working in the mills, living in small tenements without water or light, and doing their daily shopping amid the vendors who stood along these storefronts.

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The Federal Hill Riots of 1914, often called the “Macaroni Riots,” epitomize the struggle of immigrant communities in Rhode Island. As World War I was breaking out, food prices spiked. Laborers gathered on street corners to listen to “agitators” blame business owners. A mob formed that attacked wholesale grocer Frank P. Ventrone’s business block here. They smashed windows and hurled macaroni into the street. Police intervention quelled the disturbance, but the next day new confrontations sparked an even bloodier riot in which eighteen were injured, including 15-year-old Quinnio Oddi, shot by police. Over two weeks, there were five violent confrontations between Federal Hill residents and the police. The violence manifested the desperation of Providence’s immigrant working poor. Child labor was the norm; long hours earned little pay; laborers were easily replaced and had no assurance of work; they had no voice in government. In the midst of this poverty and social unrest, radicals like Luigi Nimini agitated for change. Nimini published his Italian-language newspaper Il Ragione Nuova from his shop at 206 Atwells and founded the Karl Marx Club at the corner of Atwells and Dean, the same corner where radical speakers riled up the crowd in August 1914.

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In the spring of 1975, women with sledgehammers marched on what was then called Franklin Park to attack a dilapidated bathhouse. Built in 1911 to serve the crowded Italian immigrant community, the bathhouse had outlived its usefulness. The women threatened to call the site “Mayor Cianci Park” after Providence’s first Italian-American mayor, Vincent “Buddy” Cianci. Federal Hill had been the epicenter of the Italian immigrant experience in Rhode Island. Tens of thousands of new arrivals in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries got their start in America on Federal Hill. Their children and grandchildren wanted their neighborhood revitalized. Buddy turned the PR disaster into a coup. The bathhouse was demolished. The park rehabilitated and renamed Giuseppe Garibaldi Park. “This is the gateway to Federal Hill,” the mayor said at the rededication ceremony the following October. Within a few years, the gateway arch decorated with “La Pigna,” a symbol of hospitality, welcomed visitors into the hometown of the Italian diaspora, a neighborhood dedicated to the celebration of Italian culture and contributions to Rhode Island.

Watch a video featuring Taylor Polites, Curator of the West Side of Providence Rhode Tour, sharing his inspiration and insights on the development of this tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hTkBitQ5sM.

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In the early 1800s local Baptists established the Christian Baptist Church here at the top of Adamsville Hill; after the church closed, the building was later used as a school. Today, the buried foundation is all that remains of the building that once stood on this site.

The Christian Baptist Church's minister may have been Francisco Veray. He was the first recorded person from Portugal to live in Little Compton, anglicizing his name to "Francis Veray." He, along with his wife, daughter and grandchildren, is buried in the center plot of the cemetery adjacent to the church.

Shortly after Veray's death in 1866, it appears the church closed. The building quickly reopened as the Number Six School. Originally, the school was farther down Adamsville Hill, most likely in the small blue house that still stands on the hill's slopes today. The school had one teacher who taught grades 1-8, and it operated until 1929, when the Wilbur School opened on the Little Compton Commons.

Once it stopped functioning as a school the building housed the Bell Whist Club for a short time. It was eventually auctioned in 1930; the new owners moved it across the border into Darmouth, MA, to serve as an office for a propane business.

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“El primer restaurante hispano real de Rhode Island” -- Roberto González

Hoy dia la calle Broad está llena de restaurantes culturales, pero al final de la década de 1970, los latinos ansiosos por recordar el sabor de casa se les presentaron opciones limitadas. Doña Fefa vendía algunas comidas preparadas en su tienda, pero de otra manera las familias estaban forzadas a cocinar su propia comida. Roberto y José González, puertorriqueños quienes llegaron a Rhode Island de la ciudad de Nueva York en el 1968, abrieron el Restaurante Antillas en la calle Broad en el 1978. Así como los productos puros que necesitaban eran pocos en Rhode Island, entonces cada miércoles José manejaba un camión rentado a la enorme distribución de comida en la ciudad Hunts Point de Nueva York. Allí, él encontraba lo necesario: el cerdo para preparar el chicharrón, o el chicharrón de puerco, menudo para hacer mondongo, o un guiso de menudo,  plátanos verdes, melocotones amarillos (durazno), y el cilantro oloroso para dar sabor a las salsas, las ensaladas, y los guisos.

La comida es una parte esencial de la cultura. Por si acaso una nueva raza llega a una comunidad y no encuentra comidas comunes, como dijo Roberto González, “Ellos se sentirían muy aislados.”

Así como la bodega Fefa’s Market, Antillas también se convirtió en un lugar de unidad para la comunidad latina, donde Dominicanos, Cubanos y Puertorriqueños gozaron del merengue y la salsa tocando en la rocola. También se organizaron políticamente. Estudiantes latinos de escuelas locales se unieron con a ellos sobre un plato con sopa de rabo de buey, pez hervido en salsa de tomate con cebolla y pimentón, y cucharadas de arroz con habichuelas, y también se juntaron para los registros de las votaciones.

No hay menor duda que dirigir un restaurante es demandante y por eso los hermanos González vendieron su negocio en el principio de los años 80 y se inscribieron a la escuela. José recibió su su doctorado en educación de Harvard, y Roberto fue juramentado y llegó a ser el primer juez latino en Rhode Island. El edificio de Antillas  fue demolido, pero muchos más restaurantes latinoamericanos han seguido los pasos de Antillas desde entonces.

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P: ¿Porque hay tantos Colombianos en una ciudad tan pequeña?

Todo comenzó en el principio de los años 60, cuando Jay Giuttari, el hijo del dueño de una fábrica en Central Falls, estudiaba en el Instituto de Tecnología de Massachusetts, donde se hizo amistades con el hijo del dueño Colombiano de una fábrica. Después de graduarse, Jay consiguió empleo en Colombia por un tiempo. El descubrió que los tejedores locales usaban maquinaria idéntica a las de la fábrica de su padre, y que eran expertos en reparar las tejedoras viejas. Mientras tanto en Central Falls, su padre se encontraba en dificultades reemplazando a sus empleados retirados; cuyos hijos ahora se integraban a la universidad, convirtiéndose en maestros, abogados y doctores en vez de trabajar en la fábrica.

La solución de Giuttari: dar empleo a los Colombianos, y los primeros tres llegaron en un dia frio del mes de Marzo en el 1965. Lyon Fabrics cerró las puertas en los años 90, pero por más de 20 años la fábrica contrató Colombianos expertos en tejer que trabajaban las maquinarias. Ellos se convirtieron en el componente principal de la comunidad Colombiana de Central Falls.

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Si tuviéramos que buscar a una candidata que represente a los Dominicanos de Rhode Island, tendría que ser Josefina Rosario. “Doña Fefa” es querida, respetada y honrada como “La Madre de la Comunidad Dominicana.” 

Los Dominicanos son ahora el grupo Latino más grande en Rhode Island. Pero, en el 1955 cuando llegó Doña Fefa a este estado,ella estaba convencida que ella fue la primera dominicana. Después de su llegada, muchos siguieron su camino.

 Rosario abrió una tienda pequeña conocida como Fefa’s Market en el 1959, cerca de la entrada hacia el parque de Roger Williams. Vendía las comidas que ella alguna vez extraño de casa, incluyendo plátanos, yuca, café y cilantro; también ordenaba periódicos Dominicanos, y daba consejos a los recién llegados para conseguir empleo, una licencia de conducir, y como registrar a sus hijos en la escuela. Ella era como un comité de una sola mujer y su bodega se convirtió en un centro de comunidad que proveía comodidad y consejos para empezar en un mundo nuevo y extraño. 

Fefa y su esposo Tony, de la herencia puertorriqueña, frequentemente apoyaban a los inmigrantes dominicanos y les daban un hogar en su casa de siete dormitorios en la 145 de la calle Chester, en la esquina de la calle Broad, hasta que ellos conseguían su propio apartamento. Sus hijas, quienes hablaban el inglés con fluidez, servían de traductoras cuando los recién llegados necesitaban ayuda con los detalles infinitos de la vida en Rhode Island.

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