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Wickford’s Historic Marker Project
2 weeks ago

Wickford’s Historic Marker Project

[From the editor: A wonderful recent trend in the Rhode Island history scene has been the placement of historic markers in towns across the state. Historic markers bring back to …
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Massive Timber Salvage After the Great Hurricane of 1938
3 weeks ago

Massive Timber Salvage After the Great Hurricane of 1938

An astonishing 75,000,000 board feet of timber lying on the ground—this was the aftermath of the Great Hurricane of 1938 in Rhode Island. The federal government estimated that from this …
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William Gilbane and Thomas Gilbane
1 month ago

William Gilbane and Thomas Gilbane

The Gilbane family, like the Banigans and the Hanleys, were driven from Ireland to America by the potato blight that caused Ireland’s Great Famine. William Gilbane, who was born in …
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French Officers at the Battle of Rhode Island
1 month ago

French Officers at the Battle of Rhode Island

Comte Jean Baptiste Charles Henri Hector d’Estaing (1729–1794) held positions as admiral in the French navy and major general in the French army. Five weeks after King Louis XVI signed …
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Book Review: CJ Martin, The Precious Birthright: Black Leaders and the Fight to Vote in Antebellum Rhode Island (University of Massachusetts Press, 2024)
2 months ago

Book Review: CJ Martin, The Precious Birthright: Black Leaders and the Fight to Vote in Antebellum Rhode Island (University of Massachusetts Press, 2024)

The Providence author Catharine Read Williams often liked to refer to the tumultuous political and constitutional storm that swept Rhode Island in 1841-42 as a “tempest in a teapot.” …
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Book Review: Abby Chandler, Seized with the Temper of The Times: Identity and Rebellion in Pre-Revolutionary America (Westholme, 2023)
2 months ago

Book Review: Abby Chandler, Seized with the Temper of The Times: Identity and Rebellion in Pre-Revolutionary America (Westholme, 2023)

In the past fifteen years or so, there has been, happily, an explosion of books published on battles and other military aspects of the American Revolutionary War. In the same …
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Book Review: Seth Rockman, Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery (University of Chicago Press, 2024)
2 months ago

Book Review: Seth Rockman, Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery (University of Chicago Press, 2024)

Historian Seth Rockman’s deeply researched and thoroughly engaging new book, Plantation Goods, deserves to be on the shelf of all those interested in late 18th and 19th century America. Many …
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The Providence Journal Publishes Despite the Historic 1886 Flood and the Blizzard of 1888
3 months ago

The Providence Journal Publishes Despite the Historic 1886 Flood and the Blizzard of 1888

[From the editor: This article quotes at length from chapter 8 of the following book published in 1904: Half a Century with the Providence Journal, Being a Record of the …
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Till We Meet Again: A Farewell (For Now) from Robert Grandchamp
3 months ago

Till We Meet Again: A Farewell (For Now) from Robert Grandchamp

I have lived with the ghosts of the past for over twenty years. Since early in 2000 when I discovered that I had a great-great-great uncle, Alfred Sheldon Knight, who …
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Boys Hired to Deliver the Providence Journal from 1833 to 1873 Reveal Their Pranks and Challenges
3 months ago

Boys Hired to Deliver the Providence Journal from 1833 to 1873 Reveal Their Pranks and Challenges

[From the editor: This article quotes at length from a chapter on child newspaper carriers from the early years of the Providence Journal. The children were required to appear early …
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