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Newport’s Casino, Birthplace of the U.S. National Tennis Championship, 1881 to 1914
8 years ago

Newport’s Casino, Birthplace of the U.S. National Tennis Championship, 1881 to 1914

The Casino, Newport, Rhode Island, is the site of the first United States Lawn Tennis Association Singles Championship, which occurred in 1881. For thirty-one years, until 1914, the tournament continued …
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Washington’s Open Letter of March 12, 1790 to American Catholics
8 years ago

Washington’s Open Letter of March 12, 1790 to American Catholics

Rhode Islanders are, or should be, familiar with George Washington’s famed letter of August 21, 1790 to the Friends of Touro Synagogue in Newport and that public missive’s ringing declaration …
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One Day . . . The Story of a Storm, A Video Documentary of the 1938 Hurricane in Rhode Island
8 years ago

One Day . . . The Story of a Storm, A Video Documentary of the 1938 Hurricane in Rhode Island

“One Day” is a film about how life can change without warning. Your life can be perfectly normal when you get up in the morning and in a shambles by …
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The Life Savers: Rhode Island’s Forgotten Service, 1872-1914
8 years ago

The Life Savers: Rhode Island’s Forgotten Service, 1872-1914

[Editor’s note: This article is a synopsis of the book by Varoujan Karentz, The Life Savers, Rhode Island’s Forgotten Service (Charleston, SC: CreateSpace, 2012), ISBN-13-978-1463791025, and also contains excerpts from …
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Twenty-Six Pirates Hanged at Newport in 1723
8 years ago

Twenty-Six Pirates Hanged at Newport in 1723

[From the Editor:  In the late 17th and early 18h centuries, Rhode Island was a haven for pirates.  That changed in 1723 when Charles Harris and twenty-five other pirates …
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The Story of John Dempsey, Child Laborer at Jackson Mill in Fiskeville, in 1909
8 years ago

The Story of John Dempsey, Child Laborer at Jackson Mill in Fiskeville, in 1909

By  •  Biography

“I was thinking about where [my father] worked as a child and the fact that he died of emphysema. There was dust flying around in those textile mills. I …
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Peter Harrison, Newport’s Master Colonial Architect
8 years ago

Peter Harrison, Newport’s Master Colonial Architect

Born in Yorkshire, England in 1716 (some sources say 14 June, others say 27 July), Peter Harrison was placed at age twelve in an apprenticeship to architect/builder William Etty. He …
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Identifying the French Landing Site in Newport
8 years ago

Identifying the French Landing Site in Newport

Most of the diaries (see bibliography) that record the arrival and landing of the French troops at Newport, Rhode Island, describe the mechanics of the landing. None of them indicate …
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Albert Klyberg in Retrospect
8 years ago

Albert Klyberg in Retrospect

[From the Editor:  Albert T. (“Al”) Klyberg, former executive director of the Rhode Island Historical Society, passed away on Tuesday, January 10, 2017, at the age of 76. A …
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Rhode Island’s Electoral College Controversy in the Presidential Election of 1876
8 years ago

Rhode Island’s Electoral College Controversy in the Presidential Election of 1876

This essay was published as a Providence Journal commentary on December 6, 2012 in the aftermath of the Obama-McCain presidential contest. It was prompted by continuing speculation that population …
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