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The Idea for Rebuilding

In 1966, a young Harvard graduate in Rhode Island with a passion for naval history noted that the American Bicentennial was approaching. No one else seemed …
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There is something special in being last, especially when it comes to being the last survivor of a particular event. From Millvina Dean, the last survivor of the Titanic to …
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I am sure that the word sharecropping brings to most folk’s minds, images of the antebellum deep South, poor Black men and women toiling away for little reward, and merciless …
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Note: This article is the second in a two-part series on the career of civil rights reformer George Downing. Readers can access Part I at https://smallstatebighistory.com/george-t-downing-and-the-black-convention-movement/

My self-respect revolts at …
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Fear not; no antagonism of interest would be the result of admitting in common to your workshops the colored mechanic, of admitting his child as an apprentice.

(Appeal to …
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Many readers are familiar with Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick, in which a great white sperm whale stoves a New Bedford whaling ship. Readers may also be familiar that the …
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Throughout the churning tides of 1776 and 1777, John Brown, a prominent merchant from Providence, amassed a fortune by investing in privateers. Through reviewing a comprehensive list of his privateers …
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At the outbreak of the Civil War, thousands of men flocked to enlist in newly established companies and regiments in the Union Army then organizing in small towns throughout the …
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We viewed the sea from a high rock…below us of three or four miles extent, a pleasant green meadow, thro’ the middle of which run a pritty winding river. Hamilton …
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[This article is issued in conjunction with the launch of my new book, Machine Guns in Narragansett Bay: The Coast Guard’s War on Rumrunners (History Press, 2023)]

In September 1922, …
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