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The Irish of Rhode Island (Part I, 1638-1921)
2 years ago

The Irish of Rhode Island (Part I, 1638-1921)

[Note from the Author:  Written in 1999 as an entry in The Encyclopedia of the Irish in America, ed. Michael Glazier (Notre Dame, 1999), 803-08, this essay was an abridgement …
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Meeting Queen Elizabeth in Newport in 1976—and the Secret Service
2 years ago

Meeting Queen Elizabeth in Newport in 1976—and the Secret Service

Queen Elizabeth II was a frequent visitor to the United States, sometimes quietly to visit horse-breeding farms in Kentucky, and sometimes publicly representing her country. She came twice to the …
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A Bicycle Paradise: Peter Laudati, Vincent Madonna and the Providence Cycledrome, 1925-1934
2 years ago

A Bicycle Paradise: Peter Laudati, Vincent Madonna and the Providence Cycledrome, 1925-1934

Further back than any reader of today can recollect, Providence was once home to one of the nation’s more important sporting venues. Before the Dunk or the Rhode Island Auditorium …
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Rhode Island’s U.S. Senators and Congressmen Who Held Enslaved People
2 years ago

Rhode Island’s U.S. Senators and Congressmen Who Held Enslaved People

The Washington Post, in its January 16, 2022 edition, published a first-of-its-kind database revealing that more than 1,700 United States Senators and Congressmen once held enslaved people at some point …
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Narraganset Pier Railroad’s Operations in 1964 Described by the Company’s President
2 years ago

Narraganset Pier Railroad’s Operations in 1964 Described by the Company’s President

In the fall of 1963, I left my native New York City and became an undergraduate freshman at the University of Rhode Island. I chose URI for several reasons. First, …
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The Hessians Are Coming! German Auxiliary Forces  in Rhode Island during the Revolutionary War
2 years ago

The Hessians Are Coming! German Auxiliary Forces in Rhode Island during the Revolutionary War

Occasionally taking rest breaks to play his violin or to sip tea in the stifling summer heat in Philadelphia, in 1776, Thomas Jefferson struggles to discover the precise mix of …
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Rhode Island’s Four Stages of the American Revolutionary War
2 years ago

Rhode Island’s Four Stages of the American Revolutionary War

Rhode Island’s role in the American Revolutionary War that raged from 1775 to 1783 is wide-ranging and complicated. It is yet another example of how Rhode Island’s history is way …
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Printing in the Rhode Island Courts, 1800-57
2 years ago

Printing in the Rhode Island Courts, 1800-57

In its September 1840 term, the Providence Supreme Court published an especially peculiar document. The court’s order in Burrillville, a seemingly-simple inheritance dispute, combined handwritten text with printed character in …
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Benjamin Church, The First American Ranger
2 years ago

Benjamin Church, The First American Ranger

Eric B. Schultz and Michael J. Tougias, authors of an excellent history of King Phillips’ War (also called Metacom’s War), accurately describe the war as “America’s Forgotten Conflict.”  It was …
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Newport Tennis Continues After It Loses the Championships  and It Gains the Tennis Hall of Fame
2 years ago

Newport Tennis Continues After It Loses the Championships and It Gains the Tennis Hall of Fame

[Editor’s Note:  I first attended a tennis match at the Casino at Newport in 1969, when I was eleven years old. I had the pleasure of seeing stars such as …
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