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Book Review: The Rise of Newport’s Catholics: From Colonial Outcasts to Gilded Age Leaders, by John F. Quinn (University of Massachusetts Press, 2024)
6 days ago

Book Review: The Rise of Newport’s Catholics: From Colonial Outcasts to Gilded Age Leaders, by John F. Quinn (University of Massachusetts Press, 2024)

Over the course of the last 25 years, Salve Regina University historian John F. Quinn has produced a remarkable body of scholarship illustrating the ethnic and religious history of …
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Elisha Potter Jr., Thomas Commuck, and Indigenous Land Claims from the Brothertown Narragansetts
3 weeks ago

Elisha Potter Jr., Thomas Commuck, and Indigenous Land Claims from the Brothertown Narragansetts

Elisha Potter, Jr. was the son of prominent attorney and Rhode Island politician Elisha Potter, Sr. and his wife Mary (Mawney) Potter. As a young man, Elisha Jr. grew up …
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South Kingstown’s Partial Census for 1730: Whites, Indians and Blacks
4 weeks ago

South Kingstown’s Partial Census for 1730: Whites, Indians and Blacks

I was going through the colonial records of South Kingstown at the South Kingstown Town Hall last year when I stumbled across a census document with decent detail that wound …
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The South Kingstown Planters: Country Gentry in Colonial Rhode Island
1 month ago

The South Kingstown Planters: Country Gentry in Colonial Rhode Island

[The following is the main text from my article “The South Kingstown Planters: Country Gentry in Colonial Rhode Island,” Rhode Island History, Volume 45, Number 3 (August 1986), pages 81-93. …
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How Narragansett Beer Survived Prohibition (But Still Couldn’t Escape the Government)
1 month ago

How Narragansett Beer Survived Prohibition (But Still Couldn’t Escape the Government)

[From the Publisher: This article originally appeared on the New England Historical Society’s website at www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com. The New England Historical Society is similar to the Online Review of Rhode Island History, …
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“Boasted Land of Freedom”: Rhode Island Black Leaders and the Early Black Convention Movement, 1830-1835
2 months ago

“Boasted Land of Freedom”: Rhode Island Black Leaders and the Early Black Convention Movement, 1830-1835

We rejoice that we are thrown into a revolution where the contest is not for landed territory, but for freedom; the weapons not carnal, but spiritual; where struggles are not …
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East Greenwich Historic Markers Project Completed
2 months ago

East Greenwich Historic Markers Project Completed

[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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Wickford’s Historic Marker Project
3 months 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 months 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
3 months 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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