Rhode Island History
THE JOURNAL OF THE RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY fall 2024 volume 81 number 2
Rhode Island History
Published by
The Rhode Island Historical Society 110 Benevolent Street Providence, Rhode Island 02906–3152
Roberta Gosselin, chair
Winifred E. Brownell, vice chair
Mark F. Harriman, treasurer
Peter J. Miniati, secretary
C. Morgan Grefe, executive director
Publ ICat I ons Comm I ttee
Charlotte Carrington-Farmer, chair
Catherine DeCesare
J. Stanley Lemons
Craig Marin
Seth Rockman
Luther Spoehr
Evelyn Sterne
staff
Richard J. Ring, editor
J. D. Kay, digital imaging specialist
Silvia Rees, publications assistant
37 Fast Track vs. Racetrack: Rhode Island Democrats Vie for Political Control, 1933–1945 Debra m ull IG an
57 Revelations in Stone: Edward Hitchcock and the Geology of Rhode Island r obert t. m c m aster
75 Bristol’s Guiteras Memorial School: A Town’s Legacy of Progressive Education Ideals Colleen m . Heemeyer, a ICP
o PP os I te : TK
C over: Theodore Francis Green (left) at the Narragansett Park racetrack in 1936. RIHS collections, rHi X17 3924.
Rhode Island History is a peer-reviewed journal published two times a year by the Rhode Island Historical Society at 110 Benevolent Street, Providence, Rhode Island 02906-3152. Postage is paid at Providence, Rhode Island. Society members receive each issue as a membership benefit. Institutional subscriptions to Rhode Island History are $40.00 annually. Individual copies of current and back issues are available from the Society for $20.00 (price includes postage and handling). Our articles are discoverable on ebscohost research databases. Manuscripts and other correspondence should be sent to editor@rihs.org.
The Rhode Island Historical Society assumes no responsibility for the opinions of contributors.
© The Rhode Island Historical Society Rhode Island History (Issn 0035–4619)
the RIHS picks a theme around which to organize its major programming, and the theme often provides direction for some of our exhibit displays, social media posts, and publications. The theme in 2025 is “Homegrown RI,” intended to “explore Rhode Island’s natural world and the ways we have shaped our state’s landscapes.” We obviously cannot control the articles that authors submit to us, but, happily, those submissions often tend to relate to the themes we choose. So it is with this issue, where we have an article about politics which centers on a race track in Pawtucket, an article about architectural design as it relates to educational theory focused on a specific school building in Bristol, and an article about Deputy Executive Director for Collections &
o PP os I te : Orra White Hitchcock drawing of anthracite in greywacke slate, Newport, Rhode Island. Done in pen and ink on linen for use in Professor Edward Hitchcock’s classes on geology or natural history. Amherst College Archives & Special Collections, Edward and Orra White Hitchcock Papers.
Fast Track vs. Racetrack Rhode Island Democrats
Vie for Political Control, 1933–1945
t IC al s C ene was contentious throughout the 1930s as leading Democrats vied for control of the state. By 1936, Democrat Robsucceeded in capturing the gubernatorial election by 23,407 votes against Republican challenger Charles Sisson.This path to office was laid out for him by his predecessor, the shrewd statesman Green’s successful gubernatorial campaigns in 1932 and 1934 and Quinn’s rise to office in 1936 signified an important transition from Republican to Democratic dominance on the platform of New Deal legislation of President Franklin Delano
However, in September 1937, Governor Quinn, who led the Pawtuxet Valley faction of the Democratic the Massachusetts-born proprietor of the Narragansett Park racetrack; and recently elected Pawtucket Mayor Thomas P. McCoy went toe to toe in a public standoff for control of the Blackstone Valley in the “Racetrack War.” From there, a public fight ensued, exposing the rupture in the
By 1928, Democrats succeeded in removing the property requirements for voting in city council elections, and legislators laid down plans to redistrict Rhode Island’s cities and towns to reflect more accurately the state’s demographics.3 Seven years later, the “Bloodless Revolution” of 1935 had an even bigger
impact on the state’s political environment. The revolution, a plan methodically orchestrated by leading Democrats—including Green, McCoy, and then Lieutenant Governor Quinn—upset the hierarchy of the Republican Party. Quinn, as president of the Senate and head of the Pawtuxet Valley faction of the Democratic Party, judged that the November 1934 election results in two towns, Portsmouth and South Kingstown, were obtained illegally. Under Article IV, Section 6 of the Rhode Island Constitution, Quinn was authorized to demand an investigation of dubious election returns. He then called a three-man committee composed of two Democrats and one liberal Republican and ordered them to recount the votes.4
The outcome produced two additional Democratic senators, Joseph P. Dunn of Portsmouth and Charles A. White Sr. of South Kingstown, thus changing the makeup of the Republican-dominated upper house by giving the Democrats a two-member lead (22–20).5 Democrats then were able to repeal much of the legislation that had blocked reform measures throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Their coup, however, nearly was derailed as factionalism and jealousy within the party’s ranks proved a formidable barrier to unity as the Racetrack War of October 1937 would reveal.
‘And
they’re off’
The resurgence of horse racing throughout the country in the 1920s proved providential for Rhode Island
: James R. Dooley (far left), ca. 1951, from the photo archive of the Narragansett Park. RIHS collections, rHiX174979.
Democrats and for the enterprising Walter O’Hara.6 In 1932, the winning slate of Green and Quinn initially united the warring Pawtuxet Valley (Quinn) and Providence (Green) factions of the Democratic Party. Expanding his voter base with his campaign rhetoric of “humanity first,” Green endeavored to free the state of its financial woes. The declining textile industry had a devastating impact on Rhode Island’s economy. Nearly 30 percent of Rhode Island’s workers were unemployed. Green’s public support of President Roosevelt meant that federal funding would flow to the state, subsequently resulting in the Rhode Island General Assembly’s passage of a bill in 1933 authorizing $6 million in relief funds to the 39 cities and towns.7
In the next year, however, and following a national trend that began in California, a measure appeared on Governor Green’s desk, transforming Rhode Island’s political and economic environment by potentially adding significant revenue to the state coffers. The bill authored by Representative James E. Dooley of Pawtucket and others aimed at overturning a 1777 law that had rendered gambling on horse racing illegal. Instead, it authorized pari-mutuel betting and established a three-man Racing Commission.8
The concept of pari-mutuel betting was launched in 1865 by Pierre Oller, who sought to replace corrupt nineteenth-century gambling with a system whereby winnings would be divided evenly among bettors.
Oller’s scheme captured the attention of Leonard Jerome, a New York businessman and the future vice president of the Saratoga Association for the Improvement of the Breed of Horses (SAIB). Jerome imported Oller’s concept and successfully adapted the process for US markets. The results were remarkable. Jerome Park, located in the Bronx, spearheaded a thoroughbred racing phenomenon when it opened its doors in September 1866. According to historian Mary Simon, “The shrine at which racing worshipped during these golden years [the 1920s] was the pari-mutuel.”9 It was not long before this cultural sensation expanded beyond New York, eventually reaching Rhode Island nearly seventy years later.10
According to historian Steven A. Reiss, horse racing in New York in the late nineteenth century had become “a key nexus between machine politicians and organized crime.”11 With the introduction of legal parimutuel betting in Rhode Island, proponents hoped that detractors would be silenced. On the contrary, critics of all gambling enterprises in Rhode Island questioned the efficacy of relying on games of chance to lift Rhode Island from the depths of economic depression.12
Even more strident, the state’s most vocal moralists, especially the Reverend James V. Claypool of East Providence and a committee of Methodist pastors representing congregations of 34 churches with more than
Robert Emmet Quinn, still frame from a 1937 news reel on the “race track war,” RIHS collections, rHi X1972.83.10 A - frame 0m15s.
Theodore Francis Green (left) at the Narragansett Park racetrack in 1936. RIHS collections, rHi X17 3924.
12,000 members, voiced their opposition when Republican Herbert R. Bliss and Democrat James Kiernan had proposed the establishment of a racetrack in Newport County in 1933. The pastors declared,
Whereas, we favor all clean sports, but no sport in which the interest in betting becomes greater than the interest in the sport itself...it [pari-mutuel and all forms of betting] is harmful to the morals of both young people and adults.13
Ignoring or dismissing the potential revenue that was sorely needed in the state and the claim that parimutuel betting would prevent rather than encourage graft, these naysayers refused to accept the idea that horse racing would bring financial or social benefit to Rhode Island.14
The future of betting on horse racing in Rhode Island, then, hinged on Governor Green’s response to the measure, which legalized this controversial practice. Initially Green supported the bill, but his close advisers urged him to poll his constituency before signing the measure into law. Green concurred and temporarily tabled the legislation, publicly declaring, “Betting such as authorized by this act appeals largely to the very classes in the community who can least afford to lose money.”15 He placed the onus for approval in the hands of the people by authorizing a state referendum, which was sponsored by Republican James E. Dooley. The constituency, lured by the thrill of horse racing, voted overwhelmingly in favor of the measure, which became law in Rhode Island on May 18, 1934.16
The union of high stakes gambling and Rhode Island politics, however, proved lethal in the hands of the Narragansett Park’s proprietor, Walter E. O’Hara. Born in Middleborough, Massachusetts, in 1897 to a middle-class family, O’Hara moved to New Bedford as an adult. There he eventually amassed a small fortune in textiles. Relocating to Rhode Island in 1934 after purchasing the former What Cheer Airport property on Newport Avenue between East Providence and Pawtucket, O’Hara raised $1.2 million in a little over two months to build the Narragansett racetrack.17
In 1935, the-then Governor Green had appointed a three-man Narragansett Racing Commission to oversee the management of the track, rescinding the original 1934 law, which placed control of the track with the Department of Taxation and Regulation. Thus, the reorganization, a result of the Bloodless Revolution that January, charged the commission with “estab-
lishing the racing schedule, removing any employee or official of a licensed racetrack” for “just cause,” and revoking the track or racing license “for any cause which the commission shall deem sufficient.” Commissioner Francis J. “Red” Kiernan empowered the commission’s steward James E. Doorley (not to be confused with the aforementioned James E. Dooley) with the final authority in contested races.18
Beginning construction of the racetrack the following month, O’Hara’s workers completed the project in just over six weeks, in time for opening day on August 1, 1934. Busing to the track commenced in Pawtucket that summer, compliments of United Electric Railways Company, and an impressive 37,281 people attended that first day, spending $351,482. By the conclusion of the racing period that first year, O’Hara’s track had netted close to $30 million. Of that figure, he contributed almost $500,000 to the state, more than the allotted percentage as designated in the original legis-
lation. However, the figure also gave him undue influence in local politics, which increased after he began publication of his recently acquired newspaper, the Pawtucket Star, on April 29, 1936, with funding through profits from the racetrack. O’Hara brokered a deal with Senator Peter Gerry to purchase the News-Tribune in March 1937 for $300,000 and combined the two papers, which reemerged as the Star-Tribune the following month.19
The News-Tribune had circulated throughout the state with an emphasis on Blackstone Valley news deemed worthy by Gerry and his lieutenant, Henry DeWitt Hamilton of Tammany Hall, New York. The paper claimed a readership of about 26,000, and the potential to increase circulation appeared promising. However, the Providence Journal and its partner, the Evening Bulletin, with a readership of 44,000 and 98,663, respectively, dwarfed the fledgling Tribune. Time magazine agreed,
...he [O’Hara] had acquired the feeble Providence News-Tribune (evening) which had been nursed along by Democratic Senator Peter G. Gerry as a political sounding-board to 25,000 pairs of readers’ ears. Out went dignified, high-collared Editor Joaquim B. Calvo. Up went Ralph E. Bailey...20
Despite the slump in the textile industry and unemployment due to the Great Depression, the public returned to the track again and again, surrendering hard-earned money for an afternoon of entertainment and gambling. At the same time, the track injected renewed vigor into Rhode Island’s depressed economy
Thomas P. McCoy in 1937 from the photo archive of the Narragansett Park. RIHS collections, rHiX174978.
Walter R. O’Hara, late 1930s detail from a piece of promotional ephemera produced by the Narragansett Park, RIHS collections, rHi X173785B.
by creating jobs and encouraging spending. As sportswriter Jack Aborn excitedly announced, “Hurry, folks, hurry. Get your bets down. They’re leaving the paddock. Hurry, hurry. Windows closing soon.”21 Additionally, the track gave the Democratic Party a new source of patronage since it needed employees for its restaurant, concession stands, grounds, and ticket booths. Future adjutant general of Rhode Island, Peter Leo Cannon, Governor Green, Democratic National Chairman James Farley, Lieutenant Governor Quinn, and Walter O’Hara and his second wife, Cle, were featured prominently on the first page of former Democratic Senator Gerry’s News-Tribune.22 By presenting the image of unity among legal, military, state, and elected officials, the Tribune editors lent credibility to the track and by extension, to O’Hara, who was thus assured a place among the more prominent Rhode Island citizens of the period.
Meanwhile, Green had stepped down as governor to challenge Republican Jesse H. Metcalf of Providence in the 1936 US Senate race. Green also cast his considerable weight behind Lieutenant Governor Quinn, who defeated Republican opponent Charles P. Sisson 160,776 to 137, 369 in the ensuing gubernatorial race. Quinn’s candidacy provoked bickering within party ranks, however, as McCoy, head of the Blackstone Valley faction of the party, also coveted the seat. Already rebuffed by Green in his bid for a second spot on the state ticket in 1932, McCoy was determined to earn his due as governor. When Green and the state organization overlooked McCoy in favor of Quinn, McCoy threw his lot into the Pawtucket mayoral race, where he roundly defeated his opponent in 1936.23
Quinn’s public deportment was in stark contrast to Green’s, whose outward gentility and intellectualism masked his hard-bitten dictatorial control over the state party. Quinn, who hailed from a working-class West Warwick family, confronted his adversaries head on, the results of which made for interesting copy in the Providence Journal during the 1920s and 1930s and earned him the moniker “Fighting Bob.”
West Warwick senator Quinn first gained notice when as a young man, he and his allies conceived of a plan to mount a filibuster against their Republican opponents in January 1924, hoping to break Republican hold in the Senate. After about twenty-eight hours of nonstop filibustering, Quinn became embroiled in a fighting match with Woonsocket representative John LeTendre, who nearly dropped Quinn over the railing “fifteen or twenty” feet down from the second floor of the State House. Republicans finally broke the deadlock after six months by enlisting the aid of a noted criminal who placed a bromine gas bomb near the rostrum of the Lieutenant Governor Felix Toupin on June 19 at 7:45 in the morning. Senators stumbled through the haze and confusion, and a few of them were hospitalized while others vacated the Senate chambers. A group of Republicans retreated to a hotel in Rutland, Massachusetts, where they remained for six months, thus preventing a quorum in the General Assembly.24
In addition to his lively role in Democratic politics in the 1920s, Quinn also had proven to be a forthright proponent of Roosevelt’s New Deal reform in the following decade. Quinn, for his part, took advantage of the situation by supporting the platform laid out by Roosevelt. In 1933, when Roosevelt declared his
famous “Bank Holiday,” the-then Lieutenant Governor Quinn, covering for Green who was attending the inaugural in Washington, proclaimed, “The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, do hereby order all banks and banking institutions to close and remain closed on Saturday, March 4, 1933.” The subsequent eleven-day “holiday” enabled Rhode Island’s leading bankers and industrialists to confer on the most equitable methods to ensure the state’s economic solvency.25
Governor Quinn took the oath of office in January 1937 and immediately was forced to test his mettle against Walter O’Hara, scion of the Narragansett racetrack and publisher of the Star-Tribune. O’Hara needed a strategic alliance and again called upon Pawtucket Mayor McCoy as his battle against Quinn intensified. When the two had first met during the commencement of the track’s construction on city property in 1934, McCoy, then Pawtucket city auditor, was slow to warm to the budding entrepreneur. In fact, McCoy initially threatened to shut off the track’s water supply unless O’Hara promised the city’s laborers sufficient employment, calmly explaining that they had “granted the permit [to build the track] with that understanding.”26
O’Hara, who realized the importance of McCoy’s support to complete the project, acquiesced and promised favorable consideration for Pawtucket workers. From that point until their public split in 1938, McCoy and O’Hara enjoyed a brief though significant association. McCoy offered O’Hara a foothold into the Blackstone Valley’s business community with the latter’s purchase of the track, while O’Hara’s newspaper
afforded McCoy a public podium to vent his frustration against Governor Quinn, Senator Green, and U.S. District Attorney J. Howard McGrath. O’Hara’s Democratic newspaper published sentiments that could have been written by McCoy himself.27
McCoy, who had been ousted as budget director by Green in 1932, found an opening to strike back at the governor who appointed the state’s racing commissioners. Through his alliance with O’Hara, whose track would bring financial and political capital to Pawtucket, McCoy was able to challenge the multimilliondollar coffers of Green and Gerry. Compounding the issue, McCoy and McGrath vied for political power throughout the 1930s, with McGrath often emerging victorious.28 Using O’Hara’s newspaper, McCoy hoped to dethrone Rhode Island kingpins Gerry, Green, and McGrath.
On the other hand, O’Hara could not dismiss Quinn entirely, since the governor appointed the racing commissioners, and Head Commissioner Francis “Red” Kiernan was the governor’s close friend. Kiernan had the sole authority to secure optimal racing dates. O’Hara had become acquainted with Quinn in 1934, and in October 1937, Quinn initially found O’Hara to be respectable, despite rumors to the contrary. According to the governor,
He wanted me to know that he was an honest man, etc. I told him that I always assumed that every man was honest and decent until I found out otherwise. During the years 1934 and 1935 I saw O’Hara, maybe three or four times, and upon each occasion he professed his friendship and admiration for me.29
Governor Quinn’s opinion of the young entrepreneur, however, changed in the early months of 1936, when O’Hara began publication of the Star-Tribune, and the governor would feel the sharp edge of the “honest and decent” Irish lad’s poison pen. O’Hara filled the pages of the Tribune with invectives against Quinn, calling him “a --------liar” and later demanding the governor’s impeachment. In the meantime, O’Hara needed allies, and he found a willing partner in Pawtucket’s McCoy, a union that proved unfortunate for the latter. According to Quinn years later,
He [McCoy] never took a drink...he was a total abstinence man. And I don’t think he ever began to drink until he became associated with O’Hara... and then I think Tom began to drink and as time went on, to drink heavily.30
Alcohol became the catalyst for increasing hostilities. As liquor and money poured into the park, troubles emerged between Quinn and O’Hara. The governor accused O’Hara of “tip[ping] the elbow,” beginning in the morning, and by midafternoon becoming completely inebriated, intransigent, and malicious. O’Hara publicly chastised James E. Dooley, who in addition to his illustrious political career, was the proprietor of the Providence Reds, the state’s first hockey team, and along with Peter Laudati and sports editor Charles Coppen, among others, established the Providence Steam Roller of the National Football League in 1916.
In the meantime, the track netted financial and political rewards for both O’Hara and McCoy in 1936.
Commenting on daily betting, Zechariah Chafee Jr. observed, “Everything [at Narragansett Racetrack] is standardized and mechanized and regularized,” proving that the “Industrial Revolution, which began in manufacturing in the Eighteenth Century...has now in the Twentieth Century reached horse-racing.”31 Attracting the most competitive thoroughbreds in the country, the track brought throngs of people to Rhode Island. Only forty miles from Newport, where the wealthy from New York and Boston summered, the track was an ideal location for an entertaining game of chance. As more people populated the grounds, money flowed into the hands of O’Hara, its proprietor. This factor would prove troublesome in the coming year since O’Hara believed that he alone held jurisdiction over horse racing. The problem escalated with the so-called photo finish that presented a conundrum for Commissioner Doorley. The camera photographed the finish line, thus ensuring that races “too close to call” would be judged more accurately. However, the officials often posted a list of winners before the photo had been developed. In the meantime, many frustrated, impatient bettors either defaced their tickets or tossed them in the trash before the final results were published. The unclaimed winnings would then be turned over to the racetrack, increasing additional revenue for O’Hara.32
Aware of this practice, the Rhode Island Racing Division on September 2, 1937, declared that racing results must be posted after the photo finish had been developed. O’Hara refused to observe the new law and his placing judges dared not defy him. To compound the dilemma, O’Hara also blocked state auditors from
viewing the track’s financial records. In a final act of defiance, O’Hara and his lieutenants marched into steward Doorley’s office and verbally attacked him, using, according to Doorley, the “vilest” language he had ever heard uttered by a so-called professional businessman.33
O’Hara’s performance was matched by his written invectives in the Tribune against his political and personal enemies. The Star-Tribune under a more balanced director would have provided the Democrats with a platform to rival the Republican-backed Providence Journal. Instead, O’Hara’s vitriol heightened tensions within the Democratic Party as he, fueled by his alliance with Mayor McCoy, used the paper as a bully pulpit from which to level vituperations against anyone who challenged him, including Governor Quinn and Sevellon Brown, the managing editor of the Providence Journal and Evening Bulletin. O’Hara’s tirade united Quinn and Brown, two former adversaries, in their campaign to remove O’Hara from Rhode Island before he defiled the good name of the state. Brown, especially, took issue with O’Hara’s treatment of Journal staff and his unflattering photograph of Brown emerging from Pawtucket police headquarters.34
O’Hara became suspicious of the Journal’s reporters and photographers who had begun to frequent the track. In 1936, a Pawtucket clerk was arrested for destroying the camera of a Providence Journal reporter. Although later acquitted, the clerk set in motion an all-out war between the Journal and O’Hara, which peaked in August when O’Hara employees physically barred Journal sportswriter Jack Aborn from taking a seat in the press box.35
As a result of the questionable legality of O’Hara’s actions, Commissioner Kiernan and Governor Quinn decided to call for his removal as president and general manager of the track. His obstruction of track steward Doorley’s authority regarding the photo finish, coupled with his refusal to admit Aborn into the press box, constituted enough evidence for a hearing.
Further, the division charged,
That the Narragansett Racing Association, Inc., through its duly authorized agent and agents, did unlawfully appropriate to its own use and did unlawfully use large sums of moneys belonging to the holders of winning tickets who failed to cash the same.36
On that basis, the grand jury armed Governor Quinn and Commissioner Francis Kiernan with the necessary ammunition to oust “Walter E. O’Hara as an employe[e] and official of said Narragansett Racing Association, Inc.” At that point, the grand jury subpoenaed his financial records, and the state budget director ordered an audit.37
In retaliation, O’Hara in his Star-Tribune on September 8, led with this headline: “Gov. Quinn Will Land in Butler’s.” However, the wily O’Hara allegedly positioned the copy so that when folded for delivery it read, “Quinn in Butler’s,” the state institution for emotional and psychological illness and addiction, prompting the public to conclude that the governor had suffered a nervous breakdown.38
In the same edition, O’Hara charged Patrick Quinn, the governor’s legendary uncle who was instrumental in the incorporation of West Warwick in 1913, with
accepting bribe money to the tune of $50,000: $20,000 for legal fees and the remaining $30,000 to quash an earlier version of the governor’s message, which allegedly voiced opposition to horse racing. Governor Quinn dismissed the charge and remarked, “If I had known Mr. O’Hara then as I later knew him I would not have accepted employment by the Racing Association while he had anything to do with it.”39
Allegations against Quinn and O’Hara from their opposing camps intensified and grew more ludicrous as the fight continued. For his part, Governor Quinn saw the conflict as a fight between good and evil. Viewed from this perspective, his determination to banish the racetrack entrepreneur from the state was understandable. Quinn later explained, “It was impossible to permit an unscrupulous and ruthless individual to continue to operate under a license issued by this State.”40 In a radio address in October 1937, the governor admitted, “Maybe it’s not good politics to get into this fight with Mr. O’Hara. Maybe it will hurt me politically. But what difference does that make?”41 After the Rhode Island Supreme Court twice denied Commissioner Kiernan’s and Governor Quinn’s attempt to remove O’Hara as a racetrack official, Quinn retaliated by canceling the fall schedule of races, alleging that the Narragansett Racing Association had not submitted a list of officers by the date required by law. Quinn thereby shut out O’Hara, and by association McCoy, from earning hundreds of thousands of dollars per day on average for about 20 racing meets.42 Then, on October 16, 1937, the governor increased the stakes by ordering the forced removal of O’Hara from his position as managing director of the Narra-
gansett Park racetrack. In response, Quinn told journalists, “We want proper racing...that cannot occur with Mr. O’Hara.” He then imposed martial law, cordoning off a one-mile radius around the track guarded by three hundred troops led by Adjutant General Herbert R. Dean. Seventy-five soldiers patrolled each entrance to the track, ensuring that O’Hara, who was away on business in Maryland, would be barred from entrance.43
According to Quinn, “This is not a fight against the Narragansett Association. There is nothing personal in this fight.”44 But there was. While the governor believed his cause just, his rhetoric instead revealed his emotional, partisan response to O’Hara’s antics. Staking his reputation and quite possibly his future in politics on this issue, the governor had embarked on a crusade to remove O’Hara at all costs from Rhode Island.
The melee reached the national press, when acerbic Westbrook Pegler of Scripps-Howard labeled the standoff between O’Hara and Quinn the “War of the Wild Irish Roses” in the November 8, 1937, edition of Life magazine. Labeling O’Hara the “Duke of Narragansett” and Quinn “Bumptious Bob,” Pegler branded Rhode Island the “most laughed at State in the Union.”45
During this brouhaha, O’Hara’s dealings with the political hierarchy in the state presented another potential problem. Accusing the state’s Democratic chairman William Shawcross and former chairman Thomas Kennelly of accepting large sums from him in violation of the Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1925, O’Hara forced U.S. District Attorney for Rhode Island
J. Howard McGrath to decide where his allegiance lay, with the law or the Democratic Party.46 Prior to his appointment as district attorney in 1934, McGrath had been elected by the party to serve as Democratic chairman, the youngest to hold such a position in the country. Thus, McGrath had a deep, abiding connection to the state’s party. However, his duty as district attorney was to uphold the law regardless of who was being charged. After he produced checks made out to Kennelly in July 1935 for $2,500 and for $5,000 on October 28, 1936, and then another three days later for $7,500, O’Hara, by inference, backed McGrath into a corner. To add to this dilemma, O’Hara also published a check made payable to Governor Quinn’s uncle, Pat-
rick Quinn, for $20,000, and intimated that the elder Quinn also accepted an additional $30,000, which was presumably shared with his nephew, the governor.47 In response to O’Hara’s latest accusation, Governor Quinn refused to back down. Instead, he challenged O’Hara to publish contributions made to his allies as well, namely, Democrat Thomas P. McCoy, who allegedly received funding from O’Hara during the former’s mayoral campaign. The governor also demanded that O’Hara produce evidence against the Democratic Party’s adversaries, including William Pelkey, a major power broker of the Republican Party.48 McGrath eventually called a federal grand jury, which resulted in rulings against O’Hara for his contributions to both parties in 1935 and 1936. The grand jury also delivered two counts against Chairman Shawcross and one against former Chairman Kennelly for allegedly violating the Corrupt Practices Act. After an eight-month hearing, the jury found that O’Hara had contributed nearly $60,000 to the Democrats and $230,000 to the Republicans, which gave O’Hara the power to control or at least influence the General Assembly regarding the racetrack.49
Ultimately, the fate of this case and possibly the future of the state’s Democratic Party rested with McGrath, who was more concerned with the Racetrack War’s implications for his behind-the-scenes business ties to some very wealthy and powerful department store owners. Up to this point, McGrath had refrained from direct involvement in the Quinn-O’Hara altercation, but he now found himself drawn into the controversy when O’Hara lashed out against him for his refusal to intervene on O’Hara’s behalf.
J. Howard McGrath, IN Manual, with rules and orders, for the use of the General Assembly of the state of Rhode Island (Providence, RI: Dept. of State, 1942).
O’Hara’s purchase of the Star and the News-Tribune nearly derailed the secret plans of McGrath and his associate Eddie “Rip” Higgins, Senator Green’s executive secretary, from taking over the airwaves through Pawtucket station WFCI. While the citizens of the state focused on the Quinn-O’Hara fight, McGrath and Higgins brokered a deal with the FCC through their ally Frank Crook Jr., to secure ownership of WFCI. By systematically and meticulously wooing potential supporters, which included the owners of major department stores in Providence, they prepared for a major upset, the result of which would place McGrath in a position to run for governor in the future.50
Regarding O’Hara’s political contributions, McGrath consulted the Department of Justice, requesting its official stand on political contributions. He explained, “The newspapers have been asking me for an opinion whether these contributions constitute a violation of the Federal Corrupt Practices Act.”51 In doing so, McGrath provided the assistant attorneys general with a report on the Narragansett Park situation to date as he interpreted it. His narrative emphasized his public support for Governor Quinn’s position. “Certainly the charges preferred by the Governor and substantiated by the Commission were reasonable causes.” In the meantime, McGrath and his two assistants, George F. Troy and Joseph Veneziale, produced subpoenaed records and handed them to the jury. After studying congressional deliberations before the passage of the Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1925, McGrath concluded that O’Hara’s donations to the Democratic and Republican parties were not explicitly prohibited by the legislation.52
McGrath explained, “I am being guided by the well-accepted rule that it [the law] must be strictly construed” so while “it may be that corporations should not be allowed to contribute to State committees...[I do] not feel at all warranted or justified in securing further indictments based upon a statute [The Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1925] so obviously contradictory in its terms, particularly in a criminal statute.” On that basis, US District Attorney McGrath decided not to pursue additional indictments.53
The Providence Journal briefly turned its attention from O’Hara to McGrath, whose cautious reading of the law drew criticism from several sources. According to the Providence Journal, the district attorney’s decision sent a message to the track that it may “now use its money...for campaign contributions to the State committees of the two political parties, without fear of prosecution and without fear of detection.”54
By all appearances, O’Hara had won. Quinn ordered the removal of the troops by November 12, ending martial law. The State Supreme Court in a per curiam opinion had already upheld his dominion over the Narragansett Park racetrack, and now in one stroke McGrath’s decision had crippled Quinn’s position, and ultimately the November election, since the governor’s credibility had been compromised.55 Nonetheless, O’Hara’s victory was Pyrrhic, as the Board of Trustees had severed his connection to the track nearly seven months earlier when they ousted him as managing director in favor of the original racetrack promoter James Dooley, who managed the track from 1938–1960.56
In essence, O’Hara’s reputation was ruined. On December 1, he had no choice but to give up the StarTribune, which was placed in receivership. Several buyers expressed interest in purchasing his newspaper, most notably David Stern of the Philadelphia Reporter. But the deal fell through since Stern refused to be drawn into the Kiernan-Quinn-O’Hara fight. Despite the lost opportunity, Quinn was heartened by Stern’s parting words, “The vast majority of the people in your State believe in the principles for which you and the Democratic party stand. They recognize that you represent their best interests. They voted for you and for the Party.”57 McGrath’s correspondence with Stern ruefully observed, There is genuine regret throughout the State that you failed to get the paper. I fully agree with you... The Journal is doing absolutely nothing with it [the paper]. I understand the circulation has dropped to around 10,000, and there is every indication that it will fold up very soon. I am watching the situation very closely and will keep you advised.58
In essence, the Journal purchased the paper to kill it. They then sold the building and pocketed the proceeds.
Thus, O’Hara’s battle with Quinn cost him dearly. Required by federal law to repay personal debts that he had incurred as director, he also had to atone for his public attacks against the governor. In March 1938, O’Hara apologized to Quinn, “In various issues of my newspaper the Star-Tribune and over the radio, I made
certain statements which reflected upon the character and integrity of you, your family and certain associates...For all those statements, I hereby publicly apologize to you.”59
As far as the Rhode Island public was concerned, the Racetrack War had ended. Lieutenant Governor Raymond Jordan had by November 1937 ordered Adjutant General Dean to remove the troops from the track and following the Racing Association’s ouster of O’Hara in 1938, horse racing had returned to Rhode Island under the more prudent direction of James “Judge” Dooley, the racetrack law’s original sponsor in 1934. In conclusion, this chapter in Rhode Island’s roughand-tumble politics revealed a schism in Democratic Party ranks, which proved unfortunate as the 1938 election results revealed. Reform Republican candidate William Henry Vanderbilt defeated Robert E. Quinn in the gubernatorial race by 37,400 votes. In addition to Quinn’s loss, Democrat Aime J. Forand was defeated by Republican Charles F. Risk by 922 votes for the US House of Representatives (First District), and Republican Harry Sandager trounced Democrat Edward J. Fenelon Jr. by 21,526 votes (Second District).60
Moving immediately to recover from this upset, the leaders of the Democratic Party stepped back during the next two years to assess the damages in preparation for the 1940 gubernatorial election. Bothered by the situation in Rhode Island, Democratic National Chairman James Farley polled leading Democrats in all 48 states demanding to know what went wrong.61 He was especially concerned with the situation in Rhode Island. Farley wondered whether the state had
repudiated Roosevelt’s New Deal. US District Attorney McGrath assured Farley that his state was safely behind the president’s economic program and instead blamed the Democrats’ defeat almost exclusively on the Racetrack War.62
McGrath explained to Farley that the elimination of O’Hara’s newspaper, the Star-Tribune, was unfortunate. He claimed, “If the paper had continued to exist it would necessarily be Democratic” despite O’Hara’s “vicious attacks on everybody who failed to do his bidding.” McGrath also faulted the governor’s penchant for “surround[ing] himself with friends of no previous standing.”63
After the Racetrack War, O’Hara briefly entered the political ring with an unsuccessful run for governor against Quinn in 1938. He then turned his attention to various enterprises from Texas to Fall River. Ultimately, the contentious O’Hara died in a fatal car crash while driving through Taunton, Massachusetts, on a snowy, icy evening in late February 1941. No evidence of foul play or alcohol abuse was ever uncovered.64 As had been the case throughout the 1930s, petty jealousies and factionalism had played into the hands of the Green-McGrath coalition. More and more, the Pawtuxet and Blackstone Valley leaders came to realize that the Green-Gerry-McGrath bloc was unbeatable. While the Democrats “rode the crest of anti-Republican attitudes created by the great depression,” the Racetrack War highlighted the factionalism that had been festering throughout the first half of the twentieth century.65
McGrath, with an eye toward his next political conquest, supported the reputations of fellow chairmen
Shawcross and Kennelly at the expense of honest government and would, three years later, successfully challenge his Republican opponent, William Henry Vanderbilt, for the gubernatorial seat. By that time, the Racetrack War had faded from the public’s consciousness.
Governor McGrath successfully guided his Rhode Island constituency through World War II, presiding over the enactment of “cash sickness” legislation and a juvenile court bill. Following his nearly three terms as governor (1941–45), McGrath ventured into national politics when President Harry Truman named him US solicitor general. He returned to Rhode Island in 1946 to win the US Senate seat vacated by the retiring Peter Gerry. From there, he served as President Truman’s Democratic national chairman overseeing the president’s upset election in 1948 against New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey. Nonetheless, McGrath left Washington under a cloud of controversy, when he resigned as US attorney general in April 1952 under a cloud of mismanagement and corruption in the Department of Justice.
Finally, Governor Quinn, forthright and steadfast in his convictions, suffered a lapse in judgment; his call to arms against O’Hara provided onlookers with an example of political folly at its best, arming critics with ammunition against the governor’s forces and a lens through which to gauge Rhode Island’s Democratic Party. The results served to blacken the reputation of the party in the coming years.
Quinn, however, was not derailed by the Racetrack War.66 Appointed by Governor McGrath to serve as Rhode Island justice of the Superior Court, he was
then appointed to the US Court of Military Appeals, where he served from 1951 to 1971.67
The track, however, had a longer run. For Americans during the Depression, horse racing provided an exciting diversion from economic dislocation and despair. If only for a moment, the common man could rub elbows with the elite. During its heyday, Narragansett Park racetrack rivaled New York’s Saratoga Springs as the most popular racing establishment in the country, drawing all sorts, from the wealthy and prestigious, including Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson, and Mickey Rooney, to the average laborer.
In the end, the Racetrack War may have been only a
n otes
1. Beginning his political career in 1906 with an emphasis on reform, Green initially ran as a member of the Lincoln Party, a coalition of well-to-do activists who opposed politics as usual in the state. By 1930, Green emphasized progressive measures such as restructuring state government, eliminating unnecessary bureaucracy, establishing a cohesive workman’s compensation, instituting pensions for the elderly, and repealing Prohibition. Thus, Green eventually was successful in his bid for governor in 1932 and again in 1934.
2. Russell J. DeSimone, ed., and Matthew J. Smith, interviewer, “Fighting Bob” Quinn: Political Reformer and the People’s Advocate, (Providence, RI: The Rhode Island Publications Society, 2020), 249n.
3. General Charles R. Brayton, who dominated his native Warwick’s political scene until his death in 1911, cajoled the General Assembly into passing multiple bills, including one that stripped the governor of veto power and another that redistricted the state’s map. The redistricting effort ensured that rural districts,
blip in the state’s history, but it revealed the widening breach inherent in the ranks of the Democratic Party. Unable or unwilling to effect lasting change, the party suffered throughout the twentieth century from factionalism, in part, fueled by a Green-Gerry-McGrath “bottleneck” at the state level.68
Debra Mull IG an was born in Providence and her doctorate is from Providence College. She is currently serving as chair of the History department at Roger Williams University and president of Phi Alpha Theta. In 2019, she published a political biography on J. Howard McGrath and is currently working on a manuscript tentatively titled Between Two Worlds: Rhode Island’s Little Italies.
which had been reduced to a minority demographically with the influx of immigrants from Italy, Portugal, Greece, Armenia, Poland, Lithuania, Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria, would retain their dominance. Debra A. Mulligan, Democratic Repairman: The Political Life of J. Howard McGrath (Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press, 2019), 28; DeSimone & Smith,“Fighting Bob” Quinn, xi.
4. Patrick T. Conley, “Robert E. Quinn and the Political Revolution of 1935,” Part II, April 12, 2019, smallstatebighistory.com, accessed on May 24, 2024.
5. Peter Gerry enjoyed a 7,837 plurality against Republican Henry Lippitt of Providence in 1916 and a 13,959 margin against R. Livingston Beeckman of Newport. Gerry lost to Republican Felix Hebert of West Warwick by 2,994 in 1922. Cote, Rhode Island Manual, 1945–1946, 195–197; Robert E. Quinn interview, July 24, 1972, F4, 11–12. Special and Archival Collections, Providence College, Providence; “Robert E. Quinn,” Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame, http://riheritagehalloffame.com, accessed February 28, 2024.
6. James C. Nicholson, Racing for America: The Horse Race of a Century and the Redemption of a Sport. (Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2021), 1–2.
7. Mary C. N. Tanner, “Bridges Across the Chasm of Despair: The Depression Years in Rhode Island,” Rhode Island Yearbook (1971), H-204.
8. Chapter 12 of the General Laws of Rhode Island established a division of horse racing and outlined the powers and duties of the racing chief. It also created a Bureau of Inspection and a Bureau of Licenses. It required licensing for racing meets and outlined the consequences of holding meets without a license. Louis Cappelli, ed. Chapter 12, Rhode Island General Laws of 1938. (Providence, RI: Office of the Secretary of State, 1938), 75; Steven A. Reiss, The Sport of Kings and the Kings of Crime: Horse Racing, Politics, and Organized Crime in New York, 1865–1913 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2011), 35–36.
9. Mary Simon, Racing Through the Century: The Story of Thoroughbred Racing in America (Irvine, CA: Bowtie Press, 2002), 78.
10. Leonard Jerome was the maternal grandfather of Winston Churchill. Reiss, The Sport of Kings, 35–36.
11. Ibid., xiii.
12. “East Providence: Judge Dooley Describes Horse Racing Game to Business Men’s Association,” Providence Journal, October 17, 1934, 14.
13. As an example, in 1938, federal agents tracked down felon Raymond Patriarca at Narragansett Parkway on the evening of August 13, 1938, alleging that he robbed between $15,000 and $20,000 worth of precious gemstones from a Boston, Massachusetts, jewelry establishment, Daniel Seidler and Sons, Inc. However, according to William H. Edwards, “the association [Racing] in turn salved the conscience of objectors by presenting them with a charitable donation of $38,000.” Although this example does not implicate the track per se, Raymond Patriarca’s presence at the track appeared to justify the argument of the opponents of parimutuel betting, who contended that the track attracted “seedier” clientele. William H. Edwards, “Race Track ‘War,’” Rhode Island Yearbook, 1971, H-210; “Patriarca Held for Hub Holdup,” Providence Journal August 14, 1938.
14. “Backer of $3,000,000 Race Track Says Bill Will Pass,” Providence Journal, January 29, 1929.
15. “Governor Warns of Passing Race Bill Irregularly,” Providence Journal, March 28, 1934; “Inaugural Meet at Narragansett Opens Wednesday,” Providence Journal, July 29, 1934.
16. Vernon C. Norton, “The Pay Off: An Epic in Rhode Island Politics or Eight Months with Walter E. O’Hara,” published by author, 1941, Rhode Island Historical Society, Providence, RI.
17. William Jennings, “The Prince of Pawtucket” (PhD diss., Providence College, 1985), 282.
18. Zechariah Chafee Jr., State House versus Pent House: Legal Problems of the Rhode Island Race Track Row (Providence, RI: The Booke Shop, 1937), 25–26; “Track Manager Guilty of Baiting State’s Steward,” Providence Journal, September 4, 1937, 1; “Board Ruling to Protect Public Cause of O’Hara Dispute,” Providence Journal, September 5, 1937; “Six Counts Filed, Hearing Set for 1 P.M. Tomorrow,” Providence Journal, September 9, 1937; “Quinn Wants Track License Revoked on ‘Cussing’ Charge: Order Out in Letters to Kiernan,” News-Tribune,” September 11, 1937.
19. Peter G. Gerry was the great-grandson of Elbridge Gerry, signer of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and vice president under James Madison. The younger Gerry was from Manhattan and with his political ally Henry DeWitt Hamilton moved to Rhode Island to run for the Senate. Gerry defeated his opponent in the first popularly elected Senate race in 1916. A supporter of Woodrow Wilson and later Alfred E. Smith, Gerry eventually fell out of touch with state politics. He would retire in 1947 after serving his final term as senator.
20. “War in Rhode Island,” Time, 29: 13 March 29, 1937, 34 http://o-search.ebscohost.com.helin.uri.edu/login.aspx?direct =true&db=548119178&site=eds-live, accessed on January 12, 2016; John R. Aborn, “Inaugural Meet at Narragansett Opens Wednesday,” Providence Journal, July 29, 1934; McGrath wrote Gerry, the former owner of the Tribune, praising his former mentor and lamenting Gerry’s loss of the Tribune, “We all owe you a debt of gratitude.” McGrath continued, “If it had not been for the work done by the paper, our party would certainly not be as advanced in this State as it is.” Letter, J. Howard McGrath to the Honorable
Peter G. Gerry, March 20, 1937, Folder, “Gerry Peter G.,” J. Howard McGrath Collection, Special and Archival Collections, Providence College, Providence, RI; William Jennings, “The Prince of Pawtucket,” 281; “Bus Service to Race Track to Start on Aug. 1,” Providence Journal, July 12, 1934.
21. John R. Aborn, “Inaugural Meet at Narragansett Opens Wednesday,” Providence Journal, July 29, 1934.
22. In November 1934, Governor Green hosted a dinner at the racetrack, which included leading politicians of the period and president of the racetrack, Walter O’Hara. By inviting the racetrack president to sit among Rhode Island’s best and brightest, he wisely courted the favor of O’Hara. “Luncheon at Race Track,” Providence Journal, November 1, 1934; “Notables Attend Opening of Narragansett Race Track,” News-Tribune, June 20, 1935; “Narragansett Race Track Called Most Pressing Social Problem in State,” Providence Journal, June 8, 1936.
23. Following Quinn’s defeat in 1938, Republican governor William Henry Vanderbilt investigated alleged voter fraud in the 1936 Pawtucket elections, which forever tainted the reputation of Mayor Thomas P. McCoy, thereby contributing to the mayor’s failure to secure the nomination for governor. Mulligan, Democratic Repairman, 83–86.
24. The Republican Chairman of the Tax Commission Zenas W. Bliss recommended that the Republicans leave the state to reside safely outside its jurisdiction. David Patten, Chapter 45, “The Republicans Flee to Rutland,” in Rhode Island Story (Providence, RI: Providence Journal and Evening Bulletin, 1954), 112–115.
25. Governor Green was attending the inauguration of newly elected President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Washington, D.C.; M. Randolph Flather, “Don’t Bank on It: Bank Holiday for Rhode Island for Today, March 4, ordered by Acting Governor Quinn,” Rhode Island Yearbook, 1971, H-198.
26. Since the Police Commission scandal, which rocked the Democratic Party in the early 1930s, Supreme Court Judge Francis Condon was aware of McGrath’s collusion with Central Falls political boss Andrew Sherry. The Police Commission Bill of 1931 granted the governor power to “appoint, remove for cause and control the chief of police,” thus creating a state-run police com-
mission. McGrath, under the direction of Peter Gerry’s chief of staff, General Henry DeWitt Hamilton, convinced Raymond Kennedy, a minor political legislator, to introduce the bill, in exchange for an appointment to the newly created commission. For his role in the scam, McGrath was named Central Falls city solicitor. Jennings, “The Prince of Pawtucket,” 201; Mulligan, Democratic Repairman, 41–45; “Condon Urges City Committee Chairman to Work for Defeat of Police Commission Measure,” Pawtucket Times, January 30, 1931.
27. McCoy supported O’Hara’s purchase of Manville- Jenckes Paper Mill in Central Falls. Jennings, The Prince of Pawtucket, 283. 28. Ibid., 283.
29. “Risks Political Future to Block Track Manager,” Providence Journal, October 21, 1937, 1.
30. DeSimone and Smith, “‘Fighting Bob’ Quinn,” 180. 31. Chafee Jr., State House versus Pent House, 1937), 3.
32. After a decision handed down by Attorney General John P. Hartigan that the Narragansett Racing Association surrender all unclaimed winnings, O’Hara suggested that the money be donated to charity. Chief of the State Division of Horse Racing disagreed, arguing that the State should take possession of the money then totaling $60,105. “State Will Seek Unclaimed Bets,” Providence Journal, February 10, 1937, 2; Richard E. Farley, “The Great American Racetrack War,” Town & Country, June 9, 2017.
33. “Track’s Manager Guilty of Baiting State’s Steward,” Providence Journal, September 4, 1937, 1; “Board Ruling to Protect Public Cause of O’Hara Dispute,” Providence Journal, September 5, 1937; “Six Counts Filed, Hearing Set for 1 P.M. Tomorrow,” Providence Journal, September 9, 1937; “Quinn Wants Track License Revoked on ‘Cussing’ Charge: Order out in Letters to Kiernan,” News-Tribune, September 11, 1937.
34. As a sideline, Sevellon Brown allegedly threw his hat at the camera in anger. In turn, O’Hara’s camp accused Brown of “malicious mischief.” Ibid. 35. Ibid.
36. Critics of the decision claimed that O’Hara was acquitted because of McCoy’s friendship with two of the judges, Francis
Condon and Edmund Flynn. When Matthew Smith questioned Judge Quinn about the charge years later, he stated that Condon and Flynn were upright and fair in their ruling. However, Quinn added, “Well, there isn’t any question, Matt, that Flynn and Condon were close, very close friends of McCoy.” DeSimone and Smith, “Fighting Bob,” 100; “Text of Charges Against Racing Association.”
37. The Racing Division subsequently exonerated O’Hara, ruling that “the fair preponderance of evidence does not show that the said Narragansett Racing Association, Inc., violated rule 463 of said division.” “Board Ruling to Protect Public Cause,” September 4, 1937, 1.
38. “Appendix E: Editorials and Comments from the Providence Journal: Politicians and the Race-Track is the State Running the Track or is the Track Running the State,” as quoted in Chafee Jr., State House versus Pent House, 120–123.
39. Ibid.
40. “Risks Political Future to Block Track Manager,” Providence Journal, October 21, 1937.
41. Ibid.
42. James P. McCaffrey, “Troops Will Stop Opening of Racing at Narragansett,”” New York Times, October 18, 1937.
43. “Commission Orders Audit of Race Track’s Books: Quinn Says O’Hara is Out: Corps of Auditors to Probe Finances at 10 O’clock Today,” Providence Journal, September 5, 1937.
44. Ibid.
45. “The War of the Wild Irish Roses,” Life, November 8, 1937, 73; Tom Shehan, “From Past, to Present,” Northeast Harness XV, no.1, digitalmaine.com, accessed on March 2, 2024.
46. “McGrath to Drop Federal Charges on Track Gifts,” Providence Journal, August 7, 1938; “McGrath Quashes Track Indictment,” Providence Journal, August 10, 1938.
47. “Risks Political Future,” Providence Journal.
48. Ibid.
49. The defendants, especially Thomas Kennelly, argued that the language of the federal act was insufficient to convict state offi-
cials. In its final report, handed down in August 1938, the federal jury recommended the adoption of a state corrupt practices act to handle alleged campaign abuses since they could not convict O’Hara based on existing statutes. “McGrath to Drop Federal Charges,” Providence Journal, August 10, 1938; “Race Track Political Contributions,” Providence Journal, August 10, 1938.
50. Joseph Sylvia, Rhode Island representative of the Committee of Industrial Organization (CIO), had been working behind the scenes to establish a chapter within Rhode Island’s retail industry. Later that summer, several department stores, including the Outlet, Cherry & Webb, the Boston Store, and the Shepard Company, collectively retained McGrath’s services, at $3,250 per establishment, to negotiate a solution that would be mutually beneficial for owners and workers after workers walked out demanding higher wages and fewer hours. As an aside, McGrath also was forced to deal with the racetrack situation since O’Hara complained that the Providence stores refused to match their advertisements in the Tribune with their full-page announcements in the Journal. “Retail Store Trade Resumed Here after Labor Agreement is Reached in Parley with Director M’Mahon,” News-Tribune, March 23, 1937; “Pre-1945 Legal Files,” Folder 58, Memorandum of Department Store Labor Controversy, n.d., J. Howard McGrath Collection, Special and Archival Collections, Providence College, Providence RI.
51. “Retail Store Trade Resumed Here,” News-Tribune; Letter from J. Howard McGrath to Brien McMahon, Department of Justice, October 22, 1937, J. Howard McGrath Collection, Special and Archival Collections, Providence College, Providence, RI.
52. McGrath added, “The Court did not approve of the procedure followed by the Grand Jury in obtaining an audit of the books of the defendant corporation by accountants who worked under the supervision of a committee.” McGrath to Drop Federal Charges on Track Gifts,” Providence Journal, August 8, 1938; “McGrath Quashes Track Indictment,” Providence Journal, August 10, 1938.
53. During the jury’s deliberations, only five of the sixteenminimum quorum required by law sat in judgment. Equally significant, the language in the federal law proved troublesome for the jury, which found no statement “expressly barring monetary contributions to a political committee.” “McGrath to Drop Federal
Charges on Track Gifts,” The Providence Journal, August 7, 1938, 1; “Race Track Political Contributions,” Providence Journal, August 10, 1938.
54. “Race Track Political Contributions,” Providence Journal, August 10, 1938, 8.
55. “Doorley Becomes Acting President Pending Election,” Providence Journal, February 10, 1938.
56. Many of the track’s stockholders called for O’Hara to step down as president, and despite his plea to the contrary, he was forced to resign on February 9, 1938.
57. “Letter from David Stern, 3rd to Governor Robert Quinn,” December 23, 1937, J. Howard McGrath Collection, and Special and Archival Collections, Providence College, Providence, RI.
58. After deliberating for several months with McGrath, Eddie Higgins, and Green, Stern dropped negotiations, explaining that the costs of digging the paper out of receivership far outweighed its benefits. Ultimately, the Providence Journal purchased the syndicate only to tear it down and with it the possibility of a rival for the Republican-backed Journal. Letter from J. Howard McGrath to David Stern, J. Howard McGrath Collection, Special and Archival Collections, Providence College, Providence, RI.
59. “O’Hara Forwards Apology to Quinn for All Attacks,” Providence Journal, March 29, 1938, 1.
60. Armand H. Cote, Manual with Rules and Orders for the Use of the General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island, 1945–1946, Providence, RI: 202–203.
61. Before the 1936 and 1938 elections, Rhode Island politicians wrote Democratic National Chairman James Farley about problems with the local Democratic Party. See “Letters to Farley from James Kiernan, John M. Flynn, Francis B. Condon, Theodore Francis Green, Thomas Kennelly, and J. Howard McGrath, July–September 1936, December 1938,” Folder, “Rhode Island,” Democratic National Committee (OF 300), Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, NY; Folder, “James A. Farley 1938,” J. Howard McGrath Collection, Special and Archival Collections, Providence College, Providence, RI.
62. Cote, Manual with Rules and Orders, 202–203; Letter from
J. Howard McGrath to James Farley, December 3, 1938, Official File (OF 300), Democratic National Committee, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, NY; Copy of Letter in McGrath’s File, Folder, “James A. Farley 1938,” J. Howard McGrath Collection, Special and Archival Collections, Providence College, Providence.
63. Cote, Manual with Rules and Orders, 202–203; Letter from J. Howard McGrath to James Farley, December 3, 1938, Official File (OF 300), Democratic National Committee, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, NY; Copy of Letter in McGrath’s File, Folder, “James A. Farley 1938,” J. Howard McGrath Collection, Special and Archival Collections, Providence College, Providence, RI.
64. “Walter E. O’Hara Killed in Crash,” Taunton Daily Gazette, March 1, 1941, “Walter E. O’Hara, Former Narragansett Park Chief, Killed in Automobile Accident,” Providence Journal, March 1, 1941; “Walter E. O’Hara Funeral is Held: Personal Estate Estimated at $50,000,” Providence Journal, March 4, 1941; “Criminal Negligence Not Found in O’Hara’s Death: Judge Austin Reports,” Taunton Daily Gazette, March 14, 1941.
65. Matthew J. Smith, “Rhode Island Politics, 1956–1964: Party Realignments,” Rhode Island History (May 1976), 50.
66. However, Tom Shehan of the Northeast Harness, in 1995, commented that “Governor Quinn...was filed away by his fellow Democrats in an obscure judgeship and was never heard of again. Shehan, “From Past, to Present,” Northeast Harness News, vol. XV no. 1 (January/February 1995), 12.
67. “Robert E. Quinn,” http://riheritagehalloffame.com, accessed on February 28, 2024.
68. Smith, “Party Realignments,” 50.
ROBERT T. M c MASTER
Revelations in Stone Edward Hitchcock and the Geology of Rhode Island
n Au G ust 2, 1830, a rude horse-drawn wagon rumbled down a dusty road in Smithfield, Rhode Island. It stopped frequently along the way, and a tall dour figure in a long black coat disembarked, scanned the countryside around him, chipped away at ledges and boulders along the roadside, then scribbled notes and drew sketches.
That curious figure was Professor Edward Hitchcock of Amherst College, one of the most eminent scientists of nineteenth-century America, and he was on a mission of great moment, a geological survey of Massachusetts, the first of its kind to be undertaken by any state. And yet there he stood, on just the fifth day of that survey, collecting and labeling specimens retrieved on a rutted roadside in Rhode Island. Had the Amherst professor lost his way?
That 1830 excursion was the first of three forays Hitchcock would make into Rhode Island during his geological survey of Massachusetts. And while it might have seemed a diversion from the task at hand, there was a method to the professor’s meanderings. What Hitchcock discovered in Rhode Island were the first glimmerings of insight into two of the major geological enigmas of the nineteenth century. In the history of American geology, as it turned out, “Little Rhody” loomed very large.
Background
In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, geology primarily was a European discipline. The foremost geologists of that time were James Hutton (1726–97), a Scotsman, and Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749–1817),
a German. While they were brilliant men, they saw the world through a European lens; in fact, neither man ever traveled outside of Europe.
One of the first scientists to focus on American geology was William Maclure (1763–1840).1 A native of Scotland, Maclure relocated to the United States in 1796. Following a successful career in business, he retired, devoting the remainder of his life to geology. For several years, he traveled across the nation, recording his observations of surface geology. In 1809, he published an article, “Observations on the Geology of the United States, Explanatory of a Geological Map.”2 That map was the first of its kind ever published of eastern North America.
In the first few decades of the nineteenth century, the first generation of truly American geologists appeared. These were scientists familiar with the North American continent and devoted to expanding the understanding of its geological history. Prominent among them were Amos Eaton (1776–1842), Chester Dewey (1784–1867), Ebenezer Emmons (1799–1863), and Edward Hitchcock (1793–1864).
Edward Hitchcock was born and raised in Deerfield, Massachusetts, barely two miles from the confluence of two of New England’s greatest rivers, the Deerfield and the Connecticut.3 Anyone living in Deerfield was acutely aware of the power of water to shape the land, sometimes to enrich the soils, sometimes to sweep them away along with homes, livestock, and
oPP os I te : Edward Hitchcock (1793–1864) half-length portrait, facing right, circa 1863. Amherst College Archives & Special Collections, Edward and Orra White Hitchcock Papers.
any residents unfortunate enough to be caught in the torrent. So, it is not surprising that at an early age Hitchcock became consumed with curiosity about the workings of water on the surface of the earth.
For several years, Hitchcock attended a one-room schoolhouse within sight of his home; in 1804, he entered Deerfield Academy, which had opened its doors only seven years earlier. He was enrolled at Deerfield for parts of six years, leaving school each summer to work in the corn and rye fields alongside his father and two brothers. Those few years were the full extent of the young man’s formal education, an astonishing fact in light of his accomplishments as a geologist, clergyman, and educator later in life.
Just six years after concluding his studies at Deerfield, Hitchcock, now twenty-three, returned as headmaster. While in that position, he authored his first major scientific paper, a geological study of the Connecticut River Valley, that appeared in the first volume of the American Journal of Science and the Arts in 1818.4 Most geological articles in the scientific literature of that time were short and anecdotal, describing a new locality for a mineral or some curious geological feature. Hitchcock’s article, by contrast, was a detailed study of an entire region based on years of exploration. It described the major rock formations, delineated their positions and extents, and identified dozens of rock and mineral types across the region. It included a large (19 × 42 cm) hand-colored geological map with a cross section through the region from east to west indicating the orientation and sequence of the strata. That work became a model that Hitchcock replicated again and again over the next four decades in regional
“A Geological Map of Massachusetts by Edward Hitchcock. 1833.” From Edward Hitchcock, Report on the Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology of Massachusetts (Amherst, MA: J. S. and C. Adams, 1833). Courtesy of the Hudson Institute of Mineralogy, Keswick, VA.
geological studies of Martha’s Vineyard (1823), the Connecticut River Valley (1823–24), the Massachusetts geological survey (1830–33), the vicinity of Portland, Maine (1836), and the Vermont geological survey (1857–1861).5
In that first article, Hitchcock made one observation regarding the geological history of the Connecticut River Valley that presaged a coming revolution in the discipline of geology:
In the town of Gill [Massachusetts]...there is a cataract in Connecticut river, from 30 to 40 feet in height; and it is believed that the alluvial region, and part of the secondary shown on the map from this fall to the place where the river passes between mount Holyoke and Tom, was formerly the bed of a lake.
Over a century later, that ancient water body was named Glacial Lake Hitchcock. In 1818, the idea that a vast glacier once covered most of New England was the stuff of science fiction, even to Professor Edward Hitchcock—but not for long.
At Deerfield Academy, Hitchcock became acquainted with Orra White, the preceptress or instructor of the female students. White was a welleducated young woman with talent in the decorative arts as well as science and mathematics. She also was a Calvinist of the most orthodox stripe, one who believed in the personal relationship between a believer and the creator, in the necessity of repentance and rebirth in Jesus Christ. Hitchcock was raised a Unitarian, but White convinced him of the error of his ways and succeeded in converting him to Calvinism.
In June 1821, Hitchcock and White were married. Days later they relocated to Conway, Massachusetts, just a few miles up the road from Deerfield, where Hitchcock assumed the position of junior pastor of the Congregational church. During his four years at Conway, Hitchcock preached and ministered to his flock while pursuing his scientific interests. That he was torn between those endeavors is evident in the record of his published writings from that period: five articles on religious topics and twenty on scientific topics. Hitchcock’s heart was clearly in his science.6
In October 1825, Hitchcock accepted a faculty position at Amherst College. Opened just four years earlier, Amherst College was dedicated to the education of young men for the Christian ministry. A teaching post there offered Hitchcock the opportunity to pursue his scientific interests while continuing to preach. Hitchcock taught at Amherst for nearly four decades, serving as president of the college for nine years. During that time, he rose to become one of America’s
most acclaimed scientists, renowned for his revolutionary research in geology and paleontology, for his religious writing, and for his efforts to promote higher education.7
The Riddle of the Rhode Island
‘Bowlders’
In May 1830, Hitchcock wrote a letter to Massachusetts Governor Levi Lincoln proposing a geological survey of the Bay State to identify untapped mineral resources around the state. Hitchcock’s name already was well-known in Boston, and the governor must have thought the project held promise, for he quickly approved the idea. Within days, the legislature endorsed the plan and funded it; a few weeks later, Hitchcock was appointed to carry out the survey8. It proved to be a landmark achievement, the first comprehensive survey of its kind to be authorized and funded by a state.9 It became a model that dozens of other states replicated over the following decades.10
Hitchcock began his survey on July 29, 1830, setting out from Amherst in a horse-drawn wagon accompanied by one of his students. He first traveled eastward along the Massachusetts-Connecticut state line, visiting a gneiss quarry in Monson, a lead mine in Sturbridge, and an unusual “purgatory” of jumbled rock at Sutton where he had a startling encounter with a rattlesnake. In his notes, he recorded that event with uncharacteristic mirth: “I met with a rattlesnake among these rocks but as he kindly warned me that I was invading his dominions I suffered him to retire into his den and he suffered me to leave his precincts in peace–mutually willing to be rid of one another’s company.”11 Then, on August 2, 1830, Hitchcock crossed the state line from Uxbridge, Massachusetts, to Smithfield, Rhode Island.
On his first day in Rhode Island, Hitchcock received an impressive introduction to the state’s geology and industry. He visited two quarries in Smithfield, one that annually produced 20,000 casks of lime,12 and another that yielded enough talcose slate to manufacture 60,000 whetstones per year.13 At Cumberland, he observed a massive deposit of magnetic iron ore containing “distinct crystals of feldspar, so as to become beautifully porphyritic.”14 In Johnston, he came upon a granite quarry that was the source of “the enormous pillars on the fronts of the arcade in Providence,” a reference to the Westminster Arcade.15 Completed only two years before Hitchcock’s visit, the Arcade was named to the National Register of Historic Places almost a century and a half later.16
The following day, Hitchcock traveled south from Providence to Warwick, noting “graywacke fine slate”
Two pages from Edward Hitchcock’s field notes for August 2 and 3, 1830. Image courtesy of Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Amherst, Massachusetts.
as well as “coarse puddingstone” along the way. He saw coal deposits at Warren, Warwick, and Bristol, then graywacke and granite in Tiverton and Little Compton.17
On his third day in Rhode Island, Hitchcock returned northward, stopping in Pawtucket, which at that time straddled the state line. There he saw vast ledges of graywacke and noted, “On the west or Rhode Island side [of Pawtucket] they have been extensively quarried for flagstones and here are exhibited fine alterations of the red and gray varieties of graywacke often traversed by quartz and feldspar veins. The layers of the slate are remarkably regular and smooth.”18
Again and again in his travels around northern Rhode Island, Hitchcock observed an intriguing pattern in the surface geology, large “bowlders” of one rock type lying atop the “rock in place” (i.e., bedrock) of an entirely different composition. In Bristol, for example, he noted “bowlders [which] are chiefly sienitic granite whereas the rock in place is the shale associated with coal.”19 In traveling north from Pawtucket to Cumberland, he found a single block of a distinctive conglomerate known as puddingstone weighing several tons that was surrounded by miles of talcose slate bedrock.20
At Tiverton, Hitchcock was particularly impressed by another outlier, one that he estimated to weigh more than 5,000 tons:
...there lies a bowlder of coarse graywacke conglomerate, nearly 50 feet in diameter, which was formerly covered by at least 10 feet of diluvial gravel, that has recently been removed, as well as a part of the
bowlder. Now this block must have come from the opposite side of Taunton river, or from several miles north; where alone a similar rock occurs in place.21
In his notes from his second day in Rhode Island, Hitchcock recorded what might be termed a geological epiphany regarding those scattered “bowlders”: “The north end of Rhode Island is a good place to teach the geologist not to rely on bowlders for the character of the formations.”22 The implication of that statement was clear: those isolated boulders had been transported to their present locations. But transported from where, and by what force?
Hitchcock’s keen eye already perceived an answer to the “where” question. The positions of those boulders were not random—invariably they were found southward from the nearest bedrock of that type. For example, the huge block of puddingstone he encountered in Cumberland had originated several miles north in Pawtucket.23 And the boulder of graywacke in Tiverton, he believed it, too, had been transported from several miles north.24
Perhaps most striking of all was that deposit of magnetic iron ore he encountered in Cumberland on
his first day in Rhode Island. In his final report in 1833, after observing hundreds of similar displacements of boulders across Massachusetts, Hitchcock wrote,
[That site was] more definite and decisive than any other on the subject...A rock so peculiar cannot be confounded with any other. Now if we pass along the north, east, and west sides of this bed of ore, even very near it, no scattered fragments of it are seen among the bowlders. But on the south side, they occur all the way to Providence, decreasing in size. Whether they may be found on the west side of Narraganset Bay, south of Providence, I cannot say: but I met with several pieces at the southern extremity of Rhode Island, in Newport, of only a few inches in diameter. These must have traveled nearly 35 miles from their bed, in a direction a few degrees east of south.25
A trail of scattered fragments of magnetic iron ore extending nearly the full length of Rhode Island, from Cumberland to Newport, was truly extraordinary. It may well have been the first such “boulder train” Hitchcock observed, possibly the first ever to
be described in the scientific literature of a young United States. There was a revelation in those stones, he came to realize, an important truth about the geological history of the region.
Large boulders situated far from their apparent sources was not an entirely new phenomenon to Hitchcock. On a visit to Martha’s Vineyard seven years earlier, he had encountered huge granite boulders that he at first assumed were outcrops of the bedrock. He soon learned that there were no outcrops of bedrock to be found anywhere on that island. The only possible explanation was that those boulders were transported to the island from the mainland to the north and west.26 Now, in northern Rhode Island, the picture came into sharper focus. For here, unlike the Vineyard, Hitchcock was able to trace the trajectories of those boulders, sometimes over many miles.
Hitchcock traveled some 3,000 miles over the next three years in his Massachusetts survey, and wherever he went in the Bay State and neighboring states, he saw similar evidence, huge boulders far from their source, usually south or slightly southeast from the source.27 He also observed striae, deep scratches or furrows in the bedrock, in Rhode Island, across Massachusetts, and throughout New England, all with the same northwest to southeast orientation as those boulder trains.
Most scientists of that time subscribed to the Genesis story of a great flood, the flood of Noah and his ark, a flood that according to scripture inundated the entire planet, destroying practically all life and reworking the earth’s surface. So when they found deposits of sand, gravel, and boulders strewn about on top of bedrock
over much of New England, they labeled those deposits “diluvial,” i.e., resulting from that great biblical cataclysm.
Hitchcock was not one to trifle with God’s word.
As a young man, he, too, subscribed to the “diluvial hypothesis.” In an 1823 sermon, he reminded his parishioners that the geological evidence for the “Noachian deluge” lay all around them:
Whence came these numerous worn and rounded masses of stone which are scattered over the tops of our highest hills and mountains? Surely no river could have conveyed them thither. Nothing will account for their situation but an universal deluge. Let the unbeliever then remember that as he passes over our hills the very stones cry out against him.28
Hitchcock also was an astute observer, particularly on matters geological, and those huge boulders, some weighing 100 tons or more, all apparently were transported from the north and west. What flood, however powerful, could move one of those? And why would a flood carry all that material in one direction rather than dispersing it randomly over the earth’s surface? In his 1833 report, Hitchcock made it clear that he found ample evidence to make him skeptical of the “diluvial hypothesis”:
“Making every allowance for the reduction of the gravity of these bowlders when in water, I confess I cannot conceive how such a work could have been effected by this agency [i.e., by water].”29
Then he broadened the point:
That a transient deluge, like that described in the Scriptures, could have produced, and brought into its present situation, all the diluvium which is now spread over the surface of this continent, will not, it seems to me, be admitted for a moment by any impartial observer. It has obviously been the result of different agencies, and of different epochs.30
What were those “different agencies”? That question mystified Hitchcock until 1841, when he received a copy of a geological treatise titled Études sur les Glaciers by a Swiss scientist named Louis Agassiz. Agassiz put forward the radical notion that ice, not water, was the primary agent responsible for sculpting much of the surface of the northern hemisphere, that a huge ice cap had accumulated in the northern polar regions, gradually expanding southward over hundreds of thousands of years. It was a glacier, or series of glaciers, of massive extent, and it gouged, scraped, and bulldozed the earth’s surface as it advanced.31
When Hitchcock read Agassiz’s treatise, he was an immediate convert. In an address to the Association of American Geologists in Philadelphia in April 1841, he described the theory of the glacial origin of those effects with evangelical fervor:
“While reading this work...I seemed to be acquiring a new geological sense; and I look upon our smoothed and striated rocks, our accumulations of gravel, and the tout ensemble of diluvial phenomena, with new eyes.”32
Hitchcock’s endorsement gave Agassiz’s theory wide exposure and credibility among American scientists, although there remained a good deal of resistance in some quarters—Hitchcock himself backpedaled and equivocated on the idea repeatedly. But the evidence was strong and compelling. By the 1860s, the concept of continental glaciation was accepted and embraced by most scientists in the United States and worldwide.33
As to nonscientists, particularly theologians, members of the clergy, and other people of faith who were suspicious of new scientific ideas, the fact that Reverend Edward Hitchcock, well-known as a devout man of strict orthodox Christian views, was comfortable with such a notion may well have given them license to accept the theory.
The concept of continental glaciation was a revolution in geological thinking, possibly the most important of the nineteenth century. While Hitchcock cannot take credit for originating the concept, he became one of its first advocates in North America, and his first intimations of that new geological paradigm appeared to him with the 1830 discovery of those mysterious “bowlders” of Rhode Island.
Flattened Pebbles Cleft by Titan’s Sword
In spring 1832, Hitchcock set out once again for Rhode Island, this time not by wagon but by stage. He traveled from Amherst to Worcester on the first day and from Worcester to Providence on the second. On the third day of his travels, May 12, 1832, he boarded a steamer from Providence to Newport.34
At Newport, Hitchcock met with Joseph G. Totten (1788–1864), then a colonel in the US Army.35 One of the first graduates of the US Military Academy at West Point, Totten had fought in the War of 1812, then received a commission as a lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers. In 1825, he was appointed chief engineer for construction of Fort Adams in Newport, one of the largest projects ever undertaken by the Corps to that time.36
Totten proved an invaluable guide, leading Hitchcock to the most important geological sites on Aquidneck Island, where Newport is situated. Laid out before him like a veritable geological smorgasbord were striking outcrops of all the rock types he had found further north in Rhode Island, granite, gneiss, graywacke, limestone, and coal.37 Three geological curiosities made particular impressions on Hitchcock. Of one he wrote:
In the southeast part of the granite range is an excavation on the coast worn out by the waters called the Spouting cave. The water drives in during strong winds, is often thrown into the air 30 feet above the surface of the rock, and the fissure cannot be less than 20 feet deep. I could not discover that a vein of any softer kind of rock once occupied the place of this fissure.38
A few miles to the east, Hitchcock was enthralled by another similar scene, wind whipping off the Atlantic driving waves into several wedge-shaped fissures in a ledge resulting in a virtual explosion of seawater and foam:
Geological map of the Newport, RI area. From Edward Hitchcock, Report on the Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology of Massachusetts (Amherst, MA: J. S. and C. Adams, 1833), 362.
In one spot, in a high rocky bluff, two of these fissures occur not more than 6 or 8 feet asunder; and the waves have succeeded in the course of ages, in wearing away the intervening rock, so as to form a chasm about seven rods in length, and 60 or 70 feet deep; the sides being almost exactly perpendicular. This chasm is called Purgatory; and the waves still continue their slow but certain work of destruction.39
A short distance to the north, Hitchcock observed yet another curious rock formation, a series of three steep ridges:
Half a mile to the west of the peculiar quartz rocks above described as we pass along the beach we are struck with some remarkable and bold ledges 80 rods from the shore. These high bluffs appear with valleys between them which at their southern extremity are from 15 to 20 rods wide and so low as to be marshes through which small brooks run. These valleys however become narrower and narrower as one goes north until the ridges nearly or quite unite into one.40
While that dramatic setting and those unusual rock formations were naturally of great interest to Hitchcock, what especially intrigued him on that day was
one of the rocks that made up those ridges. It went by the apt name of “puddingstone,” for it consisted of a dense substrate that looked much like hardened pudding, but pudding containing many lumps. The “pudding” was a matrix of fine-grained rock much like mortar between the stones in a wall or foundation, and the lumps were smoothed pebbles ranging from a few inches to several feet long and displaying a variety of colors suggesting different mineral compositions. Furthermore, the pebbles were flattened just as if some great weight had been placed on top of the rock, compressing them as well as the surrounding “pudding.”41
Also of great interest to the professor were vertical cracks passing through the rocks, piercing the pebbles and the surrounding cement, separating them cleanly. Hitchcock wrote in his notes:
“The cross seams of this rock have divided the pebbles as completely as if cloven asunder by the sword of some Titan–and an end view of the rock thus divided presents a quite singular appearance.”42
In his final report on the geological survey of Massachusetts, he wrote, “No one can view this phenomenon without enquiring immediately into its cause.”43
It was not until a quarter century later that the full significance of what Hitchcock observed on the coast of Rhode Island came into focus. In 1857, he undertook another geological survey, this one for the State of Vermont. Much to Hitchcock’s surprise, he found rocks in the Green Mountains very similar to those on the coast of Rhode Island. To be certain, Hitchcock and his son,
Purgatory Chasm in Middletown, RI, now owned and managed by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. From W. C. Bryant (ed.), Picturesque America or the Land We Live In (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1872), vol. 1, 371.
Three ridges at Middletown, RI. Much of the terrain pictured is now owned and managed by the Norman Bird Sanctuary. From Edward Hitchcock, Report on the Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology of Massachusetts (Amherst, MA: J. S. and C. Adams, 1833), 253.
Charles H. Hitchcock, returned to Newport to reexamine the puddingstone at Purgatory Chasm.44
Those flattened pebbles and sharp clefts in the Purgatory puddingstone, Hitchcock concluded, provided important details of how rocks were modified by heat and pressure over millennia. Those pebbles, he now realized, were formed much earlier, perhaps millions of years before the puddingstone. Each pebble was composed of minerals present in some ancient lake or sea, rolled and abraded to a spherical or elliptical shape, then deposited on the lake or sea floor surrounded by fine sand, silt, or mud. Over time, that sedimentary rock was compressed under enormous heat and pressure, probably from hundreds of feet of rock accumulated above it. Finally, the newly created rock was fractured, possibly during cooling. The result was a metamorphic rock known as gneiss. What Hitchcock stumbled upon that day in May 1832 is known today as metamorphism, a term referring to a variety of effects that occurred over the millennia, including those that deform, abrade, reshape, and often transform rocks. Hitchcock was not the first to describe metamorphism. Many earlier geologists such as James Hutton, Abraham Werner, and William Maclure had recognized the effects of heat and pressure on rock formations. Sir Charles Lyell, Scottish geologist and the most influential geologist of Hitchcock’s day, was the first to use the term “metamorphic” in its modern geological sense in his 1833 Principles of Geology.45 But Hitchcock is often credited as the first scientist to infer the details of the process from simple observation of gneiss in the field.
In 1861, Hitchcock published his most detailed account of the phenomenon in an article titled “On the conversion of Certain Conglomerates into Talcose and Micaceous Schists and Gneiss by the Elongation, Flattening and Metamorphosis of the Pebbles and the Cement.”46 To many geologists, that paper represented a milestone in the understanding of metamorphism. Geologist J. Peter Lesley, in his 1866 tribute to Hitchcock read before the National Academy of Sciences, wrote:
Hitchcock’s theorem—that gneiss is nothing more nor less than metamorphosed old conglomerates, wherein the pebbles have been pressed into laminae composed of sections of the original matrix, themselves also pressed flat and thin...is a bold assertion [that] will demand abundant proof...It is consistent with the now accepted view of metamorphism by pressure, under the conditions of a moist, low heat...its ample discussion and copious illustration by Dr. Hitchcock and his son, in the pages of his report of the Geology of the State of Vermont, will remain a part of the classics of our science.47
Nearly thirty years later, Charles L. Whittle of the US Geological Survey referred to Hitchcock’s “revolutionary ideas concerning the production of gneisses from conglomerates by metamorphism” as a “most valuable contribution to the science of geology.”48 In 1906, George P. Merrill, an early curator at the Smithsonian, wrote of Hitchcock’s 1861 article, “This paper, as a whole, marks a long stride in advance along the line of metamorphism.”49 Hitchcock’s thinking on
Puddingstone. From Edward Hitchcock, Albert D. Hager, Edward Hitchcock Jr., and Charles H. Hitchcock, Report on the Geology of Vermont (Claremont NH: Claremont Manufacturing Company, 1861), vol. 1, 36.
metamorphism sparked another revolution in American geology, and it all began with the those “flattened pebbles cleft by Titan’s sword” in puddingstone that he discovered on a windy promontory in Middletown, Rhode Island, nearly three decades earlier.
Rhode Island: A Judgment Day Refuge
By all indications, Hitchcock did not anticipate finding those “bowlders” and “flattened pebbles” when he drove his wagon into Rhode Island in August 1830. What was it that first attracted him to wander out of his home state barely a week into his survey? The answer seems to be clear: it was coal. Coal deposits were known in Rhode Island for at least seventy years when Hitchcock began his survey. Significant deposits of anthracite were being mined in Portsmouth, Cumberland, and Bristol.
By far the most interesting and important mineral in the graywacke formation is anthracite. Its most abundant and best known locality is in Portsmouth, near the northern extremity of Rhode Island [i.e., Aquidneck Island]. It was explored there somewhat extensively near the beginning of the pres-
ent century; and Dr. Meade says, that the vein then wrought, was 14 feet wide; and “with only fifteen workmen, they can raise at present from 10 to 20 chaldrons of coal per day, besides keeping the mine free from water; from which they suffer little inconvenience.”50
Hitchcock was interested in Rhode Island coal for several reasons: first, it occurred in a rock formation believed to extend into adjacent Massachusetts; second, one of the coal mines still active in 1830 was located at Cumberland, just a few miles from the state line; and third, he believed there were important lessons to be learned about coal and its economic potential in Massachusetts by examining coal operations in Rhode Island.51 One of the earliest and longestactive coal mines in Rhode Island at the time was at Portsmouth:
The quantity of anthracite raised at these mines in 1827, by 20 men and 5 boys, was 2,200 tons, and an equal quantity of slack: that is, very small coal and dust. The former sold at the mine for $4.50 per ton, of 2,240 pounds; and the slack for $1 per ton. The slack was used for burning lime and bricks.52
For a time, Rhode Island coal was in demand locally and regionally. Reports appeared regularly in East Coast newspapers of departures of Rhode Island coal shipments bound for New York City, Albany, and Boston. “Rhode Island coal is now selling in New-York for five dollars a ton,” reported the Vermont Chronicle in April 182953; red ash coal from Rhode Island was
advertised for sale in Boston in 1843, according to the Daily Atlas.54 Ashley reported that coal from Portsmouth was for a time shipped to Poughkeepsie, New York,55 and coal from Cranston was shipped to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.56
The best coal was mostly employed for fires in families, except in New York, where it was used for making glass; for generating steam under the common circular or round boiler; for blacksmiths; and in general for any purpose where anthracites are employed.57
The Portsmouth mine closed sometime between 1809 and 1816, according to Hitchcock. Among the reasons cited for its failure were the lack of skill of the mine operators and the failure to sort the coal by size, although the practice of “permitting the workmen to have from half a pint to a pint of spirituous liquors during the working hours” also was considered detrimental.58
Furthermore, the quality of Rhode Island coal was notoriously inferior to Pennsylvania coal—water content was high, impurities abundant—and it was difficult to ignite and keep burning. The problem resulted in many humorous references in the popular press. “A gentleman who belongs to the Schuylkill Coal Company has recommended to me to build my fire proof hotel of Rhode Island coal,” wrote Caleb Coody in an 1825 New York newspaper.59 One witticism often quoted in newspapers suggested that the wicked should seek refuge in Rhode Island on the Judgment Day because it would be the last place to burn.60
Even the great American poet William Cullen Bryant felt compelled to compose a poem on the subject titled “Meditation on Rhode-Island Coal”:
Dark anthracite! that reddenest on my hearth, Thou in those island mines dost slumber long, But now thou art come forth to warm the earth
And put to shame the men that mean thee wrong; Thou shalt be coals of fire to those that hate thee, And warm the shins of all that underrate thee.
Yea, they did wrong thee foully, they who mocked Thy honest face, and said thou would’st not burn, Of leaving thee to chimney-pieces talked, And grew profane, and swore, in bitter scorn
That men might to thy inner caves retire, And there, unsinged, abide the day of fire.61
While Hitchcock was aware of the problems associated with Rhode Island coal, he insisted that they
o PP os I te : View of four miners in a Cranston coal mine (Courtesy of the Cranston Historical Society).
b elow: Surface plant in Cranston where coal was crushed, screened, and bagged, circa 1920–1930. Courtesy of Rhode Island Digital Archive, RI State Archives.
Portsmouth coal mine, ca. 1910–11. Image courtesy of the John T. Pierce Sr. Portsmouth Historical Collection, Portsmouth Free Public Library, Portsmouth, RI.
might be overcome: “But even though we should admit that the New England anthracite is a good deal inferior to that from Pennsylvania, it may still be very valuable.”62
Of great interest to Hitchcock were reports of coal in Massachusetts, especially in Worcester and Mansfield. He believed that what he saw in Rhode Island would help him to assess the prospects for marketable coal in the Bay State.63
On September 1, 1830, Hitchcock visited the mine in Worcester that had received some attention in newspapers. That mine already had ceased operation. He reported that the coal was inferior to the anthracite of Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, but he was not entirely pessimistic about Worcester coal, concluding that “in a country so wanting in coal as New England, a deposit of inferior coal is not to be regarded as useless. The time will probably come when it will be regarded as very valuable.”64
A “coal rush” of sorts began in Mansfield, Massachusetts, in 1835, perhaps prompted by the publication of Hitchcock’s report. Several mining ventures were undertaken in that town over the next eighty years. Some produced modest quantities of marketable coal for a time, but none lasted. The last coal mine in the Bay State was abandoned in 1917.65 Despite Hitchcock’s guarded enthusiasm, interest in coal mining in Massachusetts was short-lived.
Conclusion
Edward Hitchcock’s life was a dual journey of faith, in God and in science. But unlike many others with
deep religious convictions, Hitchcock believed that God guided the search for scientific truth just as surely as he guided the search for moral and spiritual truth. Hitchcock was by his own assertion a “man of facts,” one who could not deny the evidence of his own senses and his own reasoning.
Many years earlier, Hitchcock advised his parishioners that the evidence for biblical truth lay all around them: “Let the unbeliever then remember that as he passes over our hills the very stones cry out against him.”66 In time, those “very stones” cried out to Edward Hitchcock, offering important insights into earth’s history. And some of the stones that cried out the loudest and had the most important messages to offer were the “bowlders” and puddingstones of Rhode Island.
aut H or’s n ote : I am indebted to the Amherst College Archives and Special Collections for preserving and providing access to the unpublished writings of Edward Hitchcock.
Robert T. M C Master is a retired professor of biology at Holyoke Community College, Holyoke, Massachusetts. In 2021, he published the first biography of Edward Hitchcock, All the Light Here Comes from Above: The Life and Legacy of Edward Hitchcock.
notes
1. J. Percy Moore, “William Maclure-Scientist and Humanitarian,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 91, no. 3 (August 29, 1947): 234–249.
2. William Maclure, “Observations on the Geology of the United States, explanatory of a Geological Map,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 6, part 2 (1809): 411–428.
3. Robert T. McMaster, All the Light Here Comes from Above: The Life and Legacy of Edward Hitchcock (Williamsburg, MA: Unquomonk Press, 2021).
4. Edward Hitchcock, “Remarks on the Geology and Mineralogy of a Section of Massachusetts on Connecticut River, with a Part of New-Hampshire and Vermont,” American Journal of Science and the Arts 1, no. 2 (1818): 105–116. (hereafter cited as AJS)
5. Edward Hitchcock, “A Sketch of the Geology, Mineralogy, and Scenery, of the Regions contiguous to the River Connecticut,” AJS 6, nos. 1–2 (1823): 1–86, 201–236, and AJS 7, no. 1 (1824): 1–30; “Notices of the Geology of Martha’s Vineyard, and the Elizabeth Islands,” AJS 7, no. 2 (1824): 240–8; “Sketch of the Geology of Portland and Its Vicinity,” Boston Journal of Natural History 1, no. 3. (1836): 306–347; Report on the Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology of Massachusetts (Amherst, MA: J. S. and C. Adams, 1833); and Edward Hitchcock, Albert D. Hager, Edward Hitchcock Jr., and Charles H. Hitchcock, Report on the Geology of Vermont, 2 vols. (Claremont, NH: Claremont Manufacturing Company, 1861).
6. Robert T. McMaster, The Published Works of Edward Hitchcock (2022), https://www.edwardhitchcock.com/PublishedWorksof EdwardHitchcockMcMaster2022.pdf, accessed on May 1, 2024.
7. In addition to his decades of service to Amherst College, Hitchcock also was a founding trustee of Mount Holyoke College and a strong advocate for the establishment of a state agricultural college in Massachusetts, an effort that resulted in the charter of what is today the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
8. The Massachusetts legislature appropriated $1,000 for Hitchcock’s salary plus a modest amount for related expenses. George P. Merrill, Contributions to a History of American State Geological and Natural History Surveys (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1920), 150–158.
9. A very limited geological survey of North Carolina was undertaken in 1824 with support from the state. The survey included fewer than half the state; the final report was fewer than 100 pages
with no maps, illustrations, or data. Denison Olmsted, Report on the Geology of North Carolina, Parts I & II (Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Board of Agriculture, 1824, 1825).
10. In 1839, the General Assembly of Rhode Island contracted with Charles T. Jackson, a Harvard-trained geologist, to carry out a geological survey of that state, the fifteenth state to do so since Hitchcock’s Massachusetts survey. Merrill, 1920, 456.
11. The accounts of Hitchcock’s visits to Rhode Island are from his unpublished field notes held in the Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College, indicated as “Notes” below. They are located in Series 5-C of the Edward and Orra White Hitchcock Collection, Box 11, folders 7–10. To view digital images of Hitchcock’s handwritten notes from the survey, go to https://acdc .amherst.edu/view/EdwardOrraWhiteHitchcock, then narrow the search by date to 1830–1833 and by genres to “Field notes.” A complete transcription of Hitchcock’s geological survey notes prepared by the author may be found at www.edwardhitchcock .com/transcriptions.html.
12. Notes, August 2, 1830.
13. Hitchcock, Report, 1833, 354.
14. Hitchcock, Report, 1833, 154.
15. Notes, August 3, 1830.
16. National Register of Historic Places 1966–1994 (Washington, DC: National Park Service, 1994), 725.
17. Notes, August 3, 1830.
18. Notes, August 6, 1830.
19. Notes, August 3, 1830.
20. Notes, August 4, 1830.
21. Hitchcock, Final Report on the Geology of Massachusetts (Northampton, MA: J. H. Butler, 1841), 393.
22. Notes, August 3, 1830.
23. Notes, August 4, 1830.
24. Hitchcock, Final Report, 393.
25. Hitchcock, Report, 1833, 154.
26. Hitchcock, “Notices of the Geology of Martha’s Vineyard, and the Elizabeth Islands,” 1824.
27. Robert T. McMaster, “Edward Hitchcock’s Geological Survey of Massachusetts: 1830–1833,” Earth Sciences History 39, no. 1 (2020): 91–119.
28. Edward Hitchcock, unpublished manuscript, Sermon No. 128, “Noachian Deluge,” II Peter 2:5, January 1823, Edward and Orra White Hitchcock Collection, Amherst College Archives and Special Collection, Series 3, Sub-series A, Box 7, folder 7.
29. Hitchcock, Report, 1833, 158.
30. Hitchcock, Report, 1833, 142.
31. Louis Agassiz, Études sur les Glaciers (Neuchâtel, Switzerland: Jent et Gassmann, 1840). Recent research suggests that much of that work had been taken without credit from the writings of German-Swiss geologist Jean de Charpentier and others.
32. Edward Hitchcock, “First Anniversary Address Before the Association of American Geologists,” AJS 41, no. 2 (July–September 1841): 232–275.
33. McMaster, 2021, 163–165. For more on the debate about continental glaciation, see Jordan D. Marché II, “Edward Hitchcock, Roderick Murchison, and Rejection of the Alpine Glacial Theory (1840–1845),” Earth Sciences History 37, no. 2 (2018): 380–402.
34. Notes, May 12, 1832.
35. Notes, May 13, 1832.
36. J. G. Barnard, “Memoir of Joseph Gilbert Totten (1788–1864),” in Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences 1 (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1877), 35–97.
37. Notes, May 12, 1832.
38. Notes, May 13, 1832.
39. Hitchcock, Report, 1833, 107.
40. Notes, May 13, 1832.
41. Hitchcock, Final Report, 535–6.
42. Notes, May 13, 1832.
43. Hitchcock, Report, 1833, 254.
44. Hitchcock et. al, Report on the Geology of Vermont, 1861. For more information on the Vermont survey, see Robert T. McMaster, “Against the Odds: Edward Hitchcock and the Vermont Geological Survey,” Vermont History 91, no. 2 (2023): 103–109.
45. Charles A. Lyell, Principles of Geology, 3 vols. (London: John Murray), 1832.
46. Edward Hitchcock, “On the conversion of certain Conglomerates into Talcose and Micaceous Schists and Gneiss, by the Elongation, Flattening and Metamorphosis of the Pebbles and the Cement,” AJS, Second Series 31, no. 93 (1861): 372–392.
47. J. P. Lesley, “Memoir of Edward Hitchcock 1793–1864,” in Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences 1 (Washington, DC, National Academy of Sciences, 1877), 130.
48. Charles L. Whittle, “The Occurrence of Algonkian Rocks in Vermont and the Evidence for Their Sub-Division,” The Journal of Geology 2, no. 4 (May–June 1894), 423.
49. George P. Merrill, Contributions to the History of American Geology (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1906), 511.
50. Hitchcock, Report, 1833, 275. According to Hitchcock, the quotation of Meade is from Bruce’s Mineralogical Journal, January 1820, 84.
51. Hitchcock, Final Report, 1841, 135.
52. Hitchcock, Final Report, 1841, 135.
53. Vermont Chronicle, January 16, 1829, 3.
54. Daily Atlas, March 13, 1843, 1.
55. George H. Ashley, Rhode Island Coal (Washington, DC: US Geological Survey, 1915), 10.
56. Ashley, 1915, 11.
57. Hitchcock, Final Report, 1841, 135.
58. Hitchcock, Final Report, 1841, 136, and Ashley, 1915.
59. Letter from Caleb Coody, New-York Spectator, October 18, 1825, 1.
60. For example, “Our Mineral Wealth,” Lowell (MA) Daily Citizen and News, September 22, 1869, 2.
61. William C. Bryant, “Meditation on Rhode-Island Coal,” The New-York Review 2 (April, 1826): 386–8.
62. Hitchcock, Final Report, 1841, 137.
63. Hitchcock, Report, 1833, 42–47.
64. Hitchcock, Final Report, 1841, 128.
65. For an excellent accounting of the history of the coal industry in Mansfield, Massachusetts, see Jennie F. Copeland, Every Day But Sunday: The Romantic Age of New England Industry, 4th ed. (Boston, MA: Blue Mustang Press, 1936).
66. Sermon No. 128, 1823.
COLLEEN M. HEEMEYER, AICP
Bristol’s Guiteras Memorial School A Town’s Legacy of Progressive Education Ideals
TH
e Gu I teras Memor I al S CH ool , in Bristol, Rhode Island, rises above the harbor as a stately landmark on the northern edge of the town’s historic core. The school is a three-story, neoclassical-style building overlooking Silver Creek, a tidal estuary that empties into the Bristol Harbor. Recent events have cast attention on another building in the Bristol-Warren Regional School District that may have important implications for Guiteras Memorial School. In November 2023, Bristol and Warren voters approved a $200 million school bond. While the majority of the bond money will fund the replacement of the 1965 Mount Hope High School building on Chestnut Street, about $35 million is available for improvements at other buildings in the district, including Kickemuit Middle School and Hugh Cole Elementary School, both in Warren.1
As currently envisioned, reorganizing the space in these buildings allows for the closure of Guiteras Memorial School. In an interview, Bristol Warren Regional School Superintendent Ana C. Riley stated, “Guiteras is in the worst shape. It needs the most work, it isn’t the most effective design for a K–5 building because it is three stories [tall], it has very narrow, steep stairwells, a basement cafeteria, [and] a library
above : The west elevation of the Guiteras Memorial School, Bristol, RI in 2023 as seen from the corner of Hope and Washington Streets. The pediment contains the Guiteras family crest carved in Indiana limestone. Image by author.
b elow: The east elevation of the Guiteras Memorial School, Bristol, RI in 2023. The entrance to the gym/auditorium is visible in the photo’s center. Image by author.
on the third floor. It was just never meant to house a K–5 [school].”2 The Bristol Warren School Committee voted in mid-November 2024 to close the school at the end of the 2024–2025 academic year.3 Almost a century after its completion, the Guiteras Memorial School seems poised to embark upon a third chapter in its history.
In 2022 and 2023, I researched and prepared a nomination for the National Register of Historic Places on behalf of Guiteras Memorial School. This project was part of a larger effort in Bristol to list on the National Register historic resources located in FEMA flood zones. Once listed, the school is eligible to receive emergency funding in the case of flood damage. National Register resources also potentially are eligible to receive historic rehabilitation tax credits, which would aid in the adaptive reuse of the school. The Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission is currently reviewing the nomination. Evolution and change have remained a constant in the building’s history, and the status of the building has evoked strong feelings and public controversy.
Designed by architect Wallis E. Howe of the Rhode Island architectural firm Clarke & Howe, construction of the school took place between 1925 and 1927. The school’s completion relieved significant overcrowding in Bristol’s public schools created by the town’s growing population during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Guiteras Memorial School was the first purpose-built junior high school in Rhode Island.4 While the design of the school reflected Progressive Era educational values in its layout and constituent parts, the exterior portico and its connection to
a locally significant historic building signaled a more conservative architectural view that coincidentally fulfilled contemporary architectural theories about school construction.
The school’s planning and construction was very much a local undertaking, and several years of public discussion and controversy preceded the school’s opening. Funding to construct the school came from a bequest of Ramon Guiteras Jr., a Bristol native who died in 1917 after a successful career as a New York City-based urologist. Guiteras was the son of Ramon Guiteras Sr. of Matanzas, Cuba. The elder Guiteras was a banker who worked closely with Bristol’s slaveholding DeWolf family in Cuba and eventually married Elizabeth Wardwell, a Bristol native.5 Thus, the school, because it was built using funds partially inherited from the slave trade and modeled after a house built from funds generated by enslaved labor on Cuban plantations, represents the long shadow cast by the legacy of slavery in Rhode Island.6
Guiteras’s legacy also continued a tradition started in Bristol by senator and slave trader James DeWolf, who donated his academy building to the town in 1840. Later, Colonel Samuel P. Colt, the great nephew of James DeWolf and grandson of George DeWolf, contributed the money needed to construct Bristol’s first high school building, the 1906 Colt Memorial School on Hope Street (now part of Colt Andrews Elementary School).7
The town of Bristol received $263,161 from Ramon Guiteras Jr.’s will with instructions to use the sum to construct a school that reflected the appearance of the former Mudge House on Poppasquash Road named
was a way to incorporate practical or vocational training throughout a pupil’s public school education, and also an attempt to use space more efficiently. Students were split into classes, or platoons, so that while one group was studying a subject in the classroom, another group received non-classroom instruction (art, physical education, or manual training), ideally in specially equipped rooms, with spaces such as a gymnasium or auditorium as options. Students moved from one area of a school to another depending on their schedule instead of staying in one classroom for the entire school day.
in memory of his mother, Elizabeth Wardwell Guiteras. The gift of Guiteras Memorial School was fortuitous, and the Bristol Phoenix encouraged the School Committee, the legal entity entrusted with deciding on and securing a site for the new school, to “take action without delay.”8 In the late 1910s and 1920s, the growing school-aged population of Bristol was putting significant strain on the system’s eight existing school buildings, Colt Memorial High School, John Post Reynolds School, Byfield School, Walley School, Oliver School, Hayman-Burton School, Taft School, and Mason School.9
By 1921, William C. Hobbs, who had been appointed school superintendent two years earlier, noted the
overcrowding in his annual report to the Bristol Town Council.10 To address the overcrowding problem, in 1922, Hobbs instituted a type of staggered scheduling at Reynolds School termed “work-study-play,” which accommodated additional children within the school’s existing space. According to the 1925 Annual Report of the School Committee, this system housed thirteen classes of children in eleven classrooms.11
Work-study-play, or the “platoon” system, as it was known by both names in Bristol, was an early twentieth century Progressive Era education reform program. First developed by Gary, Indiana, elementary and middle school superintendent William A. Wirt in 1907 as the “Gary Plan,” the work-study-play plan
Wirt’s development of the work-study-play system was a means to alleviate overcrowding in his school district. Gary, Indiana, a city founded in 1906 by the United States Steel Corporation and home to its eponymous Gary Works, experienced explosive growth in the first third of the twentieth century.12 School funding in the city, based on property-tax evaluations, lagged significantly behind population growth, so classroom space and educational buildings were insufficient. Wirt’s innovation was a way to efficiently accommodate the student body.13
Wirt believed that Gary was not unique in its need to accommodate growing and diverse school population, and the work-study-play system was simply a framework around which a community could design a system to fit its own needs in terms of population and facilities. “They have been developed in response to the typically current needs of a normal American municipality. They have had to meet the same situation which all American cities are confronting in their effort to educate all the children of all the people.”14 Wirt’s
An undated portrait of Ramon Guiteras, Jr. (1858–1917). Image courtesy of the Didusch Center for Urologic History, American Urological Association.
William A. Wirt (1874–1938) in 1917. Image from the George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [lC-DIG-ggbain-25341].
legacy is complicated by his later attacks on President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and a subsequent libel suit, but his theories on education were prominent during the first third of the twentieth century.15
Superintendent Hobbs, a Maine native educated at Bates College and Harvard University, arrived in Bristol after serving in numerous teaching and administrative roles in urban school districts in Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.16 He was evidently proud of the progressive work-study-play initiative at Reynolds School, noting in his 1925 school committee report that he presented it as part of an exhibit of work by platoon schools at a meeting of the National Education Association’s Department of Superintendence. He pointed out that the contribution was one of only two from New England—one from Hartford, Connecticut, being the other—and that the “...Reynolds School exhibit was assigned a prominent position, located, as it was, between the exhibits of Detroit and Newark.”17
In yet another Progressive Era initiative, the School Committee was in unanimous agreement that the new school should be designed as a junior high school for grades 7, 8, and 9.18 At the time, a junior high school denoted a vocational-education theme. This would be Hobbs’s opportunity to incorporate specifically designed spaces for manual training and vocational education alongside traditional classroom spaces in a building purposefully designed for this style of learning.19
Later that year, the Bristol Phoenix newspaper reported that Hobbs complimented the school committee on this decision while also noting the problem
of overcrowding in the school system’s other buildings, stating:
I speak also with consciousness of the action the school committee has already taken in favoring the project of a Junior High School. That action represents a progressive attitude on the part of the committee and is very encouraging. In most general terms, the Guiteras School will furnish relief for both the Reynolds and the Colt Memorial High School as they will each need it year by year...According to most educational doctrine and practice, in the most favored communities, differentiation in studies is provided for the children on the completion of the sixth grade. With the Guiteras School, Bristol becomes one of these favored communities.20
A new junior high school for Bristol, a building with spaces designed for the vocational and manual training activities that exemplified this educational concept, would have been a natural extension of Wirt’s educational philosophy as illustrated in his plans for the Gary, Indiana, schools. Wirt was heavily influenced by educational reformer and philosopher John Dewey, his professor at the University of Chicago. Dewey’s 1899 pamphlet The School and Society changed the way that many educators thought about their profession. For Dewey, schools were places of learning by experience versus rote memorization and recitation that was common practice at the time. Dewey coined the term “manual training” and hoped that by adding practical experiences and vocational training to the curriculum, more children would be encouraged to continue their
education beyond grade 8.21 Indeed, in 1910, fewer than ten percent of Americans had high school diplomas. This number increased to about 50 percent by the 1950s.22 By comparison, in 2022, 91.1 percent of Americans 25 years or older had a high school diploma.23
If a high school education were not achievable for some children, educators like Dewey and Wirt—and Hobbs—hoped that the final two or three years of formal education would include vocational skills that could translate into later employment.
As Hobbs knew, this new junior high concept required new buildings that included specialized spaces for the manual training that Dewey deemed essential to modern educational practices. The exterior design of a school building was considered just as important.
At least two architects worked with and wrote extensively about school design for the first third of the twentieth century. Architect William Butts Ittner was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1864. He graduated from the architecture program at Cornell University in 1887 and was elected commissioner of school buildings in St. Louis in 1897. He then became the architect for the city’s board of education from 1910 until 1916. In 1922, Ittner lectured on school planning at New York University and the National Education Association appointed him to the Committee on Administration of Secondary Education. He had a profound influence on American school design, not just in St. Louis but nationwide, and he created several standard plan types for use in school designs. Ittner designed at least 430 schools throughout the United States before his death in 1936.24
Architect James O. Betelle was born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1897 and worked in the architectural offices of Cope & Stewardson in Philadelphia, Cass Gilbert in New York, and John Russell Pope, also in New York. Between 1910 and 1916, he worked in a partnership based in Newark, New Jersey, with Ernest F. Guilbert, primarily designing schools. Betelle lectured on school design to audiences of school administrators at Columbia University between 1917 and 1925.25 For Ittner, a classically derived architectural style such as colonial, Georgian or Greek revival, was the way to integrate new citizens into the American way of life and to create a sense of community. This idea was perhaps perceived as extremely important during decades of high immigration to the United States. Describing a school in Longview, Washington, Ittner stated: “As Longview is in the strictest sense an American city, colonial architecture was chosen.”26 A 1920 editorial in Architecture agreed with Ittner’s views and called on schools “to help in the great problem of Americanizing our mixed peoples; why not make buildings themselves a part of the teaching of an appreciation of architecture?”27 Ittner also expressed his view that architectural styles should vary by region, noting: “in the Middle West, North, and East, school building plans are more of a compact type.” He went on to write, “Construction must be heavier, brick being the preferred material.”28 In Bristol, a building constructed as a reminder of the town’s early architectural character would have been ideally suited to convey such ideals to new arrivals.
Betelle had echoed this sentiment a decade earlier, writing in the American School Board Journal, “The
style adopted for any school should be, in the first place, appropriate for a school building, and in the second place appropriate for the place in which the school is to be built...Careful consideration should be given to the style so as to properly influence future buildings of the town and to make the school a model of good taste not only in its educational program but in the building as well.” Betelle continued, seemingly in reference to the Guiteras Memorial School, by writing, “In a small town in New England or in the South where there are colonial traditions and where many homes and other buildings are built in the colonial style, the choice is already made. It would be in distinctly bad taste to place a school of the Gothic or Mission style in such a town.”29
Guiteras Jr.’s will stipulated that the new school’s design should reference the Mark Anthony DeWolf House, also known as the Mudge House, formerly on Poppasquash Road in Bristol. The reason behind this stipulation is not known, but fortuitously, this classically inspired architectural vocabulary fit well with prevailing theories of school design. The Greek Revival-style Mudge House, designed by well-known Bristol architect Russell Warren and completed in 1830, burned in 1919, two years after Guiteras Jr.’s death. It featured six Corinthian columns spanning a temple-front facade.30 Bristol residents supported these ideas. During a special town meeting held in March 1919, residents voted to accept the terms of Guiteras Jr.’s will.31 Approximately three weeks later, in early April 1919, a special committee formed by the School Committee to plan the construction and furnishing of the school building held its first meeting at
A 1915 postcard of the Mudge House located on Poppasquash Road, Bristol, RI. Image courtesy of the Fulton/Howe Collection, Box 33, Roger Williams University Archives.
Colt Memorial High School (now part of Colt Andrews Elementary School).32
Planning of the new junior high school attracted national attention within the educational community.
An article in the Bristol Phoenix noted that F. B. Dresslar of the National Board of Education had volunteered to advise the committee on planning and furnishing the building and that he was named an advisory architect. Fletcher Bascomb Dresslar was a professor at the George Peabody College for Teachers in Nashville, Tennessee, and had spent many years working for the U.S. Bureau of Education. He went on to become the director of the Interstate School Building Service.33
Colonel Samuel P. Colt, the committee’s chair, recommended the Providence-based firm of Clarke & Howe as architects for the proposed new school. It is unclear if the committee seriously considered any other architectural firm for the project.34 Wallis Eastburn Howe was the youngest of eighteen children born to Mark Anthony DeWolfe Howe with his third wife, Eliza Whitney. Although Wallis Howe was born in Philadelphia, where his father served as an Episcopal priest (and later the diocese’s first bishop), his family had long established roots in Bristol: Mark Anthony DeWolfe Howe was a great nephew to the slave-owning Senator James DeWolf.35 Wallis Howe graduated in 1889 from Lehigh University and in 1892 from MIT, where he studied architecture. By 1894, he had opened a short-lived architectural office in Bristol. In 1896, he joined the Providence office of Martin & Hall, and during his time with the firm, he served as the supervising architect for the YMCA building at 450 Hope Street.36
Howe left Martin & Hall to join the firm of Clarke & Spaulding as a partner in 1901. Clarke & Spaulding was prominent in the state and known mostly for residential designs. In 1903, the firm received the commission for the Federal Building on Kennedy Plaza in Providence. This commission led to other academic and public buildings, including Guiteras Memorial School. The firm would undergo several evolutions in the next three decades as partners arrived and departed. The firm briefly was known as Clarke, Spaulding & Howe, then Clarke, Howe & Homer, before becoming Clark & Howe.37
The firm’s other buildings in Bristol include the 1909 Benjamin Church Manor. The house was commissioned by the Church family, of which one of the firm’s draftspeople, Samuel W. Church, was a member. Church was heavily involved in the designs for Guiteras Memorial School and became a partner in 1928, just after the completion of the building. That year the firm became Howe & Church after partner Prescott O. Clarke’s retirement.38
For the next several years, disagreements over the school’s site delayed construction, but Clarke & Howe continued design work. “Very moderate” progress continued in 1922, when the building committee met with officials of nearby school districts to learn more about the junior high format and to view preliminary designs presented by Wallis Howe.39 In March 1922, the Guiteras Memorial School building committee approved Clarke & Howe’s designs for the building, which was described as “two stories high with a basement and constructed of limestone and buff brick. The front of the structure will be of Corinthian design having six pillars similar to the Mark Anthony DeWolf mansion, Poppasquash owned by Mrs. H. H. Mudge which burned about two years ago. It will provide for 300 pupils with eight study rooms, an auditorium capable of being converted into a gymnasium and the basement will contain bench shops for pre-vocational work and other purposes.”40 As a small nod to the Guiteras family, the executed design for the portico’s pediment included a round cartouche with five carved greyhound
heads beneath a stylized helmet detail. This motif was the coat of arms of Mateo Guiteras, Guiteras Jr.’s paternal great-grandfather.41 The architects estimated the cost of the new building to be about $200,000.42 Meanwhile, site selection dragged on into late 1924, when in October, more than five years of indecision and controversy were brought to a close by a four-totwo School Committee vote to select the “Washington Street site.”43 The School Committee embarked on negotiations with the Washington Street property owners, securing acquisition costs by December of that year. To confirm that the Town of Bristol was ready to conclude the site-selection phase of the Guiteras Memorial School project, the Guiteras Memorial School building committee voted eleven to three to approve the Washington Street site.44 School Committee member Cornelius J. Hasbrouck, however, was among the minority opposed to the selected site. Hasbrouck supported a site on High Street, approximately where Our Lady of Mt. Carmel School stands at High and State Streets today. After the school committee vote, he sued to stop further progress on the Washington Street site.45 When this failed, he filed for an injunction in Superior Court to
First floor plan of Guiteras Memorial School, published in the 1926 Bristol School Committee Annual Report.
Image courtesy of the Bristol Historical and Preservation Society.
prevent the town’s treasurer from paying out any funds toward the acquisition of the Washington Street site. This injunction was denied.46 The denial, however, did not end Hasbrouck’s efforts to stop progress on the Washington Street site. In January 1925, he requested a hearing in front of State Commissioner of Education Walter E. Ranger about the selection of the Washington Street property. The Bristol Phoenix suggested that Hasbrouck’s motivation in delaying further progress was at least partly political, as he thought his stance on Guiteras Memorial School would help his reelection campaign to the school committee.47 Indeed, just before the school committee election in March, Hasbrouck wrote a letter to the editors of the Bristol Phoenix in which he suggested an entirely new school committee was required to save Bristol from “extravagance” in the purchase of the Washington Street site.48
The voters of Bristol did not agree with this sentiment, and Hasbrouck was not reelected to a new term on the school committee.49 In addition, in confirmation of the school committee’s choice of site, the state hearing found the committee’s selection of the Washington Street site to be appropriate. The school committee’s decision was further reinforced by the Rhode
Second floor plan of Guiteras Memorial School, published in the 1926 Bristol School Committee Annual Report. Image courtesy of the Bristol Historical and Preservation Society.
Basement floor plan of Guiteras Memorial School, showing locations of workshops and training rooms, published in the 1926 Bristol School Committee Annual Report. Image courtesy of the Bristol Historical and Preservation Society.
Island Supreme Court, which upheld the school committee’s April 1925 vote in favor of acquiring the site.50 By mid-1925, the school committee was eager to proceed. Arrangements to purchase the three parcels on Washington Street, to prepare the site, and to further develop the school plans continued throughout that spring and summer. The School Committee visited a junior high school in Newtonville, Massachusetts, in preparation for reviewing plans for Guiteras Memorial School.51 Unfortunately, following the end of World War I, construction costs began rising rapidly, and Clarke & Howe’s initial budget now underestimated the building’s cost. The School Committee received two preliminary bids, both from Providence general contractors, one for $297,000 and a second, in July, for $341,000.52 At this point, the balance of
Guiteras Jr.’s estate had grown to about $350,000, leaving enough funds to construct the school, but not to furnish it.53 Clarke & Howe worked to change the plans. A third floor lunchroom was moved to the second floor, and the gymnasium would serve double duty as an assembly hall.54 The revised plans were accepted by the building committee in late September 1925.55
With so much progress made in 1925, the School Committee turned its sights to a cornerstone ceremony. Just before Christmas, the Bristol Phoenix devoted the back page of its December 22, 1925, edition to covering the cornerstone celebration which occurred a few days after the eighth anniversary of Guiteras Jr.’s death.56
Construction continued through 1926, and in late September of that year, the Guiteras Memorial School building committee was ready to appoint a special subcommittee to acquire school furnishings. The plans were to buy 450 desks for the school’s eleven classrooms and 500 seats for the auditorium, all at an expected cost of $25,000 (equivalent to $448,670 in 2024).57 The Bristol Phoenix delineated the specific spaces within the school: the general-science room, the sewing domestic-science room, the manualtraining and printing rooms, the lunchroom, the administration room, and the library.58 In November, the committee awarded the contracts for desks and chairs for seven classrooms along with fifteen teachers’ desks and chairs to Heywood-Wakefield of Boston. Kenney Bros. and Wolkins Inc. of Boston were to supply the furnishings for the remaining four classrooms. The Mahoney Chair Company of Gardner, Massachu-
a bove : Girls working in the Guiteras Memorial School’s instructional kitchen in 1927 or 1928. from the 1927 Bristol School Committee Annual Report. Image courtesy of the Bristol Historical and Preservation Society, Bristol, RI 02809.
b elow: Girls working in the sewing room at the Guiteras Memorial School in 1927 or 1928, published in the 1927 Bristol School Committee Annual Report. Image courtesy of the Bristol Historical and Preservation Society, Bristol, RI 02809.
setts, received the contract for 480 auditorium chairs. Finally, the committee awarded the contract for lockers to the Manufacturing Equipment and Engineering Company of Framingham, Massachusetts. By that point, the only outstanding furnishing item was the selection of desks for the commercial room.59
Construction finished in the spring of 1927, with the Bristol Phoenix reporting throughout on furniture deliveries to the school and an inspection by building committee members, architect Wallis Howe, and the contractor, E. Turgeon.60 The School Committee then turned its attention to the details of the Guiteras Memorial School’s operations. At an April 1927 meeting, the committee set the operating hours of the school as 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 P.m. The committee also hired 20-year-old Harold C. Clark(e) of Worcester, a soon-to-be graduate of the Fitchburg Normal School (now Fitchburg State University), to teach the manual-training course for an annual salary of $1,700 ($30,684.00 in 2024).61 Superintendent Hobbs submitted a curriculum plan, referring to the work-studyplay plan then in effect at Reynolds School and noting:
“The teachers and pupils, therefore, have had four years of preparation for the Guiteras Memorial School. They will feel no jolt, nor the slightest sense of dislocation in making the change. They will simply have a better place in which to live and better tools with which to work.”62 At the meeting, the school committee also voted to purchase from the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company a 70-foot, 10-inch-diameter hollow mast, formerly part of a New York-class racing boat, to serve as the school flagpole. Howe offered that his firm would donate a flag for the pole.63
At the end of the 1926–1927 school year, the school committee assigned teachers to Guiteras Memorial School and announced the curricula for the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades which reflected Dewey’s manual-training concept. Seventh grade consisted of English, mathematics, history, geography, science, physical training, practical arts, drawing, music, auditorium, library, and conference. For students “of superior scholarship in language, or who [had] college in view,” a French course was offered. The eighth grade had the addition of social studies, commercial studies, clubs, homeroom activities, and the options of Latin or French. Ninth grade had the additional option of agricultural studies.64
With the opening of the school only weeks away, purchases of equipment and additional fixtures continued, along with the completion of various interior items. Frederick W. McCauley completed the lunchroom painting. Algernon L. Johnson supplied crockery and curtains, and Mitchell, Woodbury & Company of Boston supplied the tables and stools. The Scientific Equipment Company of New York was scheduled to install equipment in the science room. The School Committee voted to purchase print-shop equipment from American Type Founders Company
above : Boys working in the woodshop in 1927 or 1928, published in the 1927 Bristol School Committee Annual Report. Image courtesy of the Bristol Historical and Preservation Society.
b elow: Students practicing their typing skills at the Guiteras Memorial School in 1927 or 1928, published in the 1927 Bristol School Committee Annual Report. Image courtesy of the Bristol Historical and Preservation Society, Bristol, RI 02809.
of Boston, and the practical-arts teacher submitted a list of needed supplies and equipment. Fixtures for the library, the administration room, and the nurse’s station, along with the auditorium stage curtain, remained outstanding.65
According to the Bristol Phoenix, classes were set officially to begin at Guiteras Memorial School on September 6, 1927.66 After the first week of classes, 382 pupils were enrolled at the school.67 A proposed dedication ceremony was delayed until all equipment and furnishings were finally delivered.68
Before the ceremony occurred, the Bristol Phoenix printed an article that gushed about the school’s opening and offered what turned out to be an important record of the building’s original layout and the quality of its educational spaces. The central, templefront portion of the building facing the harbor contained the administration department and library, with the wings containing classrooms (the article noted the rooms’ abundant natural light). Each floor contained conference rooms and restrooms for both teachers and pupils. The basement contained manual training spaces; the instructional kitchen and model dining room; and printing, woodworking, and sewing workshops, along with bicycle storage and boys’ and girls’ locker rooms and shower spaces. The article described the modern equipment available for use in these spaces. A mixed-use auditorium with a stage and seating 500 people accommodated both assemblies and physical education and contained a film projection room (then required by Rhode Island law). The cafeteria, seating 140 pupils at a time, on the west side of the second floor, had an electric refrigerator, large
gas range, automatic bread cutter, and electric dishwasher. The school had indirect steam heating, electric exhaust fans, electric clocks, and a private telephone system.69
After its dedication in late 1927, Guiteras Memorial School served as the town’s junior high school until the mid-1960s, when Bristol taxpayers again confronted school overcrowding due to post-World War II suburban expansion and the baby boom. Using a combination of federal, state, and town funding, the current Mount Hope High School, then known as Bristol High School, broke ground in the spring of 1965. The town dedicated the new school, planned as a combined junior-senior high school for grades 7 through 12, in November 1966.70 After Bristol High School opened, Guiteras Memorial School housed the town’s fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms. By 1968, however, the school shifted to sixth- and seventh-grade pupils due to overcrowding at the new junior-senior high, which already was over capacity a mere two years after the school’s completion.71
By the late 1960s, Guiteras Memorial School was far from being a state-of-the-art educational facility, with the Bristol Phoenix foreshadowing the school’s fate: “Guiteras Junior High falls short of providing good educational facilities in many ways...Further the provisions for library, indoor recreation, [and] activi-
notes
1. Ethan Hartley, “Bristol and Warren Voters Approve $200 Million School Bond.” Accessed Jan 14, 2024. https://www .eastbayri.com/stories/bristol-and-warren-voters-approve-200 -million-school-bond,117443.
a bove : Students in the library at the Guiteras Memorial School in 1927 or 1928, published in the 1927 Bristol School Committee Annual Report. Image courtesy of the Bristol Historical and Preservation Society, Bristol, RI 02809.
b elow: Guiteras Memorial School students eating in the cafeteria in 1927 or 1928 from the 1927 Bristol School Committee Annual Report. Image courtesy of the Bristol Historical and Preservation Society, Bristol, RI 02809.
ties are very nearly what other communities put into a good new elementary school. This suggests one possible future for Guiteras.”72
In 1991, the towns of Bristol and Warren voted to regionalize their school districts.73 A 1992 photo tour and description of the two towns’ school buildings indicated that Guiteras Memorial School had 400 sixthand seventh-grade pupils and was considered over capacity at that time. A photo caption accompanying the article noted, “Overall condition is good, needs new bathrooms and lighting; ventilation is poor.”74
After the construction of an addition to Kickemuit Middle School in Warren, the school district began a project to convert the Guiteras Memorial School for use as a kindergarten through fifth grade school.75 The two-year, $2 million renovation finished in November 1999, and it continues in this use to the present.76
Colleen Heemeyer lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is the Director of the Sacred Sites Program at the New York Landmarks Conservancy. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Historic Preservation from Roger Williams University. She completed this research as an intern with the Bristol Historical and Preservation Society with the support of a graduate assistantship from the Cummings School of Architecture’s Career Investment Program. The author would like to thank Dr. Catherine W. Zipf, Executive Director of the Bristol Historical and Preservation Society, for her invaluable assistance and support in undertaking this work.
2. Ethan Hartley, “Bristol Warren Plans to Educate Grades 5–8 at Middle School.” Accessed Jan 14, 2024, https://www.eastbayri .com/stories/bristol-warren-plans-to-educate-grades-5-8-at -middle-school,116829.
3. Mike Rego, “Bristol Warren School Committee approves early closing of Guiteras building.” Accessed Nov 20, 2024, https:// www.eastbayri.com/warren/stories/bristol-warren-schoolcommittee-approves-early-closing-of-guiteras-building,127035.
4. “Editorial,” Bristol Phoenix, October 24, 1927.
5. “Ramon Guiteras, MD (1858–1917)”
6. For more on the complicated legacy of slavery in Rhode Island, see: Thomas Norman DeWolf, Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2008); Christy Clark-Pujara, Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island (New York: New York University Press, 2016); Cynthia Mestad Johnson, “From Bristol to the West Indies and Back: James DeWolf and the Illegal Slave Trade,” Nancy Kougeas, “Building the San Juan Plantation: A Bristol Family in Cuba, 1818–1841,” and Catherine W. Zipf, “Finding Hope in New Hope: George Howe’s Diary of Life on a DeWolf Owned Plantation in Cuba,” all in Rhode Island History 78, no. 2 (Spring 2021).
7. “Historic and Architectural Resources of Bristol, Rhode Island” (Providence, RI: Rhode Island Historical Preservation Commission, [1990]).
8. “$263,161 for Memorial School,” Bristol Phoenix, Sept, 24, 1918.
9. Annual Report of the School Committee (Bristol, RI: Bristol Phoenix, 1922).
10. Annual Report of the School Committee (Bristol, RI: Bristol Phoenix, 1922).
11. School Report, Bristol, Rhode Island, 1925 (Bristol, RI: Bristol Phoenix, 1926).
12. Kerry Ellard, “Gary, Indiana and the Complicated History of Education in America,” accessed Oct 21, 2022, https://montes sorium.com/blog/gary-indiana-and-the-complicated-history -of-education-in-america.
13. Randolph Silliman Bourne, The Gary Schools (Cambridge, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1916).
14. Bourne, The Gary Schools.
15. Ellard, “Gary, Indiana and the Complicated History of Education in America.”
16. “William C. Hobbs Former Sup’t. Of Schools Dies This Morning,” Bristol Phoenix, February 3, 1938.
17. School Report, Bristol, Rhode Island, 1925.
18. “School Committee Meeting,” Bristol Phoenix, April 25, 1919.
19. “Guiteras School Site Considered,” Bristol Phoenix, August 10, 1920.
20. “School Committee,” Bristol Phoenix, October 17, 1919.
21. Peter Gibbon, “John Dewey: Portrait of a Progressive Thinker,” Humanities 40, no. 2 (Spring 2019), https://www.neh.gov/article /john-dewey-portrait-progressive-thinker.
22. Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz, “Why the United States Led in Education: Lessons from Secondary School Expansion, 1910 to 1940,” 2008).
23. “Census Bureau Releases New Educational Attainment Data,” Targeted News Service, February 26, 2022, https://search.proquest .com/docview/2634271395, accessed September 9, 2023.
24. “Architectural Biographies.” The Architectural Forum 48, no. 3 (March, 1928), 420. Also “William B. Ittner, FAIA (1864–1936),” accessed on October 22, 2022, https://www.landmarksstl.org /architects/bio/william_b_ittner_faia_1864_1936/.
25. “Guilbert and Betelle,” Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Guilbert_and_Betelle, accessed October 22, 2022.
26. William B. Ittner, “Fundamentals in Planning School Buildings,” Architectural Forum vol. 48, no. 3 (March 1928), 304–336.
27. “Editorial: Our School Architecture,” Architecture 8, (November 1920), 325.
28. Ittner, “Fundamentals in Planning School Buildings,” 304–336.
29. James O. Betelle, “Architectural Styles as Applied to School Buildings,” The American School Board Journal 58 (April 1919), 25–76.
30. “Postcard, Mudge House,” Postcard Collection, Historic Bristol, Roger Williams University Library https://www.jstor.org
/stable/community.30027185, accessed October 22, 2022. Also “Historic D’Wolf House Burned,” Bristol Phoenix, October 21, 1919.
31. “Special Town Meeting,” Bristol Phoenix, March 7, 1919.
32. “Guiteras Memorial Committee,” Bristol Phoenix, April 1, 1919.
33. “Prof. F. B. Dresslar, Noted Educator, Dies,” New York Times, January 30, 1930. https://nyti.ms/3GpbdWV.
34. “School Committee,” Bristol Phoenix, October 17, 1919.
35. “Mark Anthony De Wolfe Howe (Bishop),” accessed October 27, 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Anthony _De_Wolfe_Howe_(bishop) and “Mark Anthony De Wolf Howe DD (1809–1895),” accessed November 16, 2022, https://www .wikitree.com/wiki/Howe-5659.
36. “Martin & Hall,” accessed November 15, 2022, https://en.wiki pedia.org/wiki/Martin_%26_Hall.
37. “Clarke & Howe,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Clarke_%26_Howe, accessed October 13, 2022.
38. “Wallace Eastburn Howe,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/Wallis_Eastburn_Howe, accessed November 15, 2022.
39. “Guiteras School Committee,” Bristol Phoenix, Jan 10, 1922.
40. “Guiteras School Plans,” Bristol Phoenix, Mar 14, 1922.
41. William Richard Cutter, Encyclopedia of Massachusetts, Biographical—Genealogical (New York: American Historical Society, 1916).
42. “Guiteras School Plans,” Bristol Phoenix, March 14, 1922.
43. “Guiteras Site Adopted,” Bristol Phoenix, October 31, 1924.
44. “Building Committee Meets,” Bristol Phoenix, December 16, 1924.
45. “Legal Trouble Ahead,” Bristol Phoenix, December 12, 1924.
46. “Injunction Denied,” Bristol Phoenix, December 23, 1924.
47. “Bristol and Vicinity,” Bristol Phoenix, January 9, 1925.
48. C. J. Hasbrouck, “Letter: Argues for New Committee,” Bristol Phoenix, March 10, 1925.
49. “Town Election Wednesday,” Bristol Phoenix, March 13, 1925.
50. “Supreme Court Decision,” Bristol Phoenix, April 7, 1925.
51. “Building Committee Meets,” Bristol Phoenix, May 29, 1925.
52. “Further Difficulties,” Bristol Phoenix, June 12, 1925.
53. “Guiteras Memorial School,” Bristol Phoenix, July 3, 1925.
54. “Building Committee Meets.”
55. “Bristol and Vicinity,” Bristol Phoenix, September 29, 1925.
56. “Cornerstone Laid,” Bristol Phoenix, Dec 22, 1925.
57. “U.S. Inflation Calculator,” https://www.usinflationcalculator .com/, accessed on July 9, 2024.
58. “Building Committee Meets,” Bristol Phoenix, Sept 28, 1926.
59. “Building Committee Meets,” Bristol Phoenix, Nov 30, 1926.
60. “School Committee Meeting,” Bristol Phoenix, April 5, 1927.
61. “U.S. Inflation Calculator,” https://www.usinflationcalculator .com/, accessed on July 9, 2024.
62. “School Committee Meeting,” Bristol Phoenix, Apr 12, 1927.
63. “School Committee Meeting.”
64. “Teachers Assigned Guiteras School,” Bristol Phoenix, Jun 27, 1927.
65. “Proper Fence at Guiteras School,” Bristol Phoenix, Aug 5, 1927.
66. “Bristol and Vicinity,” Bristol Phoenix, Sept 2, 1927.
67. “Public Schools Show Increase,” Bristol Phoenix, Sept 9, 1927.
68. “Monthly Meeting of School Committee,” Bristol Phoenix, Sept 9, 1927.
69. “New Junior High School,” Bristol Phoenix, November 27, 1927.
70. “Groundbreaking for New School Mar 11th at 3pm,” Bristol Phoenix, March 5, 1965, and “Dedication of New High School Sunday at 2 is Open to Public,” Bristol Phoenix, November 25, 1966.
71. “School Survey Report 5: The Existing Buildings,” Bristol Phoenix, December 6, 1968.
72. “Existing Buildings and Recommendations,” Bristol Phoenix, January 24, 1969.
73. “Two Thumbs Up for Regionalization,” Bristol Phoenix, September 12, 1991.
74. “Bristol and Warren Schools: A Photo Tour,” Bristol Phoenix, Dec 10, 1992.
75. Ernest Mayo, “School Districts Projects are on the Money (Letter),” Bristol Phoenix, Jul 23, 1998.
76. “Welcome to Your New Elementary School,” Bristol Phoenix, Nov 18, 1999.
r ear Cover : Students practicing their typing skills at the Guiteras Memorial School in 1927 or 1928, published in the 1927 Bristol School Committee Annual Report. Image courtesy of the Bristol Historical and Preservation Society, Bristol, RI 02809.
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