The Times, RIHS Member Magazine: Summer 2020

the

Times

of the

Rhode Island Historical Societ y Summer 2020

www.rihs.org

In This Issue: The Struggle for Woman Suffrage in Rhode Island

By Elizabeth Stevens, Ph.D. Digitizing Early Playbills

By Richard Ring, Deputy Executive Director for Collections & Interpretation

Some Serious Shopfloor Innovation

Board of Trustees Luther W. Spoehr, Ph.D., Chair Winifred E. Brownell, Ph.D., 1st Vice Chair Anthony Calandrelli, 2nd Vice Chair Alek A. Dykeman, CPA, Treasurer Robert. H. Sloan, Jr., CLU, ChFC, Secretary Michael L. Baker, Jr. CPA Timothy N. Burditt Paul A. Croce, Sc.D. Michael T. Eadie George M. Goodwin, Ph.D. Roberta E. Gosselin Scott MacKay Lisa E. Melton, CPCU Peter Miniati, JD, CFP Maureen Moakley, Ph.D. Marcus P. Nevius, Ph.D. Mary C. Speare Barbara J. Thornton, AIA James Wing Stanley G. Weiss Ex Officio: Lane Talbot Sparkman C. Morgan Grefe, Executive Director

While the work of historical societies and museums may not be considered essential in the midst of a global pandemic, in fact, there was a surprising amount of work to be done. Yes, our doors were closed, but our team swiftly deployed all of their creativity to do their work in new and dynamic ways. Our work was making our materials accessible to you and, urgently, to our state’s students and teachers who found themselves thrown into the world of distance learning at a week’s notice. In industrial history terms, we were in need of some serious shopfloor innovation.

We’ve heard stories of the amazing teachers and school districts going far beyond the call of duty helping their students to connect, providing resources, and even distributing meals; the parents working full-time and learning how to manage their jobs, childcare needs, and new technologies; and the students who had to leave their friends, their routine, and sometimes miss out on huge milestones like graduation. Everyone was adapting and trying to find and create systems in which students could still learn and, in fact, not lose what they had been working toward all year.

That’s where we knew we could help. Both the Museum of Work & Culture and the Goff Center for Education and Public Programs have strong ties to Rhode Island’s schools and teachers. With fieldtrips screeching to a halt, we had to figure out how to provide resources for history in a way that teachers, students, and parents could access that made the most sense for them. It wasn’t just about what we could do, but what they needed from us.

Within just a couple of weeks, the Museum of Work & Culture created four turnkey Google Classrooms featuring such topics as immigration, industrialization, unionization and labor. As we wrapped up this school year, 3,934 students were participating in these classrooms.

That’s equivalent to 66% of the students we serve in a normal year. EnCompass, the online digital textbook, saw a 136% increase in use, and I’m happy to report that by this fall there will be eleven modules “live” online. We have thirty lesson plans available online and this spring our lesson plan page was the most frequently visited page on our new website. By June, virtual tours of both the Museum of Work & Culture and the John Brown House Museum were up and running. The need continues to be clear: teachers and students want and need wellconstructed history lessons that relate to not only their state, but also to the state of the world. And this summer, in addition to virtual camp and enrichment programs, we will be gathering feedback, refining and building new units to highlight even more of the history that is so necessary for our students to learn right now.

A screen shot of “Showtime on the Homefront” in full swing taken by Trustee and First Vice Chair, Winifred

daring, and I think they made a truly enjoyable evening of history, song, and dance. You can watch many of the videos we featured that evening on our YouTube channel.

Thanks to all of you who joined us that evening.

And of course, we wouldn’t have been able to do it without our incredible sponsors. While their generosity floors us every year, the fact that they were willing to take a chance one a totally new format makes us all the more grateful, so please indulge me one more time as I thank our sponsors: Amica Mutual Insurance Company, Esten & Richard, Bank of America, Washington Trust Company, Mandel & Tracy, LLC, Hilb Group New England, and Alpha Pension. Also, special thanks to our generous board members for their support of this event.

We have so much to share with our students, with the public, with you. We are hearing the call that students need to learn about history, their history, in their schools—whether that’s online or in person. We can and will be doing more every day. We can do this because of you. We can do this for you. For the sake of the past, the present, and our future.

Students weren’t the only ones who needed and wanted access, so our programs, like Valley Talks, went virtual, too. We partnered with the Smithsonian and affiliates around the country to bring Katherine Ott from Washington, D.C. right to your living room to present “Illegal to be You: Gay History Beyond Stonewall”. But, we heard from you that while online is great, you want history in more traditional formats, too. That’s where The Times comes in. While our previous newsletters and “member magazine” reported on what we’ve been doing, we now want to use these pages to bring you more stories from our past. It’s also a great opportunity to show you the types of essays and materials our students are getting with EnCompass by sharing with you an essay from Dr. Elizabeth Stevens, the former editor of our journal Rhode Island History.

And while distance learning and print media formats are expansions of the work we have been doing for many years, other opportunities were entirely new for us, like our first online fundraiser, “Showtime on the Homefront: A Spring Forward Fallback Event.” We had such a fun evening planned with all of you under the tent at Aldrich House for this May, but alas, it was not to be. We had to think, well, inside the box, and figure out a way to bring the party to you, on your computer—or even your phone. Staff members from across the RIHS stepped up and amazed us with their creativity and

Thank you and be well.

Cover photograph: Women Witnessing Governor Beeckman Signing Rhode Island’s Women’s Suffrage Act, April 18, 1917. Group in back of Gov. Beekman, from left to right: Miss Mabel Ogelman, Senator Henry B. Kane, Mrs. Barton P. Jencks, Elizabeth Upham Yates, Mrs. Edwin C. Smith, Miss Phebe Jencks, Miss Nettie E. Bauer, and Representative Richard W. Jennings. Rhode Island Historical Society Collections RhiX36143.

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Collections:

Digitizing Early Playbills

This 1805 playbill from the Providence Theatre tells us much more than the evening’s planned performances. Rhode Island Historical Society Collections RHiX174005.

By Richard Ring, Deputy Executive Director for Collections & Interpretation

The RIHS is delighted to announce the launch of a new online gallery in honor of our annual theme, “Spotlight RI: Performing Arts in Rhode Island,” featuring an outstanding collection of nearly 200 playbills dating from 1803–1815, available for researchers on our website under the “Collections” tab. All of these playbills are advertisements for performances at the Providence Theatre, and detail the plays, the actors, times and dates, ticket prices, and other data crucial to an understanding of the operation of the theater. In the last issue of The Times I offered a brief history of the theater, which was in operation from 1795 to 1832, where a massive view of Providence, painted as a drop-scene from drawings done in 1810, was a popular feature.

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As the American Revolution unfolded, theaters were a controversial issue, and were banned entirely in 1774 by the Continental Congress, which held that playgoing (like cockfighting and horse racing) had to be discouraged as a “species of extravagance and dissipation.”

In New England, theatrical performances had been banned since the 1760s for similarly moral reasons. In Providence this held true until 1792, when an English-born actor braved the town critics and put on several performances in the Court House. These encouraged the public to allow him to continue, though there were debates in the press.

The actor was Joseph Harper (17591811), apparently the first to play Falstaff in America (at the John Street Theatre in New York, October 5, 1788). He managed a few theaters before becoming the first manager of the Providence Theatre, from 1795 to 1811.

I will unpack just one of these 200 playbills to show the research potentialities of this collection. The August 3, 1805, announcement for performances on the 5th features a “Mr. Hodgkinson” among the players—in fact, the performances were “for the benefit” of Hodgkinson, which meant that the entire house take for the evening was given to him in lieu of a salary.

John Hodgkinson (1766–1805) was a well-known English actor who came to the U.S. in 1792, having been recruited by Dublin-born John Henry (1738–1794). Henry had come to America to avoid the strict English oversight of theater. The rising use of political satire in English theater led to the Licensing Act of 1737 that instituted prohibitions relating to the financial gain and the number of legitimate theaters permitted to operate. He was also part-owner of the American Company

with Lewis Hallam, Jr. (1740–1808). The troupe was itinerant. Lady Macbeth was played by Mrs. Simpson, an itinerant company that played in Williamsburg, who made her American debut in Boston’s Haymarket Philadelphia, New York, and Charleston—and often Theater in 1796, along with her husband, in a production in Jamaica as well, especially when authorities on the of The Belle’s Stratagem (she died in Philadelphia in mainland became particularly difficult in the 1750s and 1832). Macduff was played by a Mr. Jones, probably an 60s.

English-born actor who made his debut in America in

Hodgkinson made his American debut in 1792, 1801 at the Chestnut Street Theater in Philadelphia (he playing the role of Belcour in The West Indian at the died in Charleston in 1806). Joseph Harper, the manager Southwark Theater in Philadelphia. (The play was the of the theater (see above) played Banquo—and his wife most popular of Richard Cumberland’s works, featuring played the Second Witch. Malcolm was played by John Belcour as an English plantation owner who returns to Darley, Jr., who made his American debut in Philadelphia London to overcome his father’s disapproval of his choice in 1796, after which he entered the U.S. Marine Corps, of a wife). According to one source, Hodgkinson was mustered out in 1800, married another actor named a ruthless businessman as well as a famous actor—in Eleanor Westray and then returned to the stage. He fact, in 1800 he commanded the highest salary for an joined the Park Theater in New York in 1804, and American actor (he made as much as $70 a week; by presumably was in Providence for the summer. Lenox comparison, both a teacher and a carpenter at the time was played by Mr. Bailey, whose debut had been at the made about $1 per day). His role here in Providence as American Theater in Washington, DC, in 1800, where he Macbeth was almost his last—he performed briefly in had performed with Darley. Duncan (and also Hecate) Newport and left for Washington, but died of Yellow was played by Mr. Shapter, another actor from the Park Fever in Maryland just five weeks after this performance, Theater (NY). Seyton was played by Mr. Charnock, and on September 12, 1805. the murderers by J. D. Turnbull (also originally of the

According to Frances Teague (Shakespeare and Haymarket Theater in Boston, when Hodgkinson was the American Popular Stage, Cambridge University Press, manager) and Mr. Hayman. The First Witch was played 2006), during the Revolution “Shakespeare’s plays served

by William “Billy” Bates, described in one source as a to raise British morale by reinforcing the cultural values “broad, short, strong-built man, with some comedy in that their audiences held. British officers wanted plays his face, but it was all low, conceited, and cunning.” The that were linked to the motherland, and they enjoyed watching plays like Richard III, Macbeth, I Henry IV, and King Lear, in which those who attempt to displace a rightful king are defeated. American officers seem to have preferred non-Shakespearean farces or plays like Cato (all by British authors of course), yet turned to Shakespeare when they sought a way of critiquing their command.”

Regardless of politics, however, the principal reason for a company to produce Shakespeare was to make money. Shakespeare’s popularity on the stage and as a cultural icon in the colonies begins in 1750, when the first American production of one of his plays (Richard III) is staged in New York.

Rhode Island Governor Arthur Fenner , who held office from 1790 to 1805, held a personalized season ticket to the Providence Theatre. Rhode Island Historical Society Collections.

With a little research I was able to discover a few details about some of the other players that appear on this playbill. It is clear that some of the company was Third Witch was played by “Mrs. Villiars”—Elizabeth made up of resident actors and others were in town for Ann (Westray) Villiars, the sister of Darley’s wife Eleanor, a only a short time—but all of them were to some extent and the daughter of Mrs. Simpson (Lady Macbeth, see

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Playbills is cont’d on page 14

The Struggle for Woman Suffrage in Rhode Island

known antislavery speakers who came to Rhode Island, including Sojourner Truth, William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. Antislavery workers were unpopular and Elizabeth Buffum Chace knew what it was like to be scorned and derided for her activism. Once, when she was on her way to hear an antislavery speaker in Valley Falls, she and her children were pelted with rocks, while insults were hurled at them.

Paulina Wright Davis and Elizabeth Buffum Chace were friends before and during the Civil War. Together, they helped to found the New England Woman Suffrage Association with other former antislavery workers in Boston in 1868. Then, Davis and Chace turned their sights on their home state of Rhode Island.

They called for a convention to be held in downtown Providence to form a statewide association that would be devoted to working to get the vote for women. The convention was held on December 11, 1868, in Roger Williams Hall.

Paulina Wright Davis became the president of the newly formed Rhode Island Woman Suffrage Association (RIWSA). Elizabeth Buffum Chace was head of the Executive Committee. Davis and Chace believed that if women could vote, they could help solve problems brought about by rapid industrialization, immigration, and financial downturns of the post-Civil War era. Davis and Chace also felt that women were equal to men and deserved every right that men legally possessed—the right to an education, to control their finances, and to participate in the political process by voting.

A small group of women and men joined RIWSA in 1868. Their goal was to gain an amendment to the state constitution that would explicitly give voting rights to women. The Rhode Island Woman Suffrage Association was part of a national coalition of women’s suffrage groups from many states that were seeking the vote for women at this time.

Sadly, in 1869, there was a painful split in the national organization about whether to support the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would give the vote to African-American men. One faction headed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who were friends of Paulina Wright Davis, did not support the Fifteenth Amendment because it did not give the vote to women. Paulina Wright Davis tried to convince her good friend, Elizabeth Buffum Chace, to oppose the amendment, but Chace decided to support it. Paulina Wright Davis left the Rhode Island Woman Suffrage Association because of this issue and the national movement split into two branches, the National Woman’s Suffrage Association, based in New York, and the American Woman’s Suffrage Association, based in Boston, of which the RIWSA was a part. The two national organizations did not get back together until the early 1890s.

By Elizabeth C. Stevens, Ph.D., Editor, Newport History Note: This article is the latest chapter of EnCompass, the online digital textbook of Rhode Island history sponsored

by Providence College, the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, and the RIHS. 2020 is the centennial anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote.

The struggle to achieve women’s right to vote in the state began in earnest shortly after the Civil War. Rhode Island women who had been active in the antislavery movement decided to use their organizing skills to gain the vote. They wanted to use the power of their ballots to make a difference in their cities and towns by fully participating in elections.

In Rhode Island, the right to vote had been restricted for men, too. In the 1800s, many male residents were prevented from voting because they did not own property, or were not native-born citizens, or because they were African-Americans. Some restrictions on male voters were lifted by the Bourn Amendment, passed by the Rhode Island legislature in 1888.

In Rhode Island, two women took the lead in the woman suffrage fight. Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis was a well-known health educator and activist who taught anatomy classes for women before the Civil War. She moved to Rhode Island in 1849 when she married Thomas Davis, Providence businessman and politician.

In 1850, Paulina Wright Davis chaired the first national women’s rights convention in Worcester, Massachusetts. The convention was attended and supported by a number of women from Rhode Island.

Those who attended called for, “Equality before the Law, without distinction of Sex or color.” Paulina Wright Davis was subject to scorn and ridicule for promoting the idea of women’s rights. Some newspapers made fun of the Worcester gathering by calling it a “hen convention.” In the 1850s, Davis published a newspaper in Providence called The Una, devoted to the rights of women.

Elizabeth Buffum Chace joined with Paulina Wright Davis in the struggle for woman’s suffrage. Chace had been an active antislavery worker before the Civil War. Her house in Valley Falls (today part of Central Falls) was a stop on the Underground Railroad. She and her husband, Samuel Chace, helped people fleeing enslavement in the South. She hosted many well-

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the state in virtually every city and town. In the days before the vote, suffragists organized mass rallies in downtown Providence in support of the amendment.

The RIWSA published its own newspaper, The Amendment, to convince the male voters of Rhode Island to support woman’s suffrage.

The results of the 1887 amendment campaign were disappointing. Despite Masthead of The Una: A Paper Devoted to the Elevation of Women published in Providence, Rhode Island by Paulina Wright Davis with Caroline H. Dael,. The Una is available on microfilm at the Robinson Research Center the urgent and exhausting HQ1101.E5 U5. campaign waged by RIWSA, the woman suffrage Woman suffrage activists in Rhode Island worked very amendment to the state constitution failed to pass by hard during the 1870s and 1880s. They asked their even a close margin (6,889 men voted in favor and 21,957 friends, neighbors, and even strangers to sign petitions men voted against). urging the state legislature to debate the subject of

Despite the difficult struggle to gain the vote for woman suffrage. They organized meetings with inspiring women in Rhode Island, the suffragists allied with other speakers and pressured representatives in the state women’s organizations to bring about change. During legislature to take up the subject of votes for women. the 1870s and 1880s, there were many women’s activist The suffrage workers testified at hearings at the R.I. organizations in Rhode Island. The largest was the Rhode State House. They also published articles and letters in Island Christian Temperance Union (RIWCTU) which newspapers in support of women’s voting rights. had chapters in almost every town in the state. The

These woman suffragists were ridiculed, and RIWCTU wanted the state legislature to outlaw the sale treated poorly by newspaper writers, state legislators, of liquor because they believed that excessive drinking and citizens. Their cause seemed hopeless. They would led to poverty and domestic violence. Women’s clubs have to convince the legislature to hold a statewide also organized in Rhode Island at this time. The women’s referendum on women suffrage and then a majority of clubs provided an educational and social environment the male voters of the state would have to vote “yes” in for women who had not had access to higher education. the referendum. Nevertheless the Rhode Island Woman’s The Women’s Educational and Industrial Union provided Suffrage Association pressed on with its petition drives support for working women. Young women factory and meetings to raise the profile of the issue. workers joined labor unions to push for women worker’s

By 1884, the suffragists had garnered enough rights. Representatives from these organizations and influence to convince the Rhode Island legislature other women’s groups banded together to form the to allow them to hold their annual meeting at the Rhode Island Council of Women to work together on Rhode Island statehouse (what is now called the “Old issues of concern to women.

Statehouse”) on Benefit Street in Providence. The gala

The Rhode Island Woman’s Suffrage Association, gathering was attended by such luminaries as Frederick realizing that the struggle for the vote might take years Douglass and Susan B. Anthony. Elizabeth Buffum Chace to accomplish, worked together with other women’s proclaimed that the push for women suffrage in the state organizations on many issues that were crucial to had made progress, but that there was much more work women’s lives. For example, the RIWCTU spearheaded to be done. an effort in the 1870s to place a female police matron in

If the 1884 convention was a symbolic every city jail in Rhode Island. The suffragists aided their affirmation of progress, the actual proof came when successful efforts. The WCTU supported the suffragists the Rhode Island legislature agreed to hold a state in their efforts to get the vote for women. In the early referendum on woman suffrage in the spring of 1887.

1890s, representatives of women’s organizations in The suffrage workers had but a few weeks to mount their Rhode Island banded together to push for legislation statewide campaign. A headquarters, open for more that would help women factory workers. Suffrage leader than twelve hours a day, was established in the Butler Anna Garlin Spencer, was a critical supporter of that Exchange in downtown Providence. Some ninety-two effort. Even if women could not vote at this time, they meetings were held in parlors, churches, and halls across

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Suffrage is cont’d on page 10

New Virtual Public Programs

Museum of Work & Culture

Please visit www.rihs.org for current programming and museum hours.

New Virtual Educational Offerings for Distance Learning

In response to COVID-19, the Museum of Work & Culture created a series of new educational materials and programs to help educators and families navigate distance learning. These include four turnkey Google Classrooms featuring readings, videos, primary sources, and assignments for teachers to adapt to their own needs. Currently these four classrooms covering American Industrialization, Immigration in Rhode Island, Unions & Labor, and Making History 2020: Census, Suffrage, and COVID-19 are serving 3,934 unique students. Additionally, the Museum offered two six-week live educational series: “Hands-on History” for pre-k students and “History Homeschool High” for teens.

Each week delved into a specific Museum exhibit, with the Pre-K program featuring on learning history alongside phonics, numbers, colors, and more, while the teen program featured pre-assigned readings followed by in-depth discussions focused on the contemporary relevance of historical themes and events. The Museum also began offering virtual tours for school groups.

RIHS Launches Cutting Edge Visual Impairment Service

On October 15, the Museum of Work and Culture hosted the RIHS-wide launch of Aira, a smartphone-based application that allows visitors with visual impairments to tour exhibits with greater independence. The new service enables visitors to use their phones to connect with an agent, who will access the phone’s camera to describe objects, read exhibit signage and offer navigational directions. Support for the initiative came from the Rhode Island Foundation through a grant from its Program for the Blind Fund.

Our kick-off event also included the unveiling of a tactile map project completed

by Woonsocket 8th grade students. Together, they designed 3D prints of buildings in the Blackstone Valley Heritage Corridor to adhere to the Museum’s welcome map. Visitors with visual impairments will now be able to engage with the dimensional prints to better gauge the types of buildings found throughout the region.

Living Memory Mondays for Individuals with Memory Loss

On Monday, January 27 the Museum of Work & Culture launched “Living Memories Mondays,” a new monthly series focused on individuals with memory loss and their caretakers.

The series takes place on the final Monday of each month at 1:30pm with a rotating schedule of therapistled programs and special hands-on activities, followed by Woonsocket’s Memory Café. The Café is a part of Rhode Island’s Memory Cafe Network, whose mission is to support Rhode Islanders touched by memory loss or cognitive impairment with a community-based support network rooted in camaraderie, fellowship, and comfort.

As an additional feature of the program, the Museum premiered a Memory Map developed in collaboration with the Memory & Aging Program at Butler Hospital. This new tool will help caretakers navigate the Museum and provide specially developed questions to help prompt conversations. These materials will be available at the Museum’s front desk, as well as on the Rhode Island Historical Society’s website.

Currently, plans are being developed to transition the program to a distance-friendly format beginning in July.

In April, the Museum began offering two series of bi-weekly public programs: “Virtual Valley Talks” and “Q&A and Cocktails”. Highlights have included screenings of in-progress documentaries by Christian de Rezendes and Marc Levitt, a presentation on untold stories of WWII Rhode Island, a talk by the developers of the RI COVID-19 Archive, and a panel discussion with members of the RI Manufacturers Association.

In addition, the previously postponed “Salute to Spring/Bonjour Printemps” was revamped as “Salute to Summer/La Fete de la St-Jean,” featuring the 4th Annual Poutine Indulgence & Competition. Ticket holders were able to curbside pickup samples of poutine from participating restaurants in the week leading up to the event on June 24, featuring a Facebook Live announcement of the winners of the Competition, as well as the Annual Raffle. This was immediately followed by a private Zoom concert by Frano-American band Fleur de Lis.

MoWC Receives Grant Funding from RICH

The Rhode Island Council for the Humanities has granted the Museum $9,900 towards operational costs in support of the Museum’s ongoing virtual educational and public program. Thank you RICH!

MoWC Receives Grant to Promote US Census

New Home School Education Series

The Museum of Work & Culture has received a grant from the Rhode Island Foundation to help promote the US Census in Woonsocket.

The funding was initially meant to support the Museum as a Census Hub, where members of the public could complete their census during operating hours. However, the focus has now shifted to the creation of educational materials and programs available online to promote the importance of completing the 2020 Census.

In fall of 2019, the Museum of Work & Culture partnered with the Woonsocket Harris Public Library to launch a bi-monthly free educational series for homeschool families. Program themes have included understanding water power, global holiday traditions, child labor and unionization, and examining la Survivance and la Sentinelle.

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Suffrage cont’d from page 7 began to change their goal from pushing for an amendment to state constitutions to advocating for an amendment to the federal (national) constitution. In 1908, Rhode Island woman suffrage workers gathered thousands of names on a petition to Congress on behalf of the federal amendment.

The formation of a Woman Suffrage Party in Rhode Island in 1912 also bolstered the campaign to win women the vote. Sara Algeo, a leader in the earlytwentieth-century suffrage movement in Rhode Island, later remembered, “The time had come when iron entered the soul of our women and we resolved to gain our point whatever the cost.”

African-American women in Rhode Island provided key support for woman suffrage when the Rhode Island Union of Colored Women’s Clubs endorsed the Woman Suffrage Party in 1913. With dynamic leaders, Mary E. Jackson and Bertha Higgins, the Union of Colored Women’s Clubs was the largest woman’s organization in Rhode Island to come out for woman suffrage.

In 1915, the Rhode Island Woman Suffrage Association, the College Equal Suffrage League and the Woman Suffrage Party merged to form the Rhode Island Equal Suffrage Association.

By the nineteen teens, with women already voting in some western states, male politicians of major political parties saw that women could provide crucial support in elections. Despite progress in Rhode Island, there was still resistance. In 1913, a Rhode Island legislator demanded to know why a bill favoring presidential suffrage for women was wasting the legislators’ “valuable time, and threw it on the floor and stamped on it, saying, ‘I will kill woman suffrage.’”

Nevertheless, Rhode Island women gained the right to vote in presidential elections in a bill that passed the legislature in April 1917.

Almost three years later, on January 6, 1920, the R.I. legislature ratified the nineteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution that guaranteed the vote to women.

It became law in August 1920 when the Tennessee legislature approved the woman suffrage amendment by one vote. Even before they had time to celebrate, woman suffragists in Rhode Island formed the United League of Women Voters. The new organization led by suffrage activists like Sara Algeo and Bertha Higgins, was a non-partisan group devoted to educating female voters to exercise their hard-won right to vote in Rhode Island elections. One hundred years later, the League of Women Voters is still active in Rhode Island.

found that, working together and cooperating, they could influence legislation that would have a beneficial effect on women’s lives.

In the 1890s, African-American women in Rhode Island formed clubs to combat racial discrimination and its effects in employment, education, housing and other areas. In the Reconstruction era, African-American women were not welcomed in the clubs and associations formed by white women in Rhode Island.

Many members of the African-American women’s clubs also supported woman suffrage. In 1895 delegates from African-American women’s clubs like the Woman’s Newport League, joined together with representatives from similar clubs all over the country to form the National Federation of Afro-American Women’s Clubs (later, the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs). Two Rhode Island women, Mary H. Dickerson of Newport and Hannah E. Greene of the Working Women’s Club of Providence, were official delegates to the national convention in Boston in 1895.

Mary Dickerson, who was active in the creation of the national organization, was voted the first vice-president of the national Federation of Afro-American Women’s Clubs. Dickerson, who was a dynamic organizer, also headed the Rhode Island Union of Colored Women’s Clubs, formed in 1903, which included at least eleven clubs from around the state.

Elizabeth Buffum Chace, the leader of the Rhode Island woman suffrage movement died in December 1899 at the age of ninety-three. At her memorial service, younger Rhode Island suffrage workers, like the first female minister in Rhode Island, Anna Garlin Spencer, paid tribute to Chace’s tenacity and activist skills.

After Chace’s death, the suffrage movement in Rhode Island languished for a few years although the faithful members of the RIWSA continued to have meetings with nationally known speakers like Susan B. Anthony and Julia Ward Howe, who was also a well-known activist.

The formation of a College Equal Suffrage League chapter in Rhode Island in 1907 gave an enormous boost to the woman suffrage effort in the state. The College Equal Suffrage League was organized by college women and had chapters across the country.

Working hand-in-hand with RIWSA, the younger women of the R. I. College Equal Suffrage League brought new energy and new members to the suffrage fight. A wealthy patron of the women’s suffrage cause, Alva Belmont, created welcome publicity and financial support when she opened her mansion, Marble House, for a series of woman suffrage events in Newport in 1909.

After the turn of the century, woman suffragists

WPA Data Entry Project

The Providence Town Papers Collection, 16391832 (MSS 214 SG1) is one of the larger collections at the Robinson Research Center, taking up 52 linear feet of shelf space. A finding aid to the collection is available here: https://www.rihs.org/mssinv/MSS214sg1.htm with more details about the three series, how they are organized, and if they are indexed.

In 1915, 717 of the 83,246 documents in this collection were transcribed and published in Vol. 15 and Vol. 17 of the twenty-one volume set “The Early Records of the Town of Providence, v.I-XXI”. (These volumes have been digitized and are available through Hathi Trust. https://www.hathitrust.org/)

Between 1935 and 1943, the Works Progress Administration’s Historical Records Survey Program sent out-of-work clerks, librarians, archivists, lawyers, and writers to states to compile inventories, indexes, and bibliographies of vital records in religious archives, town, and state archives.

The WPA project for the Providence Town Papers at RIHS created an index of the documents on 4x6 typed cards, at some point the cards were organized by subject and filed into boxes of various sizes, shapes, and materials.

A fun side note, the tabs separating the subject headings are cut up “Providence Town employee time cards” from 1929 and cut up red window signs warning of scarlet fever in the house. These index cards have provided subject access to the collection only to researchers who could visit the library in person and had the time to go through the boxes of cards.

As we work from home, the Collections Department staff are entering these cards into a database with the goal of making it searchable through NETOP, our online catalog. This will provide unprecedented remote access to the collection and provide a strong data foundation for future digital image creation. So far we have created just under 3,000 entries…only 80,000 to go!

Photograph of Nho Mocho Brito, a fisherman of Cape Verdean descent. Rhode Island Historical Society Collections RHiX174204.

New EnCompass Modules

We are thrilled to announce the release of two new modules for our free online digital textbook, EnCompass. Immigration to Rhode Island features a main essay written by Associate Professor of History at the University of Rhode Island, Evelyn Sterne. And you’ve probably just read, The Struggle for Woman Suffrage in Rhode Island, the lead essay for a module by the same name. This chapter was released early this year in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. The module was made possible through a major grant from the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities. Also, thanks to the grant, we will be able to publish six more modules to the website by fall of this year!

Upcoming chapters include Rhode Island, Slavery and the Slave Trade, Narragansett History, and African American Civil Rights in Rhode Island. To learn more go to http://library. providence.edu/encompass/.

For a full list of citations and primary resources, please visit http://library.providence.edu/encompass/.

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African American Civil Rights in Rhode Island: The 20th Century

Goff Center for Education & Public Programs

Although the three-year long project funded by the National Park Service has come to a close, the work of the RIHS is ongoing. Products from our partnership with the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society and the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission documenting people, places, and events important to the civil rights movement in Rhode Island are available on our website. Resouces include electronic copies of the two panel exhibits “Rhode Island African Heritage Civil Rights History: A Summary of over 300 years of History,” and “The Power of Place in Civil Rights: African American Struggle for Civil Rights in the 20th Century”. A copy of the historical context statement and survey report from The Public Archaeology Laboratory, Inc. is posted on the page as well. This web page also includes five curriculum unit plans with primary sources from our collections such as documents, photographs, oral history recordings, and video clips from newsreels.

The web page is also listed on the National Park Service’s African American Civil Rights Network which highlights and honors sites and programs associated with the Civil Rights Movement. Please visit https://www.rihs. org/lesson_plan/20th-century-african-heritage-civilrights-in-rhode-island/

Please visit www.rihs.org for current programming and museum hours.

Shall We Shanty?

On Thursday, February 27, we hosted “Shall We Shanty?” a performance of historical shanties and Irish folk music with guitarist John Birt as part of our annual theme, “Spotlight RI: Performing Arts in Rhode Island”. The event took place at Revival Brewing Company in Cranston. Revival was very generous with the Historical Society by waiving their rental fee for their space, not asking for a portion of door money, and donating 10% of their night’s proceeds back to RIHS! We filled the restaurant with 150 people! Thank you to those who were able to join us.

A young man with crane was featured in this photograph from the Providence Redevelopment Agency’s Annual Report, 1960, RIHS Collections, RHiX173732.

National History Day Rhode Island The 2020 state contest for National History Day in Rhode Island was turned into a virtual contest! We are so thankful to our teachers, students, parents, and judges who embraced those changes—because of them, we were able to celebrate the hard work our students put into their projects during the school year. We had over 150 students joining us for the virtual contest as well as judges from across the United States, including one judge from South Dakota and two from Kentucky!

Fifty Rhode Island students moved on to the national competition.

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Deborah Haraldson named John Brown House Museum Volunteer of the Year

New project with local National Park Service parks!

Deborah Haraldson, the John Brown House Museum Volunteer of the Year, put in 135 hours in 2019 working with the public, giving tours, and answering questions about life in the 18th century. That time doesn’t include the time she spent independently reading, researching, and attending our continuing education sessions. When we’re back open, drop by the John Brown House Museum for a tour, and maybe Deborah will be your guide! Until then, if you just can’t wait to start learning about Rhode Island history, love to have thoughtful discussions, and enjoy working with the public, we have periodic volunteer training opportunities, and we’d love to have you! Contact jbh@rihs.org for more information. We promise you don’t have to volunteer as much as Deborah - unless you want to!

The Goff Center for Education and Public Programs will be working with the local National Park Service at Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park and area teachers to develop field trip curriculum plans and logistics for the Kelly House Museum and surrounding park area and Roger Williams National Memorial using primary resources from our collections. In addition to on-site lessons, the project includes the development of pre and post visit materials, teacher focus groups, and teacher professional development opportunities. We are delighted to be working again with our local colleagues at the National Park Service on this important work bringing more local history to our schools.

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Playbills cont’d from page 5 above). Another daughter (not featured here) was Juliana (Westray) Wood, also an actress—what a family!

It becomes clear that the local theater community then was much as it is now—a tightly knit network, where everyone knows everyone else. The other performance of the evening was The Agreeable Surprise, a comic opera written in 1781 by Samuel Arnold, and was one of the most popular works of its kind performed in London from 1775-1800. A romp that tells the story of Eugene and Laura who want to be together, but Laura’s father (Sir Felix Friendly) insists on another suitor.

What was it like to attend these shows? Most of what we know about the Providence Theatre comes from a man named Charles Blake, who delivered a paper to the Rhode Island Historical Society on October 25, 1860, which was later expanded and published as An Historical Account of the Providence Stage (Providence: George Whitney, 1868). In short, it was quite fashionable to attend, but as the years wore on, audiences shifted. Blake (pp. 75-6) paints an excellent picture: The families who had originally established the theater in Providence were wealthy and influential, and felt bound to bestow a liberal patronage on those whom they had encouraged to come here, and who catered for their amusement, and consequently they frequently attended the theater. The proprietors owned boxes in which their families had regular seats.

Many others, following the example of the leaders of fashion, often visited it, and thus it seldom presented an empty appearance. The price of admission being high, the rougher inhabitants of the town were in a measure excluded, and the audience was orderly, quiet, and polite. Then the term “dress circle” was no unmeaning name. The ladies and gentlemen of the town, the Corlisses, the Nightingales, the Halseys, the Goddards, and others came in their carriages, and entered their boxes with powdered heads, and dressed in the stately costume of the period. Between the acts their liveried servants entered the circles, bearing trays laden with wines and sherbets, and served them to their masters and mistresses…

Inclement weather however always diminished the attendance of the habitués, and Mr. Harper, when the skies wore a threatening aspect, was accustomed to postpone the performance, giving notice of such postponement by means of a town crier, who with his bell, announced at the corners of the streets that the theater would be closed until fair weather.

C. Morgan Grefe, Ph.D. Executive Director Charmyne Goodfellow Deputy Executive Director for Finance & Administration Richard J. Ring Deputy Executive Director for Collections & Interpretation Anne Conway Director, The Museum of Work & Culture Geralyn Ducady Director, Goff Center for Education & Public Programs Elizabeth Wood Director of Advancement Aldrich House 110 Benevolent Street Providence, RI 401-331-8575 Mary E. Robinson Research Center 121 Hope Street Providence, RI 401-273-8107

Additional playbills from the collections of the Robinson Research Center, soon to be available online at rihs.org. Above, RHiX174183 and right, RHiX174117.

I hope that this brief essay makes it clear that not only do these playbills constitute a dense record of the early history of the performing arts in Rhode Island, but they also document itinerant performers, and thus contribute a critical piece of the puzzle in terms of early American theater history.

The John Brown House Museum 52 Power Street Providence, RI 401-273-7507

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The Museum of Work & Culture 42 South Main Street Woonsocket, RI

401-769-9675

A full Staff List is Available @ www.rihs.org 14

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