Library
Talk
Rhode Island Historical Society Library
121 Hope Street, Providence
Free Admission, To R.S.V.P.: Lee Teverow
(401) 273-8107 x10
or
lteverow@rihs.org
Lecture:
Organizing Commerce:
Boston and New York, 1634-1760
Join us in
welcoming Sasha Nichols-Geerdes,
a New
England Regional Fellowship Consortium research grant recipient and
Ph.D. candidate at UCLA. Sasha will be discussing his research on
the organization of domestic
trade during the colonial period in the north,
particularly in New York and Boston.
The lecture will trace how these organizations formed due to a
number of factors, including the availability of cash, local and
provincial institutions, and land distribution.
************************************
Sunday, March 2,
1:30
p.m.
Museum of Work & Culture
42 South Main
Street, Woonsocket
Free Admission, To
R.S.V.P.: Ray Bacon
(401) 769-9675 or
rbacon@rihs.org
Ranger
Days
Elizabeth Vangel
will present a lecture and visual
presentation entitled “Champions
of Freedom,” in which she will explore the anti-slavery
movement in the greater Woonsocket area before the Civil War. Ranger
Days are FREE and open to the public.
“Champions of Freedom” to
be presented at Museum of Work and Culture
Woonsocket, RI. On
Sunday March 2, 2008 Elizabeth Vangel will present a multimedia
slide show titled
Champions of
Freedom. The
event -- part of the Ranger Days Talks at the Museum of Work and
Culture -- starts at 1:30 p.m. and will feature
never-before-seen chronicles and visuals of Woonsocket’s
anti-slavery activists and their phenomenal impact upon events
leading up to the Civil War. This group of restless believers
changed America’s destiny.
Vangel, a city native and founder of Oak/Foss Media, will share
original research and stories she uncovered while researching
material for an upcoming documentary and book entitled The
Almost Forgotten. On DVD screen format, Vangel will
show two letters she uncovered written by wool textile
manufacturer Edward Harris to Abraham Lincoln shortly after the
presidential election in November of 1860. An accompanying audio
cast will also discuss Lincoln's visit to Woonsocket in that
same year.
The talk will also profile Harris' influence in the national
abolitionist movement including his relationship in political
agitator John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry. Harris' own long
involvement in 'Free Soil' and 'Liberty' politics as well
as his eventual role in the 1850’s new antislavery party -- the
'Republicans – will also be chronicled. According to Vangel,
Harris' activist career parallels the Blackstone Valley's
dramatic growth in manufacturing.
Vangel will also talk about three runaway slaves -- Henry Bibb,
Leonard Black and Frederick Douglass. They were “colored”
orators who made lasting impressions in the area. The
presentation will also encourage discussion on why Woonsocket's
freedom lovers did not support the Dorr Rebellion which was a
suffrage movement that rocked the state in 1842.
Other major local personalities to be profiled include German W.
Foss, a silk manufacturer and Civil War correspondent with the
5th Army of the Potomac known for his racy commentaries and
on-scene dispatches, and Christopher Robinson, a local lawyer
and statesman who delivered a radical antislavery speech in
Washington, D.C. less than 60 days after Lincoln's visit to
Woonsocket.
The Ranger Day talks are sponsored
by the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage
Corridor. All of the Ranger Days programs are free and begin at
1:30 PM in the 1934 ITU Hall in the Museum of Work and Culture
42 South Main Street, Woonsocket, RI. For more information call
(401) 769-9675.
###
From left: Fugitive slave orator Frederick
Douglass who spoke numerous times in the city; political
agitator John Brown, who was hanged for his extremist
abolitionist raid at Harper's Ferry. Brown slept at least one
night at the Harris estate. Daguerreotype of Abby Metcalf
Harris. At a dinner she gave in Lincoln's honor, she is recorded
as saying that once freed the 4 million slaves of America must
not be sent to Liberia because that would be a fate "worse than
bondage". She asked that as Americans, they have the same
manufacturing opportunities and other rights as Woonsocketers.
************************************
Wednesday, March 5,
5:30
p.m.
Library Talk
Rhode Island
Historical Society Library
121 Hope Street,
Providence
Free Admission, To
R.S.V.P.: Lee Teverow
(401) 273-8107 x10
or
lteverow@rihs.org
Lecture:
A Closer Look at Stereoview
Photography
Rhode Island Historical Society
Executive Director
Bernard
Fishman
will give an illustrated talk on the historical value of
photographic stereoviews. Using stereoviews from Rhode Island and
around the world, Mr. Fishman will review the
history of stereoviews
and show many historically interesting examples of the format. This
talk is part of a three-part
series by Mr. Fishman which will continue this spring.
************************************
Sunday, March 9,
1:00
p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Museum of Work & Culture
42 South Main
Street, Woonsocket
For more
information: Anne Conway
(401) 769-9675 or
aconway@rihs.org
Salute to Spring Celebration!
On Sunday, March 9, 2008, from 1:00 –
5:00 PM the Museum of Work & Culture will be celebrating its annual
“Salute to Spring.” The celebration will feature a concert by
Franco-American singer and songwriter
Josée Vachon, the
presentation of a living history presentation
“335 Bernon Street” and
an interpretive program entitled
“Under the Petticoats.” Pastries and coffee will be
served courtesy of the Social Street
and Diamond Hill Road locations of Tim Hortons...
The afternoon also marks the end of the Museum’s Annual Appeal
fundraising campaign. The annual raffle will take place at 4:30
pm. The grand prize is a trip for two to Quebec City, (a 4 day/3
night motor tour) donated by Conway Tours. In addition, over 30
dining and entertainment gift certificates will be raffled. Tickets
are $15 each and are available at the Museum of Work & Culture, 42
South Main Street, Woonsocket, RI. Tickets sale is limited to 200
and we expect to sell out quickly.
************************************
Thursday, March 13,
5:30
p.m.
Library Talk
Rhode Island
Historical Society Library
121 Hope Street,
Providence
Free Admission, To
R.S.V.P.: Lee Teverow
(401) 273-8107 x10
or
lteverow@rihs.org
Lecture:
New England’s 18th-Century Caribbean
Adventures
James Roberts,
a New England Regional Fellowship Consortium research grant
recipient and Ph.D. candidate at Johns Hopkins University, will
discuss his dissertation research on New England’s
eighteenth-century Caribbean adventures. Roberts’ talk will present
an account of the opportunities or difficulties encountered by
mariners, women, youths, and slaves in the pursuit of economic
chances. Particular attention will be given to a slice of the
waterfront world fostered by
Aaron Lopez in Newport, 1769-1772.
************************************
Saturday, March 15,
11:00 a.m.
Tour departs from the
John
Brown House Museum
52 Power Street,
Providence
For more information and R.S.V.P.:
Barbara Barnes
(401) 273-7507 x62 or
bbarnes@rihs.org
Celebrating H.P.
Lovecraft: A Literary Walk
Today’s walking tour celebrates the life
and work of
Providence native and
author Howard Phillips Lovecraft to mark the anniversary of his
death. Acknowledged genius of occult and horror fiction, Lovecraft’s
“Providence
stories”
(written between 1924 and 1935) provide the basis for this walk.
$12 per person; tour lasts ninety
minutes.
************
Founded in 1822, the Rhode Island Historical Society is the nation’s
fourth oldest state historical society and is today the steward of
tens of thousands of books, manuscripts, prints, photographs,
paintings, artifacts, and other historical materials. The Society
maintains its research library and John Brown House Museum in
Providence and operates the Museum of Work & Culture in Woonsocket.
The Society’s ongoing public and educational programming includes
publication of the historical journal
Rhode Island
History and the presentation of
exhibitions, lectures, workshops, and tours. www.rihs.org
