Aldrich House The Perfect Setting

Transcription

1 The Rhode Island Historial Soiety Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage Paid Providene, RI Permit No. 617 Notes News and 110 Benevolent Street Providene, RI Fall / Winter 2010 in this issue: Main Street 1 Hear Ye, Hear ye 2 New Aquisitions Aldrih House The Perfet Setting 3 Rih in elegane, the Aldrih House is the perfet setting for your unforgettable holiday party or memorable wedding reeption. Are you looking for a histori venue for your next business or lunheon meeting? The impressive Aldrih House is loated on the beautiful and histori East Side of Providene. We offer a lovely sitting room, and a reeption area serves as the foyer entrane to the 800 square foot ballroom with four Frenh doors opening to large and beautifully landsaped grounds. History Alive 4 Eduation For more information or a personal tour, please ontat Ms. Renata Luongo at ext. 34 or rluongo@rihs.org. 6 Reserve your holiday event Happenings or 2011 wedding now and reeive Insert a twenty perent disount off your rental. rihs_fall_winter_2010.indd 2-3 Photos ourtesy of: Adams Lighting Company, Cambridge, MA 9/9/10 10:38:56 AM

2 Main Street Board of Diretors PRESIDENT Robert J. Manning PRESIDENT EMERITUS Roger N. Begin BOARD OF TRUSTEES Sylvia E. Brown Winifred E. Brownell, Ph.D. Nany K. Cassidy, Esq. William F. Connell Lyle S. Fain Robert G. Flanders, Jr. William M. Fowler, Jr., Ph.D. George M. Goodwin, Ph.D. Barry G. Hittner, Esq. Kathryn B. Mandel Carolyn P. Medina, Esq. Peter J. Miniati Timothy T. More William S. Simmons, Ph.D. Theodore W. Smalletz Luther W. Spoehr, Ph.D. Dennis E. Stark Barbara J. Thornton, A.I.A. C. June Tow Todd D. Turotte Laurie White EX OFFICIO Thomas R. Evans EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Bernard P. Fishman Charmyne Goodfellow, Diretor of Finane C. Morgan Grefe Ph.D., Diretor, Newell D. Goff Center for Eduation and Publi Programs Kirsten Hammerstrom, Diretor for Colletions and Curator Marlene K. LeRoy, Diretor, Development and Publi Relations Northern Division: Museum of Work & Culture Raymond Baon, Co-Diretor Anne Conway, Co-Diretor ALDRICH HOUSE 110 Benevolent Street, Providene, Rhode Island PH: FAX: WEB: JOHN BROWN HOUSE MUSEUM 52 Power Street, Providene, Rhode Island PH: LIBRARY 121 Hope Street, Providene, Rhode Island PH: MUSEUM OF WORK & CULTURE 42 South Main Street, Woonsoket, Rhode Island PH: FRONT COVER PHOTO Detail of six-legged piano in the Sheraton style by Clementi & Co., London a Bequest of Constane Sherman, This piano belonged to Esther Parkinson Slater ( ), Samuel Slater s seond wife, whom he married in Mrs. Slater gave the piano to Pawtuket musiian John Clarner ( ); Ms. Sherman was one of Clarner s desendants. The piano is on display in the Informal Parlor at the John Brown House Museum. Photograph by David Shultz. Be Part of History, Support the RIHS The Rhode Island Historial Soiety is a nonprofit organization sustained by our many generous donors, members and volunteers. While we preserve the past, our members and donors ensure our future through membership fees, speial gifts, and donations. Rhode Island s history is the story of all the people who have lived here. We need your help to tell those stories. Membership and Donations Whether you join at the Basi Level or opt for a Lifetime Membership, you an donate or join online at Just lik on GET INVOLVED and you are on your way to being part of history! For information on ways to give, please all at , ext. 33, or mlupham@rihs.org. All gifts are tax dedutible to the extent provided by law. How You Can Donate Cash Monetary donations are an important soure of operational support for the Soiety programs inluding researh and olletions, exhibits, eduational program support, equipment and staff development. In-kind gifts Donations of in-kind gifts may inlude equipment and/or materials to build or enhane exhibits, programs and speial events. Donations of servies are also a valuable way of ontributing to the Soiety. Let us disuss your in-kind gift with you. StokS and Bonds Appreiated stoks or bonds make for a gift that benefits not only the Soiety but also benefits the giver with a signifiant tax advantage. Gifts made through a will Consult your estate planner to prepare the perfet gift for future generations of The Rhode Island Historial Soiety patrons. Life insurane Delare the Rhode Island Historial Soiety as a benefiiary on a new or existing poliy. This will ensure the Soiety s suess for generations to ome. The 189 th Annual Meeting of the RIHS Wednesday, November 10, 2010 at 5:30 pm Aldrih House, Providene. You are ordially invited to attend the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Rhode Island Historial Soiety as we review the past year and elebrate our progress and ahievements, while antiipating exiting new beginnings! A reeption will immediately follow the onlusion of the business meeting and speaking program. All RIHS trustees, members, guests, and staff are invited to attend this meeting, program and reeption. Admission is free and open to the publi, but please R.S.V.P. to mlupham@rihs.org or all ext. 33 by Otober 31, This year, our speial guest will be Rhode Island doumentary filmmaker, Ms. Carla Rii. Ms. Rii worked at Harvard University and then Tufts University as Assoiate Provost for Researh. During these years she and her family spent their summers in a tiny mill town alled Carolina, RI, about 40 miles south of Providene in South County. Ms. Rii started a seond areer about ten years ago, making doumentary films based on oral histories. This allowed her to move to Rhode Island full time... a plae she and her family enjoy immensely. The film Carolina, RI: The Story of a New England Town is a doumentary that will soon be aired on RI PBS. Our feature presentation will show lips from this award-winning film, along with ommentary by Dr. Morgan Grefe, Diretor of our Goff Center for Eduation and Publi Programs. You won t want to miss it! 1

3 Hear Ye, Hear ye John Brown House Geothermal Installation Complete By Bernard Fishman, Exeutive Diretor fter two years of investigations, planning, and onstrution, the John Brown House geothermal HVAC installation is omplete. A For the first time the publi areas of the Soiety s histori flagship property have air-onditioning and humidity ontrol, just in time for the arrival of the heat of summer. The result is a more stable environment for histori olletions and a more omfortable atmosphere for visitors and staff. It has been a dream of the Soiety s sine the 1960 s to put air onditioning in the John Brown House. Plans were drawn up at least twie in deades past, but always laid aside: suh a projet was onsidered just too expensive and omplex. We found, through reent engineering studies, that we ould design a system that would use mainly existing entury-old dutwork in the house, thus minimizing onstrution damage to the histori struture. Our improved understanding of the behavior of materials in different kinds of environments also allowed us to establish levels of humidity and temperature to avoid the danger of ondensation inside the walls due to any severe humidity differenes between the interior environment and the outside limate. As our planning progressed, I deided to investigate employing a geothermal system that would use the onstant temperatures of water deep in the earth to provide some of the ooling and heating energy the new system would need, thus utting operational osts and making the system less damaging to the environment. We also deided to install industrial dehumidifiers, with onstant drainage, in the basement olletion storage areas. This would end the neessity of staff members having to endlessly empty basement humidifiers by hand in an operation resembling the demoni water-arriers of the old Disney artoon of the Sorerer s Apprentie. Constrution began in January and ended in July, The arhitet was Cornelis de Boer of Haynes/de Boer Assoiates, and the ontrator was E.W. Burman, In. Kirsten Hammerstrom, the RIHS s Diretor for Colletions, managed the diffiult proess Film Preservation Continues! Thanks to the National Film Preservation Foundation of onstrution supervision for the Soiety, and the laborious and deliate proess of moving thousands of olletion objets as olletion storage areas had to be emptied and shifted and restored to aommodate onstrution. Nine 400-foot wells provide the onstant flow of sub-surfae water for the system. The whole installation is below ground and no trae of it an be seen on the lawn. The geothermal system ost 20 perent more to install than using onventional hillers and a gas-fired boiler, but it will save over 30 perent in energy osts over its operational life. The entire ost of the whole multi-year projet, inluding all planning and onstrution, was about $575,000. Funding ame from a half-dozen federal, private, and foundation grants, inluding a federal Save Ameria s Treasures grant, the Champlin Foundation, and a federal Renewable Energy Program grant administered by the Rhode Island Offie of Energy Resoures. The ompletion of the HVAC system brings the John Brown House restoration program almost to its end: only a new fire alarm system and some minor interior improvements remain to be finished of a projet that has been one of the Soiety s hief onerns sine 2004, and that will have ost some $2.5 million by its approahing end. It is a soure of enormous pride to aomplish something that has eluded the Soiety s desires for so long, and something that will be so permanently benefiial. It is another example of how intensely the RIHS has been working to invest in the permanent foundations of future stability: finanial health, failities restoration and repair, eduational work, and olletions management and publi aess to olletions. The RIHS has reeived a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation to preserve a rare and fragile nitrate film. This film is alled Inspiration and features a jewel theft, but we don t know muh else about it beause it is too fragile to view and no one has wathed for 90 years! It was made in Rhode Island about 1917, but we don t know by what film ompany. Rhode Island was home to at least 5 film prodution ompanies during the 1910s, but very few of the silent films they produed survived. The preservation work will inlude stabilizing the film and opying it onto new film stok. This is the fourth grant the RIHS has reeived from the NFPF. The other grants preserved films titled: Cavalry Baptist Churh, 1914; Brown University Commenement, 1915; and Diamonds, The RIHS looks forward to presenting the restored Inspiration and other films from our olletions to the publi in the spring of Wath for noties in the RIHS alendar to learn when you too an see these histori films on the silver sreen! 2

4 New Aquisitions New Aquisitions Manusripts The briefase and all its ontents of Senator Nelson W. Aldrih ( ) were donated to the RIHS Library by the Senator s grandson Alexander Sam Aldrih. The ontents of the briefase provide a rare glimpse into the everyday life of the most powerful U.S. Senator ever to represent Rhode Island. Of note is a letter from Booker T. Washington, a leader in the Afrian Amerian ommunity, thanking the Senator for inviting him to attend the wedding of daughter Abby Aldrih to John D. Rokefeller Jr. in Alexander Sam Aldrih holding Senator Nelson W. Aldrih s briefase whih Karen Eberhart, Speial Colletions Curator, and Bernard Fishman, Exeutive Diretor, were grateful to reeive on May 7, Printed Colletion Rhode Island Baseball: The Early Years. Rik Harris. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2008 Did you know that Woonsoket native Gabby Hartnett set a world reord by athing a baseball thrown from a blimp eight hundred feet above him? Brush up on your loal history with the lesser-known fats of early baseball in Rhode Island. Historian Rik Harris presents stories and notes on mill worker teams; Napoleon Larry Lajoie; Frederik Eugene Gene Steere; Island Park and the Comets; soldiers on the ball field; 1892 New England League pennant winners-the Woonsokets; the famous1914 Providene Grays; and women in Rhode Island baseball. Wiked Newport: Sordid Stories from the City by the Sea. Larry Stanford. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2008 Loal historian Larry Stanford pulls bak the urtain from 350 years of history, beginning with religious seekers of the 17th entury to the ultra-rih families of the Gilded Age. He unovers the real stories behind some of Newport s soial sandals, rimes, maritime disasters and ontroversial haraters. Earle Family Portraits In 1824, Caleb Earle ( ), outgoing Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island, lived at 21 George Street between Governor and Ives Streets with his wife, Amey Arnold Earle. The Soiety reently aquired a pair of portraits of the Earles that, while they were probably made almost a deade after Earle s term as Lieutenant Governor ended, provide us with a glimpse of a Providene s politial soiety of the time. Earle, who maintained a pew at the First Congregational Churh, was one of Rhode Island s presidential eletors in 1824, when John Quiny Adams was eleted president. In 1828, Rhode Island overwhelmingly voted for Adams in his bid for re-eletion, though Andrew Jakson won the term as seventh president of the United States. Earle owned a lumber yard on South Water Street, and his portrait shows a suessful, if somewhat forbidding, man. Amey Arnold Earle ( ) is dressed in the style of the early 1830s, a time when the fashion for urls, bowknots and rosettes of hair worn high around the fae popularized the use of hair dye as the rosettes were muh less flattering in natural grey. The heart-shaped ruffle-edged starhed rinoline bonnet is similar to one worn by Mrs. Ann Hawkins in an 1832 portrait by John Linnell now owned by the Tate Britain, London. Family legend maintains the portraits were made by Chester Harding ( ), an Amerian painter born in Conway, Massahusetts. Harding studied portraiture in Europe after traveling and Amey Arnold Earle and Caleb Earle, oil on anvas a Gift of Mr. Brink Lowery, and painting in the Amerian West of the early 1820s Kentuky, Ohio, and the Missouri Territory where he made portraits of Daniel Boone and William Clark, then Territorial Governor of Missouri. Harding kept a studio in Beaon Hill even after moving to Springfield in 1830, and ontinued to paint prominent New England businessmen and politiians. The Soiety already owns Harding s portrait of John Brown s great-granddaughters Abby and Anne Franis, urrently on view in the first floor hallway of the John Brown House Museum. Whether the Earles were painted by Harding or not will be a pleasant uratorial mystery to explore, and while it may never be solved, the portraits are no less fine for their lak of attribution. 43

5 History Alive Who We Are: Stories from the Smallest State Though geographially small, Rhode Island is ulturally vast, having beome a new home to peoples from around the world for enturies. In this series we are delighted to highlight the historial soieties of Rhode Island, honoring their important work in olleting and preserving the stories of the many different ultures and heritages that together make up our state s unique identity. This newsletter edition features the Little Compton Historial Soiety. Writing the Book on Loal History How One Loal Historial Soiety Preserved Their History for Generations How does a small, volunteer-based, historial soiety reate a world lass history book and atually earn some money by doing so? It turns to the ommunity. Over two years ago, a Publi Dimension Museum Assessment Program suggested that the Little Compton Historial Soiety inlude more loal history in its tours and exhibitions. The Soiety agreed. LCHS Managing Diretor, Marjory O Toole, asked loal author Janet Lisle to write the town s first omprehensive narrative history. Ms. Lisle, a Newbery Honor Award winner and a Little Comptonite sine hildhood, quikly agreed. Volunteers formed a History of Little Compton Committee and developed a four-year plan that inluded a two-volume history, two summer exhibitions and a permanent exhibition. Ms. Lisle volunteered her time and the Historial Soiety appealed to the ommunity to raise the $50,000 neessary to design, publish and print the two volumes. The Soiety then turned to another ommunity member to assemble a publishing team and find a printer. Musi to Remember! Conerts Under the Elms Thanks to our generous sponsors and attendees, our 2010 Conerts under the Elms summer series was a huge suess! Keeping with tradition, the Amerian Band opened the onert series with their patrioti musi and pops repertoire! Over 2000 onertgoers enjoyed fabulous musi week after week. The air sizzled with the sounds of the Duke Robillard Band, to the Cajun beat of Magnolia, Atwater-Donnelly s Celti musi, and the swing and jazz of Al Basile! We were thrilled to welome for the first time Steve Smith & the Nakeds. So many people were daning this season, we may have to add a dane floor next year! Illustrating History Like many small olleting organizations, the Little Compton Historial Soiety had very few original images from the 17th and 18th enturies. In order to illustrate the book, the ommittee asked ommunity artists to selet a moment in Little Compton s history to interpret in their favorite art form. Almost 50 loal artists partiipated. Twenty three piees were seleted by a three person jury as full olor illustrations for the book. All 50 piees of art are now on display in the ompanion exhibition through Columbus Day. First Light: Sakonnet Two years of researh, writing, editing and proofing ame to a lose this July with the printing of the first volume entitled The History of Little Compton, First Light: Sakonnet The book traes the time of the Sakonnet Indians through the Great Gale of 1815, shares newly unovered information and puts several old misoneptions to rest. The full-olor, hard over publiation inludes 200 pages and retails for $30. To date almost 1000 opies have sold. The book has been embraed by the ommunity that helped reate it and will inspire new generations to learn and love their loal history. Marjory O Toole, Managing Diretor Little Compton Historial Soiety The Amerian Band 4

6 Third Dimension: Rhode Island in 3-D The RIHS Graphis Inventory Projet he Library of the Rhode Island Historial Soiety was proud to present The Third Dimension: Rhode Island in 3-D at an exlusive fundraising event at the Aldrih House on Saturday, June 19, Guests enjoyed an entertaining evening elebrating 19th entury stereoview three dimensional photography, while supporting our Graphis Inventory Projet. Guests enjoyed the deliious food of Pizzio Ristorante and desserts from The Duk and Bunny and Seven Stars Bakery before loal historian Ned Connors guided us through the streets of 19th and 20th entury Rhode Island. With the same speial polarizing glasses you use in the movies, the images truly popped off the sreen. Inluded in the images were stunning night-time olor views of the tragi fire that destroyed the Manville-Jenkes mill in Wath the RIHS alendar for more opportunities to experiene Rhode Island in 3-D during the oming year. T The Graphis Inventory Projet is a landmark effort to make fully aessible for the first time the vast audiovisual resoures in our olletions. During the first few years of the Projet, we have identified and inventoried over 207,000 individual items, more than half of the graphis olletions. These visual materials are used by arhitets, urban planners, artists, business people, historians, and students of all ages. We look forward to revealing more of these unique resoures but we need your help to ensure ompletion of this exiting and essential projet. Beome the Fourth Dimension Sponsor of the Graphis Inventory Projet! Some of the benefits of sponsorship inlude: Naming opportunity a Digital Bookplate with your name permanently and prominently displayed in every reord reated during the Graphis Inventory Projet. All the reords will be available through the RIHS online atalog - NETOP - used by tens of thousands of researhers every year in Rhode Island and around the world. Stereoview of a Newport Family, 1890s, Sal Lopes Colletion, RHi (X17) 408 Mr. Bernard Fishman, Exeutive Diretor, introdues the show The Third Dimension while Ms. Audrey Connors stands ready to projet the stereo images using a speialized stereo projetor. Reognition on the Graphis Colletion page of the RIHS website Reognition in the RIHS Annual Report Reognition in Notes and News, the RIHS newsletter sent to over 2000 RIHS member and supporters For more information, ontat Marlene LeRoy, Diretor of Development and Publi Relations by phone at x35 or by at mleroy@rihs.org to disuss this unique and exiting naming opportunity. John Brown House: Restoration Completion on the Horizon! Phase V Restoration Planning is now underway for the last phase (Phase V) of the John Brown House restoration. This part of the projet will inlude replaing the urrent fire detetion system with a new wireless fire alarm system, adding new exit signs and emergeny lighting, and improving plumbing in the house. This last phase will also inlude repairing the skylight over the entral stairs and the ventilating fan that Marsden Perry installed over a entury ago: we want to bring them bak into working ondition. We hope to soon finalize approximate osts and bid the projet out in the fall, with the aim of having the work ompleted by the end of With a little luk, then, this Christmas will see the long-awaited ompletion of a six-year projet that has seen more aomplished to preserve the John Brown House than at any time sine Perry s restoration during the presideny of Theodore Roosevelt! 5

7 Labor Day Kik-Off at the Museum of Work & Culture The Museum of Work & Culture will kik-off its annual Labor Day Open House with the opening of the new Going to Work exhibit. In our hanging exhibit gallery, loal artist Robert Duharme will present Let There Be Light, a ompilation of photos, paintings and sulptures, until Otober 23rd From November 1st through January 10, 2011, we will tell the story of preservation in New England through a new exhibit, The Preservation Movement Then and Now, developed by Histori New England, the ountry s premier histori site preservation organization. Woonsoket students from the 5th and 11th grades, along with their teahers, will be oming by the busload to partiipate in the Museum of Work & Culture s Woonsoket: History Hands-On Experiene program. The program is made possible by a City of Woonsoket Community Development Blok Grant (CDBG) in the amount of $39,000. The students start their day-long visit to the museum with a live history presentation, followed by a guided tour, and then an outdoor tour led by a National Park Ranger. To onlude the day, they will engage in an interative hands-on ativity. An estimated 850 students will take part in the program this year. These CDBG funds will also allow for indoor renovations of the Museum building. After thirteen years of museum operation and the wear and tear of more than 100,000 visitors, some refurbishments are in order. The City also awarded the Museum an $8,000 façade restoration grant, whih will provide new banners and new front doors to make a more weloming entrane to our Museum of Work & Culture. Students and museum Co-Diretor Ray Baon engage in hands-on ativity thanks to the CDBG grant. Courtesy of The Call Eduation This just in! The Goff Center for Eduation and Publi Programs is very pleased and proud to announe that it will be partnering with Rhode Island shools in another Teahing Amerian History grant program. This three-year projet, A New Birth of Freedom: Developing Historial Thinkers, is headed up by the Linoln Shool Distrit and direted by Dr. Morgan Grefe of the RIHS. Marie Parys will be bak to oordinate the ativities of the grant. We will be joined in this endeavor by eleven other shool distrits in the Northern Rhode Island Collaborative, as well as suh partners as the Gilder-Lehrman Institute and the DBQ Projet. Over these three years, up to 180 teahers will be examining questions of Amerian history, freedom, and the ideals of ivi virtue. They will be engaging with the most reent historiography, presented by some of the best sholars in the ountry, and inluding the exploration of histori sites, through both atual and virtual visits. To ontinue our exiting eduational news, the Goff Center of the RIHS has just been awarded its seond NEH Summer Institute for Teahers grant. As in 2009, this summer program will be o-direted by Dr. Joanne Pope Melish of the University of Kentuky and Dr. Grefe. Held at Brown, thirty teahers from aross the ountry will ome to Providene to learn about the role that slavery played in the rise of New England Commere, Industry and Culture up to In 2009 teahers from thirteen states partiipated, and we an only hope that this year s projet will be as inspiring and informative. Extra! Extra! A New Exhibit for the Museum of Work & Culture Looking for something to do this weekend? How about Going to Work? That s right, beginning on Labor Day, the Museum of Work & Culture is featuring a new permanent exhibit, Going to Work: Twentieth Century Settlers in the Blakstone Valley. After three years of working with the vast and varied ommunities of the Blakstone Valley, the exhibit is opening! In it you will find the stories of men and women who traveled from all aross the globe to make their homes and areers in the Blakstone Valley. From Italians to Colombians to South Carolinians, individual and family stories are mingled with the images of fatory workers, hurh worshippers, ommunity ooking, elebrated restaurants, joyful elebrations, and most of all, people like you and me. This exhibit is only part of a series of programs being developed to highlight the ultures that all the Blakstone Valley home. Thanks to the generous support of the John H. Chafee Modern Grinding truk, owned by Joseph Pepe Blakstone River Valley Blano,. 1940, ourtesy of Linda R. Lundgren National Heritage Corridor Commission, the National Park Servie, the June Rokwell Levy Foundation, the Rhode Island Counil for the Humanities, and ountless individuals and organizations, we have been able to fund teaher-reated unit plans for K-12 lasses, an oral history workshop with Brown s Dr. Annie Valk, Labor Day s musi and dane festival, an ethni food festival planned for Deember and even more planned for the spring of We hope that you all deide that you want Going to Work to be part of your year! 6

8 The Rhode Island Historial Soiety Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage Paid Providene, RI Permit No. 617 Notes News and 110 Benevolent Street Providene, RI Fall / Winter 2010 in this issue: Main Street 1 Hear Ye, Hear ye 2 New Aquisitions Aldrih House The Perfet Setting 3 Rih in elegane, the Aldrih House is the perfet setting for your unforgettable holiday party or memorable wedding reeption. Are you looking for a histori venue for your next business or lunheon meeting? The impressive Aldrih House is loated on the beautiful and histori East Side of Providene. We offer a lovely sitting room, and a reeption area serves as the foyer entrane to the 800 square foot ballroom with four Frenh doors opening to large and beautifully landsaped grounds. History Alive 4 Eduation For more information or a personal tour, please ontat Ms. Renata Luongo at ext. 34 or rluongo@rihs.org. 6 Reserve your holiday event Happenings or 2011 wedding now and reeive Insert a twenty perent disount off your rental. rihs_fall_winter_2010.indd 2-3 Photos ourtesy of: Adams Lighting Company, Cambridge, MA 9/9/10 10:38:56 AM

9 4 Happenings Fall/Winter Returns: Calendar Commodore Abraham Whipple: Privateer, Patriot, Pioneer Thursday, Otober 14, 6:00 p.m. Aldrih House Dr. Sheldon Cohen s biography of Abraham Whipple presents a look inside the life of a little-known, yet intrepid Continental Navy offier. Cohen reveals the ommander s involvement with the Gaspee, his treatment as a British prisoner of war, and his eventual migration west. Dr. Cohen is professor emeritus of history at Loyola University in Chiago. To R.S.V.P.: Dalila Goulart x45 or programs@rihs.org The Origins of Mary Drummond of New Bedford Saturday, Otober 16, 10:30 a.m.- 12:00 p.m. RIHS Library Finding the Elusive Female Anestor - The lively ase study of Mary Drummond, the purported oldest native Negro of New Bedford in 1928, will teah new ways to find your female roots in New England. Carol Presott MCoy, Ph.D. has been traing her own roots for 30 years and is President of Find-Your-Roots.om. Please R.S.V.P. in advane. $10; $8 for members. To Register: Natasha x12 or nbrooks@rihs.org If These Walls Could Talk Fifty-nine in 84 Thursday, Otober 21, 6:30 p.m. John Brown House Museum In 1884, Providene Grays pither Charles Old Hoss Radbourn won an astonishing fifty-nine games more than anyone in major-league history ever had before, or ever will again. Fifty-nine in 84 is an indelible portrait of a legendary player and a fasinating era of the national pastime. Author Edward Ahorn is the Deputy Editorial Pages Editor of The Providene Journal. To R.S.V.P.: Dalila Goulart x45 or programs@rihs.org From Sweetwater to Seawater: An Environmental and Atlanti History of Narragansett Bay, Wednesday, Otober 27, 6:30 p.m. RIHS Library Narragansett Bay experiened dramati environmental hange over the ourse of 200 years. Christopher Pastore, Ph.D. andidate at the University of New Hampshire, will disuss how these hanges affeted the bay and the people who depended on it. Pastore reeived a New England Regional Fellowship Consortium award to support his researh. To R.S.V.P.: Natasha x12 or nbrooks@rihs.org Gallery: The Preservation Movement Then and Now Monday, November 1 to Monday, January 10, 2011 Museum of Work & Culture histori sites and evolved to downtown revitalization, environmental onservation, and whole neighborhoods. Presented by Histori New England, the oldest and largest regional heritage organization in the nation. For more information: Ray Baon or rbaon@rihs.org Textile Preservation Workshop Saturday, November 6, 9:00 a.m. 12:00 p.m. RIHS Library Join us for an in-depth session overing the are, handling and storage of textiles to ensure they last for generations. We will disuss a wide range of materials, inluding quilts, lothes, fragments and most flat items. Dana Signe Munroe is a skilled textile artist and the Colletions Registrar for the RI Historial Soiety. Please register in advane. $25, $20 for members. To Register: Natasha x12 or nbrooks@rihs.org 189th Annual Meeting of the Rhode Island Historial Soiety Wednesday, November 10, 5:30 p.m. Aldrih House Speial guest will be doumentary filmmaker, Ms. Carla Rii. Clips from the award-winning film Carolina, RI: The Story of a New England Town will be shown with ommentary by Dr. Morgan Grefe, Diretor of our Goff Center for Eduation and Publi Programs. R.S.V.P. by Otober 31. To R.S.V.P.: Mary Lou Upham x33 or mlupham@rihs.org If These Walls Could Talk Save the Date! John and Sarah Brown s Wedding Anniversary Thursday, November 18, 6:30 p.m. John Brown House Museum 250 years ago, John Brown wed Sarah Smith, joining two of the most influential families in Rhode Island at the time. Come to learn about weddings in the 18th and early 19th enturies and elebrate the Browns anniversary with us. To R.S.V.P.: Dalila Goulart x45 or programs@rihs.org Trails of Memory in the Narragansett Country: Native and Settler Plae Traditions after King Philip s War Wednesday, Deember 1, 6:30 p.m. RIHS Library King Philip s War deimated Native populations and destroyed European settler ommunities in Narragansett Country. This talk exposes how Euro-Amerian oral traditions often erased enduring Native peoples from the landsape. Christine DeLuia, Ph.D. andidate at Yale University reeived a New England Regional Fellowship Consortium Award to support her researh To R.S.V.P.: Natasha x12 or nbrooks@rihs.org Gallery: The Preservation Movement Then and Now, presented by Histori New England Sunday, January 16, 2011 Museum of Work & Culture 2011 Annual Newell D. Goff Leture For more information: Dalila Goulart programs@rihs.org or x45 Celebrating H.P. Loveraft: A Literary Walk Saturday, Marh 12, 11:00 a.m. Tour departs from the John Brown House Museum 52 Power Street, Providene Celebrate the life and work of Providene native and author H. P. Loveraft to mark the anniversary of his death. Aknowledged genius of oult and horror fition, Loveraft wrote his Providene stories between 1924 and $12 per person; tour lasts ninety minutes. To R.S.V.P.: Dalila Goulart x45 or programs@rihs.org