RIHS Events

This is a busy time at the Historical Society, and while we have an events calendar as well as a separate listing of Library-specific events, here are three ongoing and upcoming events to keep in mind as you plan the next few weeks:

The first in our series of workshops on Jewish genealogy took place last night, and featured a lot of helpful genealogical advice from George Goodwin and Barbara Carroll. The next session will take place next Wednesday, the 28th, from 6:30-8:30. It’s not too late to register for that session, which will focus on RIHS-specific resources, so visit the calendar for more information on how to do that.

This Saturday is Home Movie Day at the Aldrich House. You can drop off your films (8mm, Super 8, or 16mm) at the Library through Friday. On Saturday, they’ll be on the big screen, and you can get advice on how to care for them. Click here for more information.

Finally, on Saturday, November 7th from 10 to 12:30 we’re offering a workshop on the topic of Caring for Your Family Papers. If you have a box of important family materials that looks like this:then the workshop will be perfect for you. Karen Eberhart, the Library’s Special Collections Curator, will provide a hands-on demonstration of what to do to make sure that the irreplaceable materials documenting your family history are available for the long term. Participants will also receive an archival starter kit with some basic archival supplies. The workshop will be held at the Library, and space is limited, so reserve a spot by calling (401) 273-8107 x12. More information available through the events calendar.

Rhode Island Radio Lecture on Thursday

Despite being repeatedly and prematurely pronounced dead (at the hand of television, the internet, or whatever comes next), radio is still alive more than a hundred years after its birth.

This Thursday NERFC fellow Helen York will highlight the lives of two Rhode Island radio luminaries: Salty Brine and Warren Walden.

Full event details are available on our events calendar.

More information about Salty Brine is available in his Providence Journal obituary (which includes a slideshow of pictures through the years), and a quick overview with trivia is available through Quahog.org. Or you can stop in at the Library and view our collection of his papers. And for getting into the spirit of the times, Duke University’s collection of print radio advertising offers priceless items like “The Rainbow of Sound.”

July 4 Walking Tour of Fox Point

A Fox Point Fourth of July

On July 4th, the scheduled 11:00 a.m. walking tour will be a patriotic stroll through the Fox Point neighborhood. Come celebrate the life and works of Providence native George M. Cohan, the original Yankee Doodle Dandy. He was born in one of the oldest and most diverse neighborhoods in Providence, and is associated by his birth and patriotic songs with the Fourth of July. Learn about the ever-changing character of Fox Point, from its first colonial settlements through the waves of Irish, then Portuguese and Cape Verdean immigration, to the impacts of urban and highway development today. The tour begins at the George M. Cohan Plaza in Providence. Reservations are requested. $10 per person.

Saturday, July 4, 11:00 a.m.
Tour departs from:
Reflections Café
8 Governor Street, Providence
Tickets: $10 each
To RSVP: Dalila Goulart
(401) 331-8575 x45 or programs@rihs.org

Megan Kate Nelson Lecture

(Visit our online calendar to keep up with events and closings.)

Join us this Thursday evening at the Historical Society Library from 6:30-7:30, when Megan Kate Nelson will discuss her book project, “Ruin Nation: The Destruction of the South and the Making of America during the Civil War Era.” She will explain how and why Americans destroyed southern cities, plantations, forests, and men, and how both soldiers and civilians responded to these different kinds of ruins. She will also talk about the challenges of investigating the environmental history of the Civil War, and the important role the letters and diaries of New Englanders play in her research.

Megan Kate Nelson received her Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Iowa in 2002 and is Assistant Professor of History at California State University, Fullerton. Her first book, Trembling Earth: A Cultural History of the Okefenokee Swamp (Georgia, 2005) will be released in paperback in 2009. Nelson has received five fellowships to support the research and writing of her second book, Ruin Nation: The Destruction of the South and the Making of America during the American Civil War. Her research is funded by the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium Research Award.

Rhode Island Italian Genealogy Bibliography

As a follow-up to this weekend’s excellent session with Barbara Carroll on Rhode Island Italian Genealogy, here’s a list of some articles from Rhode Island History, the Society’s publication, on the topic:

• Stefano Luconi, “Ethnic Shops versus Chain Stores: Retailing among Italian Americans in theInterwar Years,” vol. 62 (Winter/Spring 2004).
• Stefano Luconi, “Italian Fascism and the Italian Americans of Providence,” vol. 60, (Spring 2002).
• Leo E. Carroll, “Irish and Italians in Providence, Rhode Island, 1880-1960,” vo. 28 (Summer 1996).
• Peter W. Bardaglio, “Italian Immigrants and the Catholic Church in Providence,” vol. 34 (May 1975).

Rhode Island Italian

Don’t miss the chance to learn more about conducting genealogical research on your Italian ancestors. This Saturday from 10:00-12:30 professional genealogist Barbara Carroll will offer a hands-on workshop at the Library. More details available at http://www.rihs.org/libevents.htm.

Lincoln and Rhode Island

In the spirit of the widespread celebrations of Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday, we’ll be highlighting a few of the Lincoln-related items in our collections over the next week or so. (Many of the items mentioned will be on display in an exhibition of Lincolniana at the Aldrich House. Also, be sure to attend “An Evening with Lincoln” on February 12th at the First Unitarian Church. See the RIHS website for more details.)

The first item is a broadside poem titled “Lincoln Lies Sleeping” by Nathan Upham. The poem is a quite melancholy dirge (a good deal of “bewailing” and “deep gloom”) that also manages to rise to a political crescendo in which Lincoln offers a posthumous prayer for the forgiveness of John Wilkes Booth and the nation rallies for unity. The somewhat maudlin text is matched by a melody taken from Stephen Foster’s “Under the Willow She’s Sleeping,” a song in which a mother laments the death of her child.

Broadsides of the poem seem to have been quite popular: Edwin Wolf’s American Song Sheets (entry #1263) lists five separate publications; Brown University’s Lincoln Broadsides (search for “Lincoln Lies Sleeping”) provides images of three of them and another two not listed in Wolf.  This is the only variation published in Providence, and the imprint credits “Theodore B. Stayner,” whose only other publication seems to be “Wake Nicodemus,” a widely-published song. Publishing may have been a temporary occupation for Stayner: the 1900 census includes a 59 year old “Theodore B. Stayner” who listed his occupation as “advertiser.”

Lincoln’s assassination prompted national mourning, so it comes as no surprise that “Lincoln Lies Sleeping” is just one example of printed Lincoln ephemera. In addition to Nathan Upham’s poem, a Louise Upham offered “The Nation is Weeping”, which set a similar poem to the same melody.

The Providence response to the Lincoln’s assassination will be the topic of a future post, as will another broadside—one that is also among Rhode Island’s earliest imprints.

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—Additional Resources—

For background information on broadsides, see The Encyclopedia of Ephemera.

To view more early broadsides, try:

• “An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera” (Part of the Library of Congress’ American Memory project. Includes nearly 200 Rhode Island related broadsides.)
• “Dying Speeches & Bloody Murder” (The Harvard Law School Library’s collection of over 500 crime broadsides.)
• The English Broadside Ballad Archive & The Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads

Events this Weekend

On last year's Lovecraft walk

Saturday August 23, 11:00 a.m.
Celebrating H. P. Lovecraft: A Literary Walk

This walking tour celebrates the life and work of Providence native and author Howard Phillips Lovecraft to mark the anniversary of his birth. Acknowledged genius of occult and horror fiction, Lovecraft’s “Providence stories” (written between 1924 and 1935) provide the basis for this walk.

The tour departs from the John Brown House Museum, 52 Power Street, Providence.
Tickets are $12 per person, and the tour lasts 90 minutes. For more information and to reserve a ticket, please call Dalila Goulart at (401) 331-8575 x45 email programs@rihs.org

Saturday, August 23rd at 5:30 p.m.
RiverWalk: Before the Fires are Lit

After the arrival of Roger Williams in 1636, rivers shaped the life of the city of Providence. The Colonial waterfront was the site of a thriving shipping economy for a young town. Eventually, factories and railroads turned attention away from the rivers and toward the land. After the 1950s, highways and bridges covered the waterways, and the rivers were forgotten.

But that was yesterday! Today, architects and city planners are creating a “new” waterfront. Once again, the rivers take center stage. And no event commands more attention than Barnaby Evans’ WaterFire. Smartly designed walkways, parks, and pedestrian bridges invite strolling, especially on summer evenings. Urban outdoor sculpture and beautiful civic and commercial buildings of varied architectural styles provide the setting for stories of Providence’s fabled past and dynamic present. This walk shares the history of Rhode Island’s capital city and the history of WaterFire.

$10 per person. Reservations requested for this tour. For more information and to reserve a ticket, please call Dalila Goulart at (401) 331-8575 x45 email programs@rihs.org

For a schedule of WaterFire lightings visit www.waterfire.org or call (401) 272-3111. This walk is offered in collaboration with WaterFire.