History

Stages Of Freedom — Museum And Bookshop

Just a reminder that Stages of Freedom, the state’s only African American Museum and Bookshop, is right downtown on lower Westminster Street by the river. And, as the sign in the window says, “All for a good cause.” That would be the Swim Empowerment program which provides free swim lessons for low-income BIPOC youth. But …

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Joey DeFrancesco — Let’s Rethink The Gaspee Affair

For a number of years, musician and historian Joey La Neve DeFrancesco has been on a mission to educate Rhode Islanders about their slave-trading past. His effort continues today in the Providence Journal with “It’s time to rethink the Gaspee Affair.” For one thing, he wants to disabuse us of the notion that the attack …

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‘The Letter’ At Roger Williams Memorial

(1.21) The innovative Park Service crew running the Roger Williams National Memorial have instituted their own version of Throwback Thursdays — four dates altogether from January through April. This week Roger Williams’ 1679 letter ‘To the Town of Providence’ will be on display and the public is invited to have a cup of coffee and …

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Someone Needs To Write A History Of Ted Widmer

Although . . . his story could make for a very terrible television show. (Mild-mannered historian by day/Perfumed fop-rocker by night!) Signed copies of Ted Widmer’s new book “Brown: The History of an Idea” are available at the Brown Bookstore. Thumbs up from Tony Horwitz so that’s all you need to know. “Through the wobbly …

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The Green Mile

Welcome to the Independence Trail of Providence. History buffs hoping to learn more about the Burning of the Gaspee on June 9th, 1772, might check out this point of interest at Planet and South Main Streets, the site of the Sabin Tavern where Rhode Island patriots planned the attack. All you have to do is …

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Sine Nomine Performance Saturday — The Puritan Playlist

And now for something completely different. Books can teach us much about the life of the earliest colonial settlers, but there are some things they can’t do. Sine Nomine sets out to explore a question that is rarely asked: What did this world sound like? What sounds were in the air that the early Pilgrims …

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Welcome To The Patrick T. Conley Book Barn

The Rhode Island State House Visitor Center opened last December just down the hall from the Charter Museum. While the shop carries the expected assortment of postcards, prints, and state-themed tchotchkes, the bookshelves are overwhelmingly devoted to the works of “Historian Laureate”* Patrick T. Conley; I counted at least 15 different titles in large multiples. …

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Hannibal Lecture At Brown

(1.29) “Cosmopolitanism and the Cult of the Martyrs in Late Antique North Africa” will be the topic Wednesday at Brown University. Archaeologist and historian, Richard Miles, is the senior lecturer and research director for the Department of Classics at the University of Sydney, and author of several books including “Carthage must be Destroyed.” Best known …

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