The Rhode Island Historical Society will host a screening of the new documentary The Optics of Aging from filmmaker and professor Michelle LeBrun, on Wednesday, December 11, at 5:30pm. Optics of Aging takes on the realities of aging and ageism through simple, personal stories of “olders.” While certain physical limitations are real as we age, [...]
The Rhode Island Historical Society will host historian Seth Rockman for a talk on his latest book, Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery, on Thursday, December 5th at 6:00 pm at the Aldrich House in Providence. Plantation Goods tells the biggest stories of early American history through the most mundane artifacts: woolen dresses [...]
The Rhode Island Historical Society will host Wampanoag artist Deborah Spears Moorehead for the artist talk Scratching the Surface: History on the Walls on Thursday, November 14th at 6:00pm. Spears Moorehead will present her art and literature, which addresses the pivotal roles that the Eastern Woodland Tribal Nations played in the making of the United [...]
Join the Rhode Island Historical Society and North Burial Ground on Thursday, October 24th, at 6 p.m. for a talk on the history of mourning jewelry with metalsmith and collector Sarah Nehama. Nehama will give an overview history of mourning jewelry, from its early iconography in memento mori jewelry and objects to the early 20th [...]
Join the Rhode Island Historical Society on Thursday, October 10th, at 6 p.m. for book talk on The Providence Steam Roller: New England’s First NFL Team from author Greg D. Tranter. In this talk, Tranter will bring to life the journey of the Providence Steam Roller, an early NFL franchise that brought major league sports to Rhode [...]
Join the Rhode Island Historical Society on Tuesday, October 1st, for a discussion with Jason Tranchida and Matthew Lawrence about their multi-channel musical documentary Scandalous Conduct: A Fairy Extravaganza. The project uses first-person reports to tell the story of the 1919 Newport Sex Scandal, an entrapment sting targeting LGBTQ+ service members conducted by the United [...]
Join the Rhode Island Historical Society on Sunday, September 22nd, at 1 p.m at the Aldrich House for a conversation on Reading Roger Williams: Rogue Puritans, Indigenous Nations, and the Founding of America with authors Linford Fisher, Sheila McIntyre, and Julie Fisher, as they explore their work to document Williams in his own words. They [...]
For one hundred and sixty-nine years, a first-person slave narrative written by John Swanson Jacobs—brother of African-American abolitionist and writer Harriet Jacobs—was buried in a pile of newspapers in Australia. Jacobs’s long-lost narrative, “The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots,” is a startling and revolutionary discovery. A document like this—written by a self-emancipated [...]
