Rhode Island History: Vol. 81, No. 1

Rhode Island History T HE JOUR NA L O F T H E R H O D E I S LAN D HISTORICA L SOC IETY spring 2024 · volume 81 · number 1

Rhode Island History

Published by The Rhode Island Historical Society 110 Benevolent Street Providence, Rhode Island 02906–3152

Spring 2024 · volume 81 · number 1

3 Editor’s Note RICHARD J. RING 5 (Un)Silencing the Past: The History (and Future) of the “Guide to Manuscripts at the Rhode Island

Roberta Gosselin, chair Winifred E. Brownell, vice chair Mark F. Harriman, treasurer Peter J. Miniati, secretary C. Morgan Grefe, executive director Publications Committee Charlotte Carrington-Farmer, chair Catherine DeCesare J. Stanley Lemons Craig Marin Seth Rockman Luther Spoehr Evelyn Sterne Staff Jerrad Pacatte, editor Richard J. Ring, editor J. D. Kay, digital imaging specialist Silvia Rees, publications assistant

opposite: Detail of the journal/account book with examples of Josephine’s daily accounts/transactions. Manuscript, MSS Josephine Winsor Journal/Account Book, RIHS Collections. cover: Photograph of a giant swinging ship amusement ride “The Flying Eagle” in action with a handful of spectators watching, Crescent Park, East Providence, Rhode Island, ca. 1900.

Photograph, Graphics Place File -­East Providence -­Parks -­ Crescent Park, RIHS Collections. RHi X3 1138

Historical Society Relating to People of Color” JERRAD P. PACATTE 11 Josephine Winsor: A Gentlewoman and Her Times J. STANLEY LEMONS 27 Rhode Island Book Notes

Rhode Island History is a peer-­reviewed journal published two times a year by the Rhode Island Historical Society at 110 Benevolent Street, Providence, Rhode Island 02906-­3152.

Postage is paid at Providence, Rhode Island. Society members receive each issue as a membership benefit. Institutional subscriptions to Rhode Island History are $40.00 annually.

Individual copies of current and back issues are available from the Society for $20.00 (price includes postage and handling).

Our articles are discoverable on ebscohost research databases.

Manuscripts and other correspondence should be sent to editor@rihs.org.

The Rhode Island Historical Society assumes no responsibility for the opinions of contributors. © The Rhode Island Historical Society Rhode Island History (issn 0035–4619)

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Editor’s Note

In this issue, we return to our roots—­the sort of foundational work that the RIHS began in 1827 when it published the Society’s own charter, constitution, and officers, a sketch of the life of Roger Williams, and reprinted his famous A Key into the Language of America. In those days, the publications program sought to explain the work of the society and to publicize and make more accessible the older, rarer books and unique manuscript material in the collections, as well as publishing scholarship on the history of Rhode Island.

Digitization is but the latest link in a long chain of tools we have used for over 200 years to make the collection accessible, beginning with those first publications and including the card catalog, the microfilm camera, the online catalog, and the scanner. However, once virtually or physically available in the mass, items still must be described and arranged in ways that empower access and synthesis by researchers.

In other words, indexing—­a function fulfilled by librarians for at least two millennia, since Callimachus (ca.

310–240 BC) worked in the Library of Alexandria.

What researchers are looking for changes over time, and so the Robinson Research Center staff responds by creating new tools. The first article, by Jerrad Pacatte, is a short history of the production of one of those tools that we now use every day—­an expanding index to a particular set of records that range physically across the collections: manuscripts that bear the names of people of color.

Beyond cataloging and indexing lies the realm of publishing about specific items in the collection—­this includes creating a scholarly apparatus that places them in their historical contexts, and explains or describes their significance, either intrinsically or as representative pieces. This is what Dr. Stanley Lemons does with his article on an account book kept by Josephine E. Winsor (1837–1905), a native of Greenville, Rhode Island, from 1880–1891.

A librarian by training, it is as deeply satisfying to me to see such work done as it must have been for the old cartographers when new information came into their offices to update their knowledge of land and sea.

The past is a puzzle we will never complete, but piecing the past together through the collection, preservation, and organization of its evidence remains a thrill nonetheless.

Richard J. Ring, Editor Deputy Executive Director for Collections and Interpretation

opposite: Title page of volume one of the Collections of the Rhode Island Historical Society, published from 1827–1902. RHiX174908

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JERRAD P. PACATTE

(Un)Silencing the Past The History (and Future) of the “Guide to Manuscripts at the Rhode Island Historical Society Relating to People of Color”

The archive, and Black marginalization within it, has important implications for both scholarly and popular ideas about history.

Ashley Farmer, Ph.D.1

It started with a card catalog box. The rest, so they say, is history.

The small, gray-­marbled card catalog box, currently housed in the reading room of the Rhode Island Historical Society’s Mary Elizabeth Robinson Research Center, is unassuming. Written in permanent black ink, the exterior tab summarizing the box’s contents simply reads: “Blacks—­card index.” Less than a foot in length, it is neatly stuffed, with individual, handwritten index cards filling the length of the box. Under the lid, manila tabs guide the researcher. Organized by place, each card includes a citation to a manuscript where a reference to a person of color was found, a description of the individual or historical context of the document, along with any other relevant information including dates or other persons of interest.

How did this invaluable resource, its antecedent recently rediscovered during a reorganization of manuscript materials at the research center earlier opposite: The card file compiled originally by manuscripts curator Harold Kemble in the mid-­1980s. Photograph by J.D. Kay.

this spring, begin? Who was—­and continues to be—­ responsible for updating its contents? What new information has this guide gleaned about the lives of people of color in Rhode Island history? And finally, how does the history—­and future—­of this project intersect with larger developments in the fields of African American history, Indigenous history, and critical archive studies to uncover and share the lives of persons of color in the last four decades?

In the mid-­1980s, Harold Kemble, manuscripts curator at the RIHS, began noticing multiple references to persons of African or Indigenous descent in the records he was processing and cataloging. With the assistance of W. Jeffrey Bolster, then a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University, the pair started to keep a detailed list of every reference to a person of color that they found.2 Together, the curator and graduate student researching the lives of Black mariners in early national New England laid the groundwork for what eventually would become the RIHS’s “Guide to Manuscripts at the Rhode Island Historical Society Relating to People of Color.”3 As Kemble worked over the next several years with the Rhode Island Customs House Records, family papers, estate inventories, account books, and Revolutionary War records, his list of references expanded considerably. With the aid of other researchers and graduate students working on the lives of enslaved and freed individuals of African and Indigenous descent 5

Rhode Island History

Sample cards from the original file. One [top] refers to a seaman’s protection certificate issued to Walter Lippitt of Greenwich, Rhode Island, a sailor of color, and dated December 17, 1799. Another card [bottom] references several Black soldiers who fought “in the Rhode Island line of the Army” in the American Revolution.

in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the file continued to grow; so, too, did scholarly interest in the lives of people of color in early New England.4 In September 1991, Cindy Bendroth, Harold Kemble’s successor as manuscripts curator, came across a few references to Kemble’s guide in the files of the Publications Committee. She wrote a letter5 to Kemble to inquire about its status and to learn more about the project, and more importantly, the whereabouts of the catalog cards.6 Two weeks later, on September 13, 1991, Bendroth wrote to Louis E. Wilson (1939–2022), then a junior professor of African and African American history at Smith College, seeking his advice on identifying sources of funding to publish “hidden African American sources.” Bendroth also stated in her letter to Wilson that since writing to Kemble earlier that month, he had come into the library of the RIHS with “a card file of references he compiled [while] processing material.”7 According to Bendroth, the RIHS’s first priority involved hiring someone to “do data entry” and “to put the thing on the computer so it can be printed out.”8 In fall 1991, personal computers still were a relatively new and expensive technology. Nevertheless, data entry for the project began in earnest the following year thanks to the help of John Wood Sweet, then a Princeton University graduate student whose research in the RIHS collections on African and Indigenous Rhode Islanders yielded a great number of additional references.9 In late 1992, this computer-­ generated, typed reference guide was added to the library’s collections.

News of the guide’s launch soon spread. In September 1992, Bendroth wrote to Henry Louis Gates Jr., acting director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-­American Research at Harvard University and a foremost scholar of African American history, to not only inform him of the guide’s existence but also to share a copy with the Du Bois Institute. In her letter to Gates, Bendroth explained that the guide created by Kemble was:

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not a typical source book in that it does not list complete collections [or] a narration of the items in the collection. The references are a few account book notes, or a receipt in a larger collection, all important, but lost in most finding aids.

Bendroth went on in her letter to emphasize the importance of these records to the study of eighteenth-­ century African and African American life in Rhode Island and to call attention to the richness of the RIHS collections.

Bendroth closed her letter to Gates with an expression of her desire to publish the guide eventually. She concluded her letter by stating: “I would appreciate any advice or comments you could give in helping me reach this goal, including possible publishing houses for African American sources.”10 She explained that at the time, the RIHS could not shoulder the expense of publishing the guide. At a time when few publishers were producing African American bibliographic guides, Bendroth’s letter to the eminent historian Henry Louis Gates underscores just how far ahead of its time this guide truly was.

The guide has undergone several changes over the last thirty years. Between 1994 and 2004, Robin Flynn, Karen Eberhardt, and Richard “Rick” Stattler made further contributions as they plumbed the collections for documentary evidence of individuals of African, African American, Indigenous, and Asian descent. As a result, the number of references grew at an exponential rate. Around 2002, the first version of the guide was published online, and in 2004, a revised version was published on the RIHS website. The updated version included an introduction and enabled researchers to perform keyword searches of the guide from remote locations for the first time.

In 2018, Research Services Manager Jennifer Galpern made a careful review of the records cited in the guide to ensure that all catalog numbers were up-­to-­ date and listed correctly. In 2023, student interns Fiona O’Hare and Courtney Garrity transcribed many of the documents listed in the guide and digitized them whenever possible. Garrity spent the spring 2024 semester surveying more than 1,800 pages of the

unpublished volumes of the Providence Town Papers, finding 124 confirmed and 53 potential persons of color—­a total of 177 new references added to the guide.

The writings of the late Haitian anthropologist Michel Rolph-­Trouillot (1949–2012) remind us that the word “history” is imbued with many contradictory meanings, “both the facts of the matter and a narrative of those facts,” meaning “both ‘what happened’ and ‘that which is said to have happened.’ ”11 In his widely influential book Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995), Trouillot identified four critical moments when historical—­ and by extension archival—­silences enter the process of historical production: “the moment of fact creation (the making of sources); the moment of fact assembly (the making of archives); the moment of fact retrieval (the making of [historical] narratives); and the moment of retrospective significance (the making of history in the final instance).”12 As Trouillot and the subsequent generation of social scientists and critical archival studies scholars he influenced 7

Rhode Island History

have shown over the last thirty years, the historical record is riddled with omissions, silences, and incomplete narratives.

The recording, preserving, cataloging, and writing of history is, and likely always will be, an imperfect process. The simple fact is that not everything that has been spoken or that has happened in real time has been written down, photographed, or otherwise recorded for posterity. Inevitably, the stories of some will be, and historically have been, prioritized as more worthy of preservation and reflection than others. Take for example Major General Nathanael Greene (1742–96), a man whose life and activities during the American Revolution have been painstakingly documented. In fact, a team of historians and librarians at the RIHS spent decades organizing, cataloging, and transcribing his papers. These were published in thirteen volumes and are considered among the most important sources for studying the era of the American Revolution.13 Reconstructing the lives and writing the histories of the “subaltern,” a term popularized by postcolonial studies theorists that collectively refers to disenfranchised colonial populations whose access to hierarchies of power have been circumscribed throughout history, is a far more challenging endeavor.14 Traditionally, these historically marginalized populations—­ the Indigenous, the poor, the disabled, the enslaved, women, persons of color, LGBTQIA2S+ individuals, etc.—­typically come into archival view in fragments. These fleeting snapshots often are all that the researcher has to construct a historical narrative of a life long gone.

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On July 20, 1768, Newporter William Coddington and the town’s overseers of the poor indentured Bathsheba Kim, described in the record as “a Negro girl,” to Thomas Baley and his heirs.15 In just a few short lines, Bathsheba enters—­and then promptly disappears—­from archival view. We do not know how Bathsheba ended up in Newport, nor do we know her age, her marital status, her ancestral origins, or how she might have felt about being indentured to Baley’s family. Her words and feelings are nowhere to be found on this weathered receipt. Instead, her status as an impoverished woman of color in need of assistance from the town’s overseers of the poor, never mind the commodification of her body and labor, precipitated the creation of this document.

Despite these silences and the abundance of unanswered questions about Bathsheba’s life they raise, what we do know about her is that she lived as an unfree person in Rhode Island’s largest port city on the eve of the American Revolution. She likely walked the cobblestone streets of the city. It is not unreasonable to believe that given the augmented mobility accorded to enslaved people in coastal cities and towns, Bathsheba likely was no stranger to the hustle and bustle of the city’s long wharves as she carried out her daily affairs. Scenes of ship masts crowding the Newport harbor, or enslaved stevedores loading and unloading ships bound for ports across the rollicking Atlantic World, likely unfolded before her eyes. Whatever her story, Bathsheba’s life and memory matters. Reference items such as the “Guide to Manuscripts at the Rhode Island Historical Society Relating to People of Color” shed light on these long overshadowed lives.

Manuscripts curator Harold Kemble in the mid-­1980s in the RIHS library, now the Mary Elizabeth Robinson Research Center. Image courtesy of Harold Kemble.

Looking back over the last forty years, the guide has progressed with the passing of time. It continues to act as a kaleidoscopic lens through which we can begin to explore the triumphs, the struggles, and the memories of those traditionally marginalized in mainstream historical narratives. Returning to the teachings of Trouillot, the guide also challenges us to remember that the creation of historical (archival) silences occurs “at the moment of fact assembly” as well as “at the moment of fact retrieval,” or the moment when a historical narrative is written. The guide speaks to these omissions and strives to provide patrons access to underrepresented perspectives, cultures, and histories.

As we approach the semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence in 2026 and its inevitable effect on the nation’s attention to historical studies, the RIHS will continue to develop the guide and connect researchers with the resources they need to unsilence these overlooked pasts.

Jerrad Pacatte is Director of Historical Research and Content Development at the RIHS and coeditor of this journal.

Pacatte’s research and teaching interests are in examining the histories of gender, slavery, disability, and gradual emancipation in early New England. He is completing a Ph.D. in African American history at Rutgers University. The author would like to thank Cindy Bendroth, Harold Kemble, John Wood Sweet, Rick Stattler, Jennifer Galpern, Dana K. Signe-­Munroe, Phoebe Bean, and Courtney Garrity for their support and assistance.

Notes 1. Ashley Farmer, “Archiving While Black,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 22, 2018, https://www.chronicle.com/article/ar chiving-­while-­black/, accessed April 1, 2024.

2. Today, W. Jeffrey Bolster is considered one of the foremost scholars of Black mariners in early New England. His publications, which relied heavily on collections housed at the RIHS, include his prize-­winning 1993 article “ ‘To Feel Like A Man’: Black Seamen in the Northern States, 1800–1860,” Journal of

American History 76, no. 4 (March 1990): 1173–1199, and his later monograph Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997). Bolster is professor of history emeritus at the University of New Hampshire.

3. Harold Kemble, phone conversation with the author, March 2024. The Guide’s URL is https://www.rihs.org/guide-to-people -of-color/.

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Rhode Island History

4. Historical studies of African Americans in early New England appeared sporadically throughout the nineteenth century, however, the publication of Lorenzo Johnston Greene’s The Negro In Colonial New England, 1620–1776 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942) gave rise to the field of Black New England historiography. At the time of the guide’s creation in the late 1980s, recently published studies of slavery and Black life in New England included James Oliver Horton and Lois K. Horton, Black Bostonians: Family Life and Community Struggle in the Antebellum North (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1979); Jay Coughtry, The Notorious Triangle: Rhode Island and the African Slave Trade, 1700–1807 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981); Robert J. Cottrol, The Afro Yankees: Providence’s Black Community in the Antebellum Era (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982); Rhode Island Black Heritage Society, Creative Survival: The Providence Black Community in the 19th Century (Providence, RI: The Rhode Island Black Heritage Society, 1984); and William Dillon Piersen, Black Yankees: The Development of an Afro-­American Subculture in Eighteenth-­Century New England (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988).

5. Cindy Bendroth to Harold Kemble, September 6, 1991, “Guide to Manuscripts Relating to People of Color at the Rhode Island Historical Society,” Rhode Island Historical Society Manuscript Collections.

6. Cindy Bendroth, phone conversation with the author, April 2024.

7. Cindy Bendroth to Louis E. Wilson, September 13, 1991, “Guide to Manuscripts Relating to People of Color at the Rhode Island Historical Society,” Rhode Island Historical Society Manuscript Collections.

8. Ibid.

9. In 1992, John Wood Sweet was at work on his doctoral dissertation, “Bodies Politic: Colonialism, Race, and the Emergence of the American North: Rhode Island, 1730–1830,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1995). His dissertation later was published as a monograph titled Bodies Politic: Negotiating Race in the

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American North, 1730–1830 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003). Sweet is professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and in 2023, he won the Bancroft Prize in American History and Diplomacy for his newest book, The Sewing Girl’s Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America (New York: Macmillan, 2022).

10. Cindy Bendroth to Henry Louis Gates Jr., September 17, 1992, “Guide to Manuscripts Relating to People of Color at the Rhode Island Historical Society,” Rhode Island Historical Society Manuscript Collections.

11. Michel Rolph-­Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995).

12. Trouillot, Silencing the Past, 26.

13. See The Papers of General Nathanael Greene, 13 vols., edited by Elizabeth C. Stevens, Richard K. Showman, Dennis M. Conrad, and Roger N. Parks (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, and the Rhode Island Historical Society, 1976–2005).

14. A select bibliography of significant works in the field of subaltern studies includes: Subaltern Studies: Writings on South Asian History and Society, 3 vols., edited by Ranajit Guha (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982–84); Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics (New York: Methuen, 1987, republished in 2002); Gayatri Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1988), pp. 271–313; Saidiya Hartman, Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-­Making in Nineteenth-­Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); and more recently Marisa J. Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016).

15. “Indenture of Bathsheba Kim to Thomas Baley and Heirs by William Coddington and the Newport Overseers of the Poor,” July 20, 1768, MSS 9001-­B, Box 1, Rhode Island Historical Society Manuscript Collections.

J. STANLEY LEMONS, PhD

Josephine Winsor A Gentlewoman and Her Times

Josephine E. Winsor (1837–1905) is found only in Winsor family genealogies and in the Winsor family cemetery in Greenville, the village in Smithfield where she was born and died. However, at least one artifact from her life has miraculously survived. From 1880 to 1891, Josephine kept a detailed account of her expenditures and other notes in a journal that functioned more like an account book, and this surviving manuscript provides an interesting glimpse into her life, finances, and social affairs. The journal illuminates how Josephine, an unemployed spinster, had sufficient familial and personal wealth to live comfortably on her own for the rest of her life. She recorded daily expenses, including what she paid for food, magazine and newspaper subscriptions, piano tuning, lamp wicks, saddle soap, axle grease, clothing, gifts, spools of thread, care of her horse, hairpins, a post office box, Tarrant’s Seltzer Aperient (a patent medicine for constipation), and on and on.

She recorded the fares and expenses of trips, and she usually paid the way for a cousin or two to accompany her. She often went into Providence to shop or to see shows, lectures, exhibitions, and plays or even to attend a political rally. These minute details reveal how she lived a genteel life in late-­nineteenth-­century Rhode Island.

The amazing part of the journal’s story is that it appeared in the 1970s in an auction in California, thousands of miles away from Rhode Island, and the journal was purchased by a man who sent it back to Greenville to his sister. In 1982, I bought the house where Josephine had lived, and my neighbor Virginia Miller, the sister of the gentleman who purchased the

diary, showed me the journal. After Miller died in January 2010, her daughter gave me the journal to keep.

After rebinding the journal, I donated it to the Rhode Island Historical Society to join the larger collection of Winsor family materials.1 Since the journal covers only one decade, a similar volume or two probably existed, but they are missing or lost.2 Josephine Winsor was born in Greenville on April 17, 1837, the daughter of Nicholas Steere Winsor (1797– 1885) and his wife, Elizabeth Sayles Foster (1806–42).

Josephine was the second of four children, but she was the only one to live until adulthood.3 She was a seventh generation descendent of Joshua Winsor, one of the first settlers of Providence. Joshua came to Providence as an indentured servant of Roger Williams, but by 1640, he had paid off his indenture.4 Joshua’s descendants multiplied, prospered, and spread across Rhode Island. Today, at least a dozen local towns have streets and roads named after the Winsor family. The Winsor Hill Elementary School is in Johnston, and Greenville has the William Winsor Elementary School, named for one of Josephine’s first cousins, William Winsor (1819–1904).

Josephine’s father, Nicholas, was the cashier, one of the four major officers, of the Smithfield Exchange Bank from the bank’s incorporation in 1822 until 1845.

As the person who oversaw the daily operations of the bank, he was its only salaried employee. He was succeeded by his nephew, William Winsor, who held that position until his retirement in 1895. Thereafter, William’s son, Nicholas Steere Winsor II (1865–1928), served as the cashier and treasurer until his death.5 In addition to his banking job, Josephine’s father, 11

Rhode Island History

Nicholas Steere Winsor, operated the Waterman Tavern (where the bank occupied a rear ell of the building) and was the postmaster in Greenville for fifteen years before he resigned and moved to New York City. There he became the bookkeeper and corresponding secretary in a banking office of his brother-­in-­law, Amasa S. Foster. He also became a “real estate broker.”6 After Josephine’s mother, Elizabeth Sayles Foster Winsor, died in February 1842, Josephine went to live with her maternal grandmother in Elmira, New York. Josephine arrived in Elmira in August 1842.7 In 1861, Josephine’s father joined the family in Elmira and managed the Foster farm for the next twenty years. In 1881, he and Josephine returned to Greenville where he died four years later in 1885 of “face cancer.”8 Josephine lived in Greenville, where she died of tuberculosis on December 20, 1905, at the age of 68.9 Returning to Greenville brought father and daughter back to the heartland of the Winsors and their extended kinship network in Rhode Island. They were part of the social, religious, and political establishment of Smithfield, where the Winsor family was influential and highly respected. The men owned substantial farms and employed farm laborers to work.

The Smithfield Exchange Bank was practically a family institution from its founding in 1822 until 1928. Its original incorporators were Daniel Winsor (president), Asa Winsor (father of William Winsor), Stephen and Elisha Steere, Richard and Silas Smith, Nathan B. Sprague, Joseph Mathewson, Dexter Irons, John Smith Appleby, and Thomas, Charles, Nathaniel, and Reuben Mowry.10 Nearly all of these bank incorporators belonged to an extended kinship network.11 12

A photograph showing an exterior view of the author’s current residence, the former home of Josephine E. Winsor. Photograph, ca. 1982. Image courtesy of the author.

Smithfield Exchange and Smithfield Savings Bank in Greenville, Rhode Island (undated). Photograph, Russell F. Thomas Postcards Collection, image courtesy of the Smith-­Appleby Museum/ Historical Society of Smithfield, Rhode Island.

Many of these same men and their families were members or associated with the First Freewill Baptist Church (now the Greenville Baptist Church) which was gathered in 1820. Josephine was a Freewill Baptist and attended the Freewill Baptist Church in Greenville.12 Josephine’s cousin William was a pillar of the church and a major figure in Freewill Baptist life in Rhode Island.13 The Winsors also dominated the Baptist Society of Smithfield, the corporate entity that owned the Baptist meetinghouse and property. In 1823, Daniel Winsor was its president, Josephine’s father was its secretary, and her uncle Asa Winsor was treasurer. The

Josephine Winsor

Photograph of the Greenville Inn (the Resolved Waterman Tavern) with a car parked out front, Greenville, Rhode Island, ca. 1915.

Photograph, Graphics -­Place File -­Smithfield, RI-­Greenville, RIHS Collections. RHi X17 4808

Black and white photograph of the Greenville Freewill Baptist Church, ca. 1900. Photograph, image courtesy of the First Freewill Baptist Church of Smithfield.

only other officer was Nathan B. Sprague, who was vice president of the Baptist Society and had donated the land for the Baptist meetinghouse.14 The church and the society were separate entities. The church comprised the baptized members of the Baptist Church, while the society was an incorporated body composed of pew owners who may or may not have been members of the church. The church itself was controlled by eight families, and most were part of an extended kinship network.15 Men from these families served as elected

town officials who aligned themselves with the Republican Party.

Especially helpful to Josephine was her cousin William. He had built a house in 1845 on land given to him by his father, Asa, and when Josephine returned to Greenville in 1881, he sold it to her.16 Being eighteen years older, a banker, successful farmer, and dairy owner, William served as Josephine’s financial adviser.

Her father recommended that she call upon him to help track her investments and to manage her portfolio.17 Naturally, Josephine did her banking through the Smithfield National Exchange Bank, and cousin William usually handled her transactions.

Clearly, financial security was a significant concern because her journal has many references to it, apart from her lists of expenses for items costing as little as 5¢. While still living in Elmira, Josephine’s father kept her supplied with money, and she spent it rather freely.

For example, she bought a copy of Mitchell’s New General Atlas, costing $10, which was a fairly high price at that time.18 Josephine bought fabric that was then made into a dress at a cost of $46.50. That may seem inexpensive today, but that amount is equivalent to $1,415 in 2024 dollars.19 In the summer of 1880, she embarked on a vacation to Boston, Rockport, Gloucester, and the Isles of Shoals in Massachusetts and then to Providence and Greenville in Rhode Island that cost her $185, a sum equaling approximately $5,582 today.20 Josephine’s father gave her $100, and her uncle Edward Foster added another $100 to pay for the trip.21 She also bought opera glasses with a $10 gold piece from her father, writing, “I had needed one for years.”22 13

Rhode Island History

above: Receipt dated April 1, 1889, from cousin William Winsor for 62 quarts of milk at 6¢ per quart totaling $3.72. An illustration of a grazing cow embellishes the left hand side of the receipt.

Manuscript, MSS Josephine Winsor Journal/Account Book, RIHS Collections. RHi X17 4889 Below: A $1.00 receipt dated March 24, 1899, from Cosmopolitan Magazine for a one-­year subscription. Manuscript, MSS Josephine Winsor Journal/Account Book, RIHS Collections.

RHi X17 4888

In December 1883, Josephine’s father tallied her assets, which included inheritances from her maternal grand­ father, William Foster ($13,000) and her uncle Amos Foster ($3,000) and from bonds and mortgages on property in Illinois that her father had accumulated ($27,000), for a grand total of $43,000.23 Josephine’s $43,000 net worth in December 1883 is equal to $1,310,389 in 2024 dollars.24 She wrote in her journal that her father told her that the income generated from her investments amounted to about $2,500 per year. Since she had a house and no rent, her father suggested that with that much income, she might “keep the horse & a man to take care of him & have a garden. He made this statement so I could know the state of my finances & what I could afford.”25 By being mindful of her spending, Josephine never ran out of money. At the same time, she did not appear to do without. Her familial wealth and strategic investments enabled her to purchase what she wanted and to travel as she pleased.

Her father gave her a copy of his will and a letter explaining how to manage the family mortgages. He also told her that according to the terms of his will, she would inherit his entire estate, and a probate was not needed. However, that did not turn out to be true, and his estate was not settled until 1887, two years after he died.

The cost of the probate process was one of the largest expenses registered in her journal. She paid her lawyer, Welcome Arnold Greene Jr., $128.50 at one time and then a total of $75 more for later probate work.26 In addition, she paid Oscar Tobey, the probate court clerk and notary, $9.70 for clerking and closing fees.27 In that same letter, Josephine’s father strongly encouraged her to also draft a will, though she never 14

did get around to doing so during her lifetime. She died intestate in 1905, and her house and property were tied up until January 1917, when all of those who had a legal claim against her estate signed quitclaims.28 One piece of advice that she did follow, however, was to continue consulting with her cousin William on financial matters; however, he died on May 20, 1904, thereby depriving her of his counsel at the end of her life. William’s son, Nicholas Steere Winsor II, served as the lawyer for her estate until it was finally settled nearly thirteen years later.

While not rich when compared with some of her relatives, she exemplified much of the culture of an upper middle-­class woman. She lived a comfortable life in her own home, owned a horse and carriage, hired a man to care for the horse and garden, employed women to do housework, traveled when she pleased, and bought clothes and hats or had them made by dressmakers and milliners.29 If Josephine had a “vice,” it was hats. She often bought hats or trimmings during her many shopping trips to Providence. She also purchased a 112-­piece “English decorated dinner set,” something well beyond the means of ordinary people.30 She had money to spend on friends and relations, and she frequently gave books as gifts.31 She subscribed to the Atlantic Monthly, Cosmopolitan (when it was a more conventional magazine for women), the Morning Star, the Freewill Baptist denominational weekly newspaper, and the Providence Journal.

On her property, in addition to her eight-­room house, she had a substantial barn, a small, brick smoke-­or ash-­house, and a big, four-­hole outhouse that had a granite foundation, windows, a shelf for

the catalog, and a painted, plastered interior. Indoor plumbing and electricity would not arrive in Greenville until the 1920s. She maintained a fruit and vegetable garden that was tended by Philip Dexter. While she lived in the home, black walnut trees were planted on the property, some of which are still present 130 years later.

In a time when having a piano was thought to add “a tone” to a home and set one apart from those less well off, Josephine had a Chickering piano.32 Such an instrument was regarded as evidence of polite culture and respectability. When first invented in the eighteenth century, pianos were quite expensive and were owned only by aristocrats and royalty.

15

Rhode Island History

In the nineteenth century, as mass manufacturing brought the price of pianos down, the rising middle-­ class bought pianos to gain social respectability, and the piano became “a leading symbol of middle class domestic life.”33 Reflecting on the social capital pianos provided middle-­class families, the historian Daniel Walker Howe writes: “In many middle-­class households, the piano replaced the fireplace as the center of home life.”34 However, that cachet faded somewhat when ragtime, which was associated with African Americans, honky-­tonks, and brothels, emerged in the 1890s.35 When she had her piano fine-­tuned in April 1890, she paid $3 and felt that she had been overcharged. She complained to her diary: “The price in the city for tuning a piano is $1.50 (for an upright), for a square piano $1.25. (So he charged me an exorbitant price, I think.) I will ascertain the price he charged others.”36 It must have been the going rate for tuning out in the countryside because she paid the same when the piano was later tuned again.37 Occasionally, Josephine rode her carriage into Providence, stayed the night in a hotel, and put her horse, Pompey, in a stable. Other times she rode the train from Greenville and back. On June 24, 1886, when Providence celebrated the 250th anniversary of its founding, she went to see the festivities. Despite a drizzling rain, large parades were staged in the morning and afternoon, and balloon ascensions came later.

The only canceled event was a grand fireworks display in the evening. The morning military and civic parade saw some 8,500 men marching in seven divisions. One of the largest divisions was that of the Grand Army of the Republic. The day before had featured a parade 16

to the First Baptist Church, where the chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court delivered a lengthy discourse. A two-­ring circus at the Messer Park baseball field ran for the entire week, and local theaters put on minstrel shows for the crowds.38 On the day of the parade, one could rent a window to watch the parade, and Wedgwood made special Roger Williams souvenir pitchers for sale.39 The following year, Josephine again traveled to Providence to visit the Aztec Fair at the Music Hall.

This was an exhibition of Mexican arts, crafts, industry, and culture that ran from May 31 to June 18, 1887.40 Then in October 1887, she took two friends to see the Thatcher, Primrose & West minstrel show at Low’s Grand Opera House.41 The minstrel show was one of America’s first mass entertainment forms, and Providence was a thoroughly minstrel-­mad city. In the 1870s and 1880s, nearly every theater in Providence and Pawtucket featured minstrels, and these shows often ran for months at a time. The famous minstrel performer Billy Ashcroft, born in Providence in 1844, had a street named after him. He and Dick Sands, also from Providence, shared the title of the “Champion Clog Dancers of the World.”42 Although women were not eligible to vote during her lifetime, Josephine went to Providence on November 1, 1888, to see the Republican torchlight parade and demonstration in favor of Benjamin Harrison’s candidacy.43 Such parades and demonstrations were commonly used by all parties to generate enthusiasm for their candidates. The men wore uniforms of military companies, of fire and police departments, and of social clubs and societies. Houses along the parade

Josephine Winsor

Black and white photograph of the Greenville Free Public Library, Greenville, Rhode Island (undated).

Photograph, Russell F. Thomas Postcards Collection, image courtesy of the Smith-­Appleby Museum/ Historical Society of Smithfield, Rhode Island.

route were decorated, illuminations were set along the streets, and marchers carried banners and torches.

Many musical units marched in the divisions of the parade. In the post-­Civil War era, Rhode Island was “rock-­ribbed Republican,” and Republican demonstrations took place in many places around the state.

Providence had the grandest demonstrations, but the Providence Daily Journal, which strongly supported the Republican Party, expressed disappointment at the 1888 rally for Harrison. A headline read: “The Illuminative Display Somewhat Scattered and Somewhat Commonplace.” It declared that the demonstration “failed to reach the splendid proportions, spectacular magnificence and unbounded enthusiasm which characterized the grand pageant at the close of the Blaine-­ Cleveland campaign in 1884.”44 The Republicans carried Rhode Island on November 6, but Harrison’s margin of victory was 2,212 votes fewer than those garnered by James G. Blaine in 1884.45 Josephine was moved by Christian charity to provide modest support for various causes. She regularly

donated to Freewill missionary efforts and contributed to “a religious association” of some 200 delegates to be held in Greenville in 1887.46 She gave funds to help reduce the debt of the Arlington Freewill Baptist Church in Cranston.47 She also donated to the Home for the Aged in Elmira, giving it a carpet and a chandelier and purchasing items from them for Christmas gifts.48 She patronized the sales shop at the Industrial School at Elmira and once donated two dozen oranges for the Industrial School children’s dinner.49 When Greenville town leaders created a library in 1882, Josephine was elected second vice president of the board of directors, and cousin William was treasurer. The library association leased a small building facing the village common from her father, and William executed a five-­year lease. The original books in the library were those that William donated from the Lapham Institute, a former Freewill Baptist seminary and academy in North Scituate.50 During this five-­year period, the library paid rent of about $79 per year to Josephine.51 Then in October 1887, Josephine sold the 17

Rhode Island History

Photograph of people gathered outside the entrance to the Arts and Crafts Building at Crescent Park, East Providence, Rhode Island, ca. 1902. Photograph, Graphics Place File -­East Providence -­Parks -­Crescent Park, RIHS Collections. RHi X3 113

building and lot to the library association with a mortgage of $1,000 at 5 percent interest.52 Given her interest in books, it is not surprising that Josephine frequently bought books for herself and others. A pious woman, she purchased religious works including The Shadow of the Rock, and Other Religious Poems and Platform Echoes: Or, Living Truths for Head and Heart.53 She read popular novels, such as East Angels by Constance Fenimore Woolson, the grandniece of James Fenimore Cooper and one of the leading women authors of her time, and The Pretty Sister of Jose, a popular novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett published in 1889. The Pretty Sister of Jose was adapted into a stage play in 1903 and a silent film in 1915.54 In 1888, Josephine purchased a copy of The Poetical Works of Mrs. Felicia Hemans, an anthology of poems by a widely published English poet, along with a book of Longfellow’s poems.55 She later obtained a copy of Nast’s Christmas Drawings for the Human Race drawn by the cartoonist Thomas Nast, who created the well-­known imagery associated with Santa Claus still widely recognized today.56 The descendant of one of Rhode Island’s earliest European settlers, Josephine also interested herself with genealogy and bought several family genealogies and history books from John Osborne Austin: The Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island; Comprising Three Generations of Settlers Who Came Before 1690 (1887), Ancestry of Thirty-­Three Rhode Islanders (born in the Eighteenth Century): also Twenty-­Seven Charts of Roger Williams’ Descendants to the Filth Generation (1889), and a hand-­painted genealogy chart of her father’s family.57 Josephine’s affinity for history and

genealogy likely also explains her purchase of Welcome Arnold Greene’s Providence Plantations for Two Hundred and Fifty Years: An Historical Review of the Foundation, Rise, and Progress of the City of Providence, a comprehensive history of Rhode Island published in 1886 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Roger Williams’s arrival to Providence in 1636.58 Josephine also clearly had an affinity for the writings and plays of William Shakespeare. Given the fact that she bought a book about Shakespeare from the Rhode Island News Company,59 it is not altogether surprising that she made a trip into Providence to see Edwin Booth and Laurence Barrett perform Hamlet in the spring of 1889.60 On Saturday, March 23, 1889, Josephine attended the matinee show. Both Booth and Barrett were America’s leading Shakespearean actors, and they toured together from 1886 until Barrett’s death in 1890. They performed at the Providence Opera House the week of March 18 and presented four of Shakespeare’s tragedies: The Merchant of Venice (Monday and Tuesday), Julius Caesar (Wednesday), Othello (Thursday), and Hamlet (Saturday matinee).

They ended the week with two other short plays on Saturday evening.61 Such was the nature of the theater business in Providence—­a week of Shakespeare was followed by a week of minstrel shows.

Josephine’s diary also indicates that she was a generous person who frequently gave gifts to friends and family. While the American version of Christmas has been commercialized since the early nineteenth century, the nature and volume of Christmas presents were quite modest when compared with those of today.62 Its character was reflected in the small gifts that Jose-

18

phine gave to her dearest relatives. In 1880, these presents included handkerchiefs, a recipe book, women’s neckties, gloves, small books for children, and candy.63 In 1883, she gave handkerchiefs to her father and some cousins and small books to others.64 In 1886, she gave more handkerchiefs, some sachets, boxes of thread, cashmere hose, and candy, all of which cost about $7.65 In 1889, she again gave handkerchiefs to her aunt Mary Foster, flannel undershirts to cousins Harriet and Jessie Foster, and an apron to Phebe Foster.66 She gifted Philip Dexter, her hired hand, a bonus of $2 “to buy whatever he needed most.”67 In other years, the gifts might be glove boxes or books.68 Combining generosity and propriety, Josephine often paid the way for one or more of her relations or friends to accompany her on trips or outings to some of

the shore resorts around Narragansett Bay. It was not thought proper for a lady to travel alone at this time, so she often took someone along with her during her sojourns. Nearly every summer, Josephine spent time at the shore resorts of Rhode Island.69 She spent two weeks in Newport in 1885 and 1888 as well as a number of day trips with relatives.70 In July 1886, along with Mary and Harriet Foster, Josephine stayed two weeks in a vacation cabin at Camp White, a place below Bullocks Point in Riverside.71 She visited Crescent Park, “the Coney Island of New England,” and repeatedly dined at Fields Point, which was internationally famous for its shore dinners.72 When Josephine traveled to Newport, she sometimes went to Bailey’s Beach to bathe in the ocean. She was there before the Spouting Rock Beach Association 19

A receipt dated July 16, 1880, for a bathing suit purchased by Josephine Winsor from the B. H. Gladding & Co. Store on Westminster Street for $6.50. Manuscript, MSS Josephine Winsor Journal/ Account Book, RIHS Collections. RHi X17 4885A

bought the beach in the 1890s and made it into an exclusive place for the very rich. Bathing in the ocean meant that she had to have a bathing suit and hat.

However, at that time, a lady’s bathing suit was an all-­encompassing, typically wool, dress that covered everything except one’s hands and face. A lady put on bath shoes as well and wore a hat to protect her face from the sun. A proper lady did not want to get a suntan because darkened skin was a mark of lower classes who labored in the sun. Pale skin had long been the characteristic of the upper classes, and suntanning did not become fashionable until the 1920s.73 Until the twentieth century, the parasol was an essential part of a fashionable lady’s accessories when she had to be in the sun. So, Josephine rented a suit and hat and a bathhouse whenever she went to the beach.74 In 1885, 1887, and 1889, Josephine traveled back to Elmira, New York, to see her relatives.75 These trips were her major expenditures in most years, and she paid extra to have a stateroom on the steamboats and a seat in the parlor car on the trains. Going to Elmira in 20

1889, she went by steamboat from Providence to New York; the fare was $3 plus $1 for an inside stateroom on the boat and $1.50 for lunch. She took a hackney carriage (a taxi) from the pier to the train station in New York and rode the train to Elmira—­the fare being $6 plus $1.50 for a seat in the parlor car. She stayed for about two weeks and returned home the same way except that she paid $1.50 for an outside stateroom on the steamboat. She missed Dexter, who had driven her carriage to Providence to pick her up; she took a horse car (a horse-­drawn streetcar) to Centerdale (North Providence) and then rode the Providence & Springfield Railroad to Greenville.76 With other expenses during the trip, the total was $28.60 (or $957 in 2024 dollars).77 After her father died in 1885, Josephine lived alone until around 1900, when the US Census indicated that Dexter also was residing with her in the house. Still, she had the company of her pets. She bought a mockingbird, which she called Columbia, from the Bird Store on Westminster Street in Providence on Decem-

Josephine Winsor

ber 7, 1887, for $5.78 When she traveled, the mockingbird was boarded for 35¢ a week at the Bird Store.79 She subsequently bought a canary at the same place.80 But above all else, Josephine loved her dog Nobby.

When he died, Josephine penned a sorrowful tribute on the front flyleaf of her journal: My faithful little dog Nobby Nobby, died Wednesday January 8th 1890[,] at twenty minutes past eleven o’clock. He was buried at about two o’clock that same day in the Winsor family burying ground, at my father’s (Nicholas S. Winsor’s) feet. Philip Dexter buried him in a nice little pine box made for Nobby expressly.81 Dear faithful little Nobby Nobby. My constant daily companion for many years. I brought him from Elmira, N.Y. (my former home) to Greenville, R.I., April 4, 1881, he lived nearly nine years after I came to R.I. to live. Rest to his soul (I feel as though he must have had a soul.)

Jan. 8th 1890 Josephine E. Winsor Josephine must have anticipated the passing of Nobby because she ordered a marble tombstone the day before his death and paid $45.50 for it.82 In fact, Nobby’s tombstone was one of the single largest expenditures found in her journal, an expense exceeded only by what she paid her lawyer to handle the settlement of her father’s estate, taxes to the town, the cost of a “democrat wagon” and carryall, and improvements on her house.83 Josephine’s journal abruptly ends in January 1891.

One is left to wonder how Josephine navigated life

The still extant tombstone for Nobby, Josephine Winsor’s beloved dog. The tombstone reads: “NOBBY. . . Faithful dog of Josephine E. Winsor. He came into life in Elmira, N. Y. Died in Greenville, R. I., Jan. 8, 1890, Aged 16 Years.” Image courtesy of the author.

during the 1890s, a decade remembered for its deep economic depression. It would be interesting to know how much the economic turmoil of the decade affected her income and the investments left to her by her father. The Smithfield National Bank and the Smithfield Savings Bank survived the recession, the Winsors of Smithfield kept their houses and property, and she owned her house until her death in 1905. One wonders what became of Pompey, Josephine’s horse. Evidently, he was experiencing health problems by mid-­1890, as Josephine began recording entries in her journal about purchasing medicine for a fever and other illnesses.84 Philip Dexter was residing in Josephine’s house in 1900, but by 1910, the 67-­year-­old Dexter was living in another town and had retired.85 One also wonders how her declining years would have been reflected in a journal as she slowly died of tuberculosis. Perhaps 21

Rhode Island History

someday another volume of her journal will surface and may be used to answer these many questions.

Josephine’s journal of accounts showcases the life of a single woman of status living in rural Rhode Island.

It reveals what was important to her, including her family, friends, religion, charitable organizations, and her beloved pets. It also illuminates the types of activities that she enjoyed, where she went and how she got there. Her journal provides a window into spe-

cial events and the growing entertainment industry in Providence as well as the growing significance of leisure in and around Narragansett Bay. J. Stanley Lemons is emeritus professor of history at Rhode Island College and historian of the First Baptist Church in America. An historian of American culture, Dr. Lemons’s scholarly interests and publications have ranged over the topics of women’s history, African-­American history, popular culture, American religion, social reform, and Rhode Island history.

Notes 1. The Winsor family papers span from 1686 to 1904, with the bulk of the material dating from 1780 to 1840. Much of the collection contains information on families from Johnston, Smithfield, and Glocester, Rhode Island. See MSS 86, Winsor Family Papers, RIHS. 2. The contents of the journal were rather chaotically organized.

Josephine Winsor seemingly meant to keep a separate record of food costs, but these were frequently entered among the other expenses and noted by her, i.e.,: “This should have been entered amongst table accounts many pages beyond. It crept in here by mistake.” (July 7, 1888), 102. Items from similar dates were found mistake. in different parts of the journal. For example, entries from 1884 were recorded on pages 19–32 and then again on 214–216, and those for 1887 appeared on pages 78–93 and then more from 138– 151. On the other hand, there are no entries for 1882 and most of 1883.

3. Her older sister Ellen was born September 28, 1832, and died on September 21, 1848, seven days short of her sixteenth birthday.

William H. was born April 19, 1839, but died in July 1840, at only one year old. Her brother Frederick was born August 27, 1840, and died at the age of two on September 3, 1842.

22

4. Roger Williams bought Joshua Winsor’s indenture from Massachusetts Governor John Winthrop. Winsor was a troublesome servant, and Winthrop was glad to be rid of him. See Kay Kirlin Moore, compiler, “The Winsor Line through Six Generations,” Descendants of Roger Williams: Book I: The Waterman and Winsor Lines through His Daughter Mercy Williams (Baltimore: Gateway Press, Inc., 1991), 193–194. Joshua Winsor’s son Samuel married Mercy (Williams) Waterman, the daughter of Roger Williams. Joshua dropped the “d” from “Windsor” when he came to America.

5. The Smithfield Exchange Bank became the National Exchange Bank when it joined the national banking system in 1865. Subsequently, some of the leading investors in the National Exchange Bank created the Smithfield Savings Bank in 1872, and William Winsor was its treasurer from then until he retired. Nicholas Steere Winsor II then became cashier and treasurer until his death. In July 1928, the National Exchange Bank and the Smithfield Savings Bank were merged to become the Greenville Trust Company. Then in March 1954, Greenville Trust was acquired by Citizens Savings Bank. See Rhode Island Currency, “National Exchange Bank,” http://www.ricurrency.com/bank-­name/ex

Josephine Winsor

change-­bank-­of-­greenville/ [accessed April 21, 2020.] Also see “Nicholas Winsor, Apple King, Dies at Family Home,” Evening Bulletin (September 14, 1928), 2; “Citizens Trust, Greenville Bank May Consolidate,” Providence Journal (February 20, 1954), 12.

6. 1860 US Census.

7. Journal, Miss Josephine Winsor, 212. RIHS (page starts with “Father was born . . . 1797.”

8. The details of Nicholas Steere Winsor’s life are sketched in entries about the Winsor family in Representative Men and Old Families of Rhode Island, three volumes (Chicago, J. H. Beers & Co., 1908), III: 1,583, and Richard M. Bayles, History of Providence County, 2 volumes (New York: W. W. Preston, 1891), II: 225–226.

The cause of his death is recorded in the Rhode Island Death Register at the Rhode Island State Archives.

9. Rhode Island Death Register, Rhode Island State Archives.

10. History of the State of Rhode Island with Illustrations (Philadelphia: Hoag, Wade & Co., 1878), 309. Such banks in the early nineteenth century were created to pool the money of the incorporators to lend to local businesses and farmers. For example, John Smith Appleby farmed and had a grist mill, a sawmill, and a blacksmith shop. Likewise, Elisha Steere bought extensive property around Waterman Lake and operated a grist mill and a sawmill. Then he erected a cotton mill known as the Winsor Mill.

Every one of these bank incorporators was engaged in agriculture, and their properties were valued in the thousands of dollars.

11. Naomi Lamoreaux, Insider Lending: Banks, Personal Connections, and Economic Development in Industrial New England (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994); “Banks, Kinship and Economic Development: The New England Case,” Journal of Economic History, 46 (September 1986), 647–667.

12. It is interesting that she never transferred her membership from the Elmira church to Greenville.

13. He became an officer and trustee in the Greenville church, tried to save the Smithfield Seminary, and became its principal benefactor. He gave money to Bates College, a Freewill Baptist institution in Lewisburg, Maine, and to Storer College, a Freewill Baptist college at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, to train freedmen to be teachers.

14. Records of the Baptist Society in Smithfield (January 19, 1823).

Archives of the Greenville Baptist Church.

15. When the church developed a full committee structure with fifty-­four officers, forty-­seven had the last names of just eight families. See Church Records of Greenville Baptist Church (January 9, 1882). Archives of the Greenville Baptist Church.

16. William had sold the property in 1857 for $2,000, and the buyer resold it in 1858 to another man for $3,000, payable in three years. That person defaulted on the loan within a year; the property was put up in a mortgage auction, and William bought it back for $3,325 in 1869. From 1869 to 1881, tenants rented the house.

He then sold it to Josephine for $2,000, taking a loss for her benefit. The details regarding the deeds for the property are found in the deed books at the Central Falls Town Hall.

17. Letter from Nicholas Steere Winsor to Josephine E. Winsor, July 26, 1884, RIHS. 18. Journal (November 19, 1880), 12. Ten dollars in 1880 would be equal to $302 in 2023. Originally created by Samuel Augustus Mitchell and then continued by his son, the Mitchell atlases were published from the 1830s to the late 1880s. Today, Mitchell atlases are collector’s items, commanding hundreds of dollars for an original copy.

19. Journal (May 24, 27, June 7, 28, 1880), 5, 6.

20. Journal (July 1880), 7, 9.

21. Journal (July 1880), 9.

22. Journal (September 1880), 10.

23. “Business Statement,” Journal, Miss Josephine Winsor (December 9, 1883), 13, RIHS. 24. https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/uscompare/ relativevalue.php.

25. Journal, 14. Tucked in the journal was a letter from her father, dated July 26, 1884, which accompanied his last will and testament. (The will is missing.) It began, “My dear daughter Josephine E. Winsor” and confirmed the figures mentioned and instructed her about managing the invested funds.

26. She paid $128.50 on June 30, 1887, Journal, 6; $25 on March 22; $15 on March 26; and another $25 on April 29, 1887 Journal,

23

Rhode Island History

81, 82, and finally $10 on May 28, 1887, Journal, 84. Her attorney, Welcome Arnold Greene Jr. (1843–1915) had a Smithfield connection, having married Susan A. Weeden (1840–89) in 1868.

A. Berlin, “The Ragtime Debate,” Ragtime: A Musical and Cultural History (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1980), 32–44.

27. Two dollars on May 6, 1887, and $7.70 on June 4, 1887, Journal, 83, 84. Oscar Tobey, a neighbor, was one of the members of the board of directors of the Smithfield Savings Bank where cousin William Winsor was treasurer.

36. Journal (April 18, 1890), 123.

In all, Josephine Winsor’s legal fees amounted to approximately $6,875 in 2024 dollars.

28. See deed book for Smithfield, volume 12: 464–473. Central Falls City Hall.

29. “Mrs. [Marie] Mullen came to work for us (father and I) Thursday Evening July 7th 1881 at three dollars a week.” Journal (July 18, 1881), 15. Mullen was born in Ireland and her husband worked in a cotton mill. They owned no property. US Census 1880.

30. Journal (December 7, 1887), 93.

31. Journal (December 21, 1887), 93.

32. Chickering & Sons was an award-­winning piano manufacturer in Boston. The company won prizes at the Paris Exposition of 1867. Founded in 1823, the company closed in 1983. Jonas Chickering invented a cast-­iron frame for the piano strings that could withstand the high tension required. “His firm pioneered the American piano industry and the mass marketing of its product.”

Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 642.

33. Martha Dennis Burns, “The Female Piano Teacher in Antebellum America,” in James Parakilas, et al., Piano Roles: A New History of the Piano (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 134.

34. Howe, 642. Also see Parakilas, Piano Roles, which provides an international history of the invention, rise, spread, and impact of the piano over three centuries.

35. Ragtime music appeared in the early 1890s in the Middle West (St. Louis, Sedalia, Missouri) and began to be popular by 1895.

The “guardians” of classical music were horrified. See Edward

24

37. Journal (January 8, 1891), 136.

38. “WHAT CHEER! Celebration of the Town’s Anniversary,” “Cloudy Skies and A Drizzling Rain,” Providence Journal (June 25, 1886), 8; “The 250th Anniversary of Providence: Programme of the Municipal Celebration,” ibid, (June 24, 1886), 3; “1636–1886: Literary and Historical Exercises at First Baptist Church,” ibid.

(June 24, 1886), 8; “The Nick Roberts-­Gardner United Two-­ring Circus,” ibid. (June 26, 1886), 5.

39. See ads in the Providence Journal “WINDOW TO LET” (June 24, 1886), 5; Warren & Wood, “Roger Williams Pitcher by Wedgwood,” ibid. 7.

40. Journal (June 3, 1887), 84 [advertisement] “orrin bros. and nichols great AZTEC FAIR and Mexican Village. A Thousand Wonders from OLD MEXICO,” Providence Daily Journal (June 1, 1887), 5. Also see description: “Mexico in Music Hall,” ibid, 8.

41. Journal (October 8, 1887), 90. [review of show] “Low’s Grand Opera House,” Providence Journal (October 8, 1887), 3. Thatcher, Primrose, and West changed the minstrel show from blackface to white minstrelsy in 1882, and they were such a hit that they became known as The Millionaires of Minstrelsy. See Robert C. Toll, Blacking Up: The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-­Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), 154.

42. Howard G. Belcher, “Mr. Tambo and Mr. Bones: Rhode Island in Negro Minstrelsy,” Rhode Island History 8 (October, 1949), 111; J. Stanley Lemons, “Minstrelsy,” in Dictionary of Afro-­American Slavery, edited by Randall M. Miller and John David Smith, (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), 473–476.

43. Journal (November 2, 1888), 106.

44. “HARRISON AND MORTON, State Demonstration and Torchlight Parade,” Providence Daily Journal (November 2, 1888), 6.

45. “The State Election,” Providence Daily Journal (November 7, 1888), 1.

Josephine Winsor

46. Payments to missions appeared nearly every quarter; the first recorded in her Journal (December 1880), 12. Her contribution to the religious convention was May 18, 1887, Journal, 83.

47. Journal (July 5, 1888), 100. This church was founded in 1881 and was burdened with a $2,000 debt.

48. Journal (October 7, November 26, December 15, 1880), 10, 12.

49. She purchased cloth from the Industrial School before she moved to Rhode Island, Journal (September 1880), 10, and gave the oranges years later, ibid. (November 1887), 92.

50. The Lapham Institute began in 1839 as the Smithfield Seminary but was underfunded and suffered from poor management and severe financial problems. In 1861, after the school changed hands a couple of times and was likely to close permanently, William Winsor stepped in and with the help of Benedict Lapham kept it open. Lapham was a wealthy textile manufacturer and landowner in Smithfield. He and William bought the property and gave it back to the Rhode Island Free Baptist Association, and the seminary was then renamed the Lapham Institute. However, after that, Winsor was its only benefactor. The school ran out of money by 1874, went bankrupt, and closed. See J. Stanley Lemons, Retracing Baptists in Rhode Island: Identity, Formation, and History (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2019), 141–142; Bayles, History of Providence County, II: 226–227.

51. Journal (September 22, 1885), 209, (May 7, 1886), 65, (March 5, 1887), 80 52. Kay Kirlin Moore, “The Greenville Public Library, the First Hundred Years, 1882–1982,” [typescript] (Greenville, RI, 1982).

Greenville Public Library reference holding.

53. The Shadow of the Rock, and Other Religious Poems was a collection of poems published by Anson D. F. Randolph & Co. in New York in 1866. John B. Gough wrote the essays in the Platform Echoes (Hartford, CT: A. D. Worthington, 1886), and it was published after his death in February 1886. Gough was a renowned temperance lecturer, and an obituary declared: “John Bartholomew Gough was one of the most celebrated lecturers which this county has produced and was probably better known to old

and young in this country and Great Britain than any other public speaker.” New York Times, February 19, 1886, 5.

54. Journal (November 7, 1886), 76. Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924) wrote many works, but she is best remembered as the author of children’s books such as Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886) and The Secret Garden (1911).

55. Journal (June 16, 1886), 74. Mrs. Hemans [Felicia Dorothea Browne] (1793–1835) published about nineteen volumes of poetry in her lifetime, and her work was reprinted repeatedly throughout the nineteenth century. Regarded as morally uplifting, it was the sort of book that one might expect Josephine to read.

56. Journal (December 20, 1889), 120.

57. Journal (May 31, 1887), 84; (Dec 11, 1889), 119; (August 7, 1890), 129.

58. Journal (Welcome Arnold Greene, the father of her lawyer, published the 250th-­anniversary book in 1886.

59. Journal (November 7, 1888), 106.

60. Charles Harlen Shattuck, The Hamlet of Edwin Booth (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1969), xiii-­xxvii; for the Booth-­ Barrett collaboration, see Eleanor Ruggles, Prince of Players: Edwin Booth (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1953), 334–357.

61. Journal (March 22, 1889), 109. See the ad for the performances of Booth and Barrett, “Providence Opera House,” Providence Daily Journal (March 18, 1889), 5. The newspaper’s theater critic was not impressed with the presentation of Hamlet, except for Booth’s performance. “Hamlet and a Double Bill,” ibid. (March 24, 1889), 10.

62. For a thorough history of the invention of the American version of Christmas, see Stephen Nissenbaum, The Battle for Christmas (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996). Nissenbaum showed that Santa Claus, not Jesus Christ, made Christmas a holiday in the United States.

63. Journal (December 17, 1880), 12.

64. Journal, (no date, 1883), 16. The gifts and candy cost $12.12, which would be equal to $369 in 2023 dollars.

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Rhode Island History

65. Journal (Christmas, 1886), 77.

66. Journal (December 19, 1889), 112. Josephine lived with the Fosters in Elmira from 1842 to 1881, so some of her dearest relatives were those women from Elmira. Her aunt Mary Foster, in particular, often accompanied Josephine on trips.

75. For May 15 to June 2, 1885, see (May 1885), 36; for 1887 see (November 1887), 91–92: for 1889, see (June and July 1889), 114–115.

76. This rail line ran from Providence to Pascoag with a station in Greenville just about 200 yards from Josephine’s home.

67. Journal (December 24, 1890), 135.

77. Journal (June 1889), 114.

68. Journal (December 27, 1887), 93; (December 22, 1890), 135.

78. Journal (December 7, 1887), 93.

69. For a brief history of the Rhode Island resorts in the late nineteenth century, see J. Stanley Lemons, “Summer Times: from Shore Resorts to Amusement Parks,” What a Difference a Bay Makes (Providence, RI: Rhode Island Historical Society and Rhode Island Department of State Library Services, 1993), 115–119.

79. Journal (August 30, 1888), 103.

70. During her 1885 fortnight in Newport, she went to Jamestown and to Narragansett Pier. Journal (August 15, 1885), 39–40, 41; (August 13,1887), 87; (August 9, 1888), 100; (August 21, 1890). These sometimes included a carriage ride around Ocean Drive for $3.

71. Journal (July 17, 1886), 65, 207. That vacation cost her $48, which would be equal to $1,585 in 2024 dollars.

72. Crescent Park: Journal (September 10, 1888), 104; Fields Point: (July 6, 1887), 85; (June 23, 1888), 100; (August 7, 1888), 103; (July 19, 1890), 130. Fields Point went out of business when industrial and urban pollution destroyed the oyster and clam beds, eventually causing the closing of the dining halls. Today, Fields Point is the location of the Providence sewage treatment plant.

73. Yvonne Hunt (et al), “History and Culture of Tanning in the United States,” IN Carolyn J. Heckman and Sahron L. Manne (eds.), Shedding Light on Indoor Tanning (Berlin: Springer Dordrecht, 2012) 5–31.

74. During her stay in Newport for two weeks in 1885, she made five trips to the beach, paying 20¢ each round trip and rented five bathing suits for 25¢ each. Journal (August 1885), 39–40. When she took Mary and Harriett Foster to Newport in 1886, she rented bathing suits for them as well. ibid. (July 29, 1886), 207.

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80. Journal, (December 26, 1888), 107.

81. Journal, (January 8, 1890), 1. Philip A. Dexter was Josephine’s hired man and gardener. .The 1885 Rhode Island Census identified Dexter as a “laborer” for the head of household (Josephine Winsor) and “gardener.” Ethan C. Thornton, a carriage maker and wheelwright who lived near her, made the box. Journal, (January 8, 1890), 121.

82. Ibid, 123. The cost of the tombstone would be equal to $1,539 in 2023 dollars.

83. She paid taxes of $160.46 in 1887, including $15.62 on her house and lot and $144.84 on her father’s estate, Journal (no date), 205; and then she paid a “Town Tax” of $176.32, Journal (November 2, 1889), 118–119. She paid $250 for a “democrat wagon,” which was a light, flatbed farm wagon with two seats for four people and drawn by one or two horses. She also bought a horse for $225 and other horse equipment, such as a harness. See “Business statement,” Journal (1883), 13.

84. Journal (July 12, 1890), 128; (December 15, 1890), 134; (December 23, 1890), 136; (January 1, 1891), 136.

85. 1900 US Census; 1910 U.S Census. It is difficult to determine Dexter’s exact age as the various censuses give conflicting years of birth. The 1850 census said 1843; 1869 census said 1842; 1880 census gave 1845; 1900 census gave December 1849; 1910 census yielded 1843 again.

Rhode Island Book Notes

John B. Allen, Traveling the Old Ski Tracks of New England. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2022.

For more than a century, New Englanders have taken to the slopes in search of ways to enjoy the coldest months, and skiing has deep roots in the region. In the late-­ nineteenth century, Scandinavian immigrants worked to educate snowbound locals on how to ski, make equipment, and prepare trails. Soon thereafter, colleges across the Northeast built world-­class ski programs, massive jumps were constructed in Brattleboro and Berlin, and dozens of ski areas—­big and small—­cropped up from the 1930s through the 1960s.

Traveling the Old Ski Tracks of New England offers a fascinating history of downhill, cross-­country, and backcountry skiing across the region and its leading personalities. Moving from popular destinations such as Stowe, Cannon, Bromley, and Mount Washington to the less intimidating hills surrounding Boston, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, E. John B. Allen also recovers the forgotten stories of ski areas that have been abandoned in the face of changing tastes and a warming climate.

Joseph Lee Boyle (editor) New-­England Runaways series.

During the past five decades, historians of enslavement have relied on runaway advertisements as a window into the worlds of the enslaved in early America. Rhode Islanders, like their other colonial counterparts, regularly purchased and published advertisements for self-­ emancipated bondspeople in local newspapers. Mining

thousands of runaway advertisements published in New England newspapers between 1704 and 1783, historian Joseph Lee Boyle’s recently published six-­volume series is the most important contribution for readers interested in studying the lives of enslaved runaways in Rhode Island since Maureen Alice Taylor and John Wood Sweet’s two-­volume series Runaways, Deserters, and Notorious Villains from Rhode Island Newspapers (Volume 1: The Providence Gazette, 1762–1800, and Volume 2: Additional Notices from the Providence Gazette, 1762–1800, as Well as Advertisements from All Other Rhode Island Newspapers from 1732–1800) were published in the mid-­1990s.

The books in Boyle’s New-­England Runaways series are: “Much Given to Talk and Bad Company”: New-­England Runaways, 1704–1754. Baltimore, MD: Clearfield Publishing, 2020.

“He Is a Person of Very Ill Fame”: New-­England Runaways, 1755–1768. Baltimore, MD: Clearfield Publishing, 2021.

“Can Tell an Ample Story”: New-­England Runaways, 1769–1773. Baltimore, MD: Clearfield Publishing, 2021.

“Very Apt to Speak One Side of the Truth”: New-­England Runaways, 1774–1777. Baltimore, MD: Clearfield Publishing, 2022.

“He Loves a Good Deal of Rum . . .”: Military desertions During the American Revolution, 1775–1783, Volume Three. Baltimore, MD: Clearfield Publishing, 2022.

“Wasteing My Substance by Riotous Living”: New-­ England Runaways, 1778–1783. Baltimore, MD: Clearfield Publishing, 2022.

27

Rhode Island History

Sean Briody, The Brown University Band: An Ever True History. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2024.

Established in 1924 by freshman Irving Harris, the Brown University Band is one of the school’s oldest student-­run organizations. Its participation at sporting events, convocation, and commencement makes it an integral part of campus life, providing music and spirited fun for the Brown and Providence communities. A scramble band rather than a traditional marching band, the group provides cheeky entertainment on and off campus. Legendary antics from the world’s only ice-­ skating band include the infamous bass-­drum heist by the “Foxboro Four” and notable halftime shows at hundreds of football games. While invariably adapting over the years, the band keeps school songs and spirit alive and maintains its long-­standing traditions. Author and former percussionist Sean Briody pays homage to the band’s roots and vibrant history in this new book.

Russell J. DeSimone, Rhode Island Election Tickets: A Survey of Eighteenth-­and Nineteenth-­Century Paper Ballots. East Providence, RI: Rhode Island Publications Society, 2023.

Rhode Island is said to be the first colony of the original thirteen colonies to use paper ballots to elect its political leaders. The earliest known Rhode Island paper ballot dates to 1743/44. Rhode Island, by virtue of its liberal colonial charter granted by King Charles II in 1663, has been electing its governors and other representatives since then. Paper ballots were used extensively throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and numerous examples survive to this day.

28

Rhode Island Election Tickets provides the reader with an in-­depth look at democracy at work. Shown are presidential elector ballots with the first four electors for Thomas Jefferson for president in the contentious election of 1800; statewide tickets for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, treasurer, and secretary of state; ballots for representatives to the US House of Representatives; local elections for senators and representatives to the state general assembly; and special elections including amendments to the state constitution. The volume includes images of more than 250 paper ballots, providing the reader with a look at how Rhode Islanders voted for nearly 150 years. It covers the colonial period, the anti-­Masonic factions of the 1830s, the Law and Order coalition following the Dorr Rebellion of 1842, special interest in elections during the 1850s with the advent of the temperance movement, pro-­Union tickets during the 1860, and during the 1870s and 1880s with the emergence of the Greenback and Prohibitory factions. All tickets shown have a short description of the election and its candidates.

Richard L. Ferren (edited by Richard R. Veit), Birds of Rhode Island: Seasonal Distribution and Ecological History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2024.

Based on comprehensive fieldwork and research by Richard L. Ferren and edited by Richard R. Veit, this book describes the habitats and locations of more than 400 species of birds along with data on the seasons of their occurrence. This volume features an introductory section that includes a history of ornithology in Rhode

Rhode Island Book Notes

Island; descriptions of the state’s most important bird habitats and biogeographical regions; an overview of factors affecting species populations; species accounts with information on changes in abundance and distribution as well as conservation and management methods; an eighty-­year history of banding and migration watching at Block Island; seventy years of seabird migration quantification at Point Judith; a detailed history of the state’s seabird colonies, and multiple surveys of the state’s breeding birds; and color photographs taken in the field of recent rarities discovered in Rhode Island.

The book offers a chronicle of changing avian population dynamics and is an indispensable resource for ornithologists and bird enthusiasts interested in the avifauna of Rhode Island and beyond. Copublished with the Nuttall Ornithological Club, this book is No. 27 in the series Memoirs of the Nuttall Ornithological Club.

LaToya Jefferson-­James (editor), Afro-­ Caribbean Women’s Writing and Early American Literature. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2022.

Afro-­Caribbean Women’s Writing and Early American Literature is both pedagogical and critical. The text begins by reevaluating the poetry of Phillis Wheatley for its political commentary, demonstrates how Zora Neale Hurston bridges several literary genres and geographies, and introduces Black women writers of the Caribbean to some American audiences. It sheds light on lesser-­discussed Black women playwrights of the Harlem Renaissance and reevaluates the turn-­of-­the century concept Noble Womanhood in light of the Cult of Domesticity.

Linda J. Kushner, The Fight That Saved the Libraries: A True Rhode Island Story. West Warwick, RI: Stillwater River Publications, 2024.

Former Rhode Island House of Representatives member Linda J. Kushner’s new book, slated for publication in May 2024, chronicles the split between the Providence Public Library and what became the Providence Community Libraries (now the Community Libraries of Providence).

Martin Podskoch, Rhode Island Civilian Conservation Corps Camps. The Author, 2021.

In 1933, the country’s newly elected president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, established the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) as one of many programs to get people back to work. The CCC, as it became known, grew into one of FDR’s most successful and popular programs.

Underfed young men throughout the country enlisted in the CCC and were bused to camps in national and state forests, where they were employed making the forests accessible to visitors. In Rhode Island, seven camps were established, including Primrose/Woonsocket to the north, Escoheag/Beach Pond to the west, and Burlingame/Westerly to the south.

John F. Quinn, The Rise of Newport’s Catholics: From Colonial Outcasts to Gilded Age Leaders. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2024.

Nineteenth-­century New England was a hostile place for Catholics. In Massachusetts, a mob torched a convent; in Maine, a priest was tarred and feathered; and

29

Rhode Island History

Rhode Island elected an anti-­Catholic Know Nothing governor. “No Irish Need Apply” signs were common.

Newport was different. It was a religiously diverse city that welcomed Catholic French troops during the American Revolution. Later, as it became the favored summer retreat for America’s Protestant social elite, Irish Catholics arrived to work in construction jobs, the tourist economy, and the grand Gilded Age cottages. By the end of the century, Newport’s Catholic community was flourishing. Moneyed Catholics acquired their own mansions, an Irish Catholic was mayor, and prominent Protestants were helping Catholic neighbors establish new schools and churches. In this deeply researched study, Salve Regina University historian John Quinn explores why nineteenth century Newport was particularly religiously tolerant.

Michael P. Winship, Hot Protestants: A History of Puritanism in England and America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2021.

Begun in the mid-­sixteenth century by Protestant nonconformists keen to reform England’s church and society while saving their own souls, the Puritan movement was a major catalyst in the great cultural changes that transformed the early modern world. Providing a uniquely broad transatlantic perspective, this groundbreaking volume traces Puritanism’s tumultuous history from its initial attempts to reshape the Church of England to its establishment of godly republics in both England and America and its demise at the end of the seventeenth century. Shedding new light on Puritans whose impact was far-­reaching as well as on those who left only lim-

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ited traces behind them, Michael Winship delineates Puritanism’s triumphs and tribulations and shows how the Puritan project of creating reformed churches working closely with intolerant godly governments evolved and broke down over time in response to changing geographical, political, and religious exigencies.

Gordon S. Wood, Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021.

The half century extending from the imperial crisis between Britain and its colonies in the 1760s to the early decades of the new republic of the United States was the greatest and most creative era of constitutionalism in American history and perhaps in the world. During these decades, Americans explored and debated all aspects of politics and constitutionalism—­the nature of power, liberty, representation, rights, the division of authority between different spheres of government, sovereignty, judicial authority, and written constitutions.

In this new book, eminent historian Gordon S. Wood distills a lifetime of work on constitutional innovations during the Revolutionary era. In concise form, he illuminates critical events in the nation’s founding, ranging from the imperial debate that led to the Declaration of Independence to the revolutionary state constitution making in 1776 and the creation of the federal Constitution in 1787. Among other topics, he discusses slavery and constitutionalism, the emergence of the judiciary as one of the major tripartite institutions of government, the demarcation between public and private, and the formation of states’ rights.

Rhode Island Book Notes

Articles and Book Chapters Mia Bay, “The Revolution in Black and White.” Journal of the Early Republic vol. 43, no. 4 (Winter 2023): 619–629.

Thomas S. Kidd, “Nothingarians: The Fear of the Unchurched in Early National America.” Journal of the Early Republic vol. 43, no. 2 (Summer 2023): 269–299.

Thomas M. Truxes, “Charlotte at Sea: An Atlantic Odyssey on the Eve of Revolution.” New England Quarterly vol. 96, no. 3 (September 2023): 197–222.

Sean Wilentz, “The Radicalism of Northern Abolition.” New England Quarterly vol. 96, no. 1 (March 2023): 8–26.

Digital Humanities Projects Robert A. Geake, “Timeline of the Formation and Service of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment–Part I,” The Battle of Rhode Island Association, https://battleof rhodeisland.org/timeline-­of-­the-­formation-­and-­ser vice-­of-­the-­1st-­rhode-­island-­regiment-­part-­1/ This detailed timeline narrates the formation and activities of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment between October 1777 and December 1778. Author and historian Robert A. Geake, an expert on the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, has created an invaluable resource for researchers interested in the experiences of African and Indigenous soldiers in the early years of the American Revolution.

“Voices from the NHS Archives,” Newport Historical Society, https://collections.newporthistory.org /People/Index This database contains thousands of individuals—­ including enslaved, manumitted, and free people of African and Indigenous descent; enslavers; and slave traders—­who lived and worked in Newport during the era of slavery. While the documentary record often is fragmentary, for some of these individuals we can paint a more detailed picture of their lived experiences, livelihoods, and webs of association. These records will be updated continually as we study the documents in our archive to recover the stories of Black and Indigenous Newporters.

Erik J. Chaput and Russell J. DeSimone, “Thomas Wilson Dorr and the Politics of Slavery,” Dorr Rebellion Project Website, https://library.provi dence.edu/dorr/articles/gag-­rule/ The latest update to the award-­winning Dorr Rebellion Project website—­“Thomas Wilson Dorr and the Politics of Slavery”—­details the debate over abolitionist mailings and petitions in the mid-­1830s in the US Congress and the Rhode Island General Assembly. Teachers and students will find an overview essay authored by website co-­creators Chaput and DeSimone, a video interview with award-­winning historian James Oakes, and over a dozen related primary source documents.

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Coming in November 2024!

Seth Rockman, Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2024).

“By following the stories of material objects, such as shoes made by Massachusetts farm women that found their way to the feet of a Mississippi slave, Rockman reveals a national economy organized by slavery—a slavery that outsourced the production of its supplies to the North, and a North that outsourced its slavery to the South. Melding business and labor history through powerful storytelling, Plantation Goods brings northern industrialists, southern slaveholders, enslaved field hands, and paid factory laborers into the same picture.”

Seth Rockman is associate professor of history at Brown University. He is the author of Scraping By: Wage Labor, Slavery, and Survival in Early Baltimore and coeditor of Slavery’s Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development. Rockman serves on the faculty advisory board of Brown University’s Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice.

opposite: Detail of the journal/account book with examples of Josephine’s daily accounts/transactions. Manuscript, MSS Josephine Winsor Journal/Account Book, RIHS Collections. back cover: An undated photograph of three women dressed in dark, short-­sleeved, full-­body bathing suits. Bathing suits like these were common at the turn of the twentieth century. It is possible that the bathing suit that Josephine Winsor purchased in July 1880 from the B. H. Gladding & Co. in Providence might have looked like this. Photograph, MSS Winslow Collection, subject file -­women, RIHS Collections. RHi X3 5660

The Rhode Island Historical Society

non-profit org.

110 Benevolent Street

u.s. postage paid

Providence, Rhode Island

Milford, CT

02906–3152

permit no. 80