Rhode Tour is a free mobile application and website that features several historically and humanities-themed tours around the state using multi-media such as photographs and videos. Of relevance to this chapter, Rhode Tour invites you to tour the Industrial Heritage Along the Woonasquatucket river. The application and website also has a tour featuring sites of the Dorr Rebellion.
For an activity using Lewis Hine’s images of child labor in Rhode Island, see this album through the Library of Congress’ Teaching with Primary Resources program. The album includes an activity plan that utilizes the images and other documents. https://tpsteachersnetwork.org/album/84371-child-labor-in-rhode-island
This Teaching with Documents lesson from the National Archives features the work of photographer Lewis Hine whose documentation of child laborers lead to sympathy and support of child labor laws.
This website about the Dorr Rebellion is hosted by Providence College and contains six lesson plans and ample information for teachers and students alike. There are also videos, images, and primary resources.
This lesson plan and associated media was created by PBS Rhode Island and PBS Learning Media and focuses on New England Mill Rehabilitation. This lesson is a great way to explore how Rhode Island faces its industrial heritage today.
Relevant Articles from the Rhode Island History Journal
- Buhle, Paul M. “Working Lives: An Oral History of Rhode Island Labor, Part One.” Rhode Island History 46, no. 1 (1987): 1-39.
- Conley, Patrick T. “No Tempest in a Teapot: The Dorr Rebellion in a National Perspective.” Rhode Island History 50, no. 3 (1992): 67-100.
- Findlay, James F. “The Great Textile Strike of 1934: Illuminating Rhode Island History in the Thirties.” Rhode Island History 42, no. 1 (1983): 17-29.
- Formisano, Ronald P. “The Role of Women in the Dorr Rebellion.” Rhode Island History 51, no. 3 (1993): 89-104.
- Gersuny, Carl. “A Unionless General Strike: The Rhode Island Ten-Hour Movement of 1873.” Rhode Island History 54, no. 1 (1996): 21-32.
- Greenwood, Richard E. “Zachariah Allen and the Architecture of Industrial Paternalism.” Rhode Island History 46, no. 4 (1988):117-135.
- Hadcock, Editha. “Labor Problems in the Rhode Island Cotton Mills.” Rhode Island History 14, no. 3 (1955): 82-93.
- Holding, Robert S. “George H. Corliss or Providence, Inventor.” Rhode Island History 5, no. 1 (1946): 1-17.
Suggested Field Trips and Locations of Note
The Slater Mill Museum tells the story of innovation, labor, artisans, women’s rights, cotton economy, immigration and assimilation, and industry. It is culturally, educationally and historically important for people of all ages and origins to be able to come, see, touch, learn and be inspired at Slater Mill.
Rhode Island Governor, Henry Lippitt, was heavily involved in industrialization and the Lippitt House Museum demonstrates the luxury and wealth that industrialists benefited from.
The Museum of Work & Culture shares the stories of the men, women, and children who came to find a better life in Rhode Island’s mill towns in the late 19th and 20th centuries.