Newport Historical Society Resource Center

Rhode Island historians Erik Chaput and Russell DeSimone will discuss the life and career of one of the most important civil rights activists of the 19th century – George T. Downing (1819-1903). Although Downing traveled extensively, living in Providence and Boston before the Civil War and in Washington, D.C., managing the U.S. House of Representatives […]

They Were Good Soldiers African-Americans Serving in the Continental Army, 1775-1783 A book talk with John Rees Thursday, October 10, 5:30pm Newport Historical Society, 82 Touro Street, Newport, RI African Americans, free and enslaved, served from the first action at Lexington to the end of the War for Independence, for the most part in integrated […]

Join the Newport Historical Society for Frère et Concitoyen: A Newporter in Revolutionary France, a lecture by Will Simpson, a Buchanan Burnham Summer Scholar in Public History, which will be at the Newport Historical Society Resource Center, 82 Touro Street, Newport, RI, on September 5, 2019 at 5:30pm. The story of William H. Vernon’s years […]

Join the Newport Historical Society for a lecture with 18th century fashion scholar Dr. Kimberly Alexander at the Newport Historical Resource Center, 82 Touro Street, Newport, RI on Thursday, May 23, 2019 at 6:00pm. Forgotten in cupboards, pushed into the back of drawers, secreted away behind walls and chimney breasts, footwear frequently connotes a sense […]

Join the Newport Historical Society for a lecture From Saints to Bootleggers: The Struggle for Temperance and Prohibition in Rhode Island with public historian, Robert A. Geake at the Newport Historical Society Resource Center, 82 Touro Street, Newport RI on Thursday, April 11, 2019 at 5:30pm. This lecture will illustrate the observations and experiences of […]

A Monument to Perseverance: The Struggle to Build the Newport Bridge, 1945-1960 For over three centuries, a ferry shuttled passengers across Narragansett Bay’s East Passage from Jamestown to Newport. That service ended on June 28, 1969, the day the bridge opened. After World War II, traffic from the population centers to the south and west […]

Two days after Christmas in 1738, a British merchant ship traveling from Rotterdam to Philadelphia grounded in a blizzard on the northern tip of Block Island. The 105 passengers and crew on board—sick, frozen, and starving—were all that remained of the 340 men, women, and children who had left their homeland the previous spring. Shortly […]

Is war good for business? It was 100 years ago. Join Morgan Grefe, Executive Director for the Rhode Island Historical Society at the Seventh Day Baptist Meeting House, 82 Touro Street, Newport, RI, 02840 on Thursday, May 17, 2018 at 5:30 for a lecture on Rhode Island’s booming industry during World War I. Coming off […]

Undressing History: Women’s Clothes & Unmentionables from the 19th Century A History Space Talk Presented by the Newport Historical Society & the Rhode Island Historical Society The Newport Historical Society and the Rhode Island Historical Society are pleased to partner for their first 2018 joint History Space talk when they present Undressing History: Women’s Clothes […]

Hear the findings of the urban spelunking team after they journey into the underground structure at the Newport Spring Site. In the days prior to the lecture, Roma Sotteranea, an Italian organization specializing in the study of urban speleology, will be sending a team of experts in subterranean water structures to evaluate the materials, construction […]