Museum of Work and Culture
Overview
At the Rhode Island Historical Society, we believe that history is fun, and that knowing something about it makes us better people and wiser citizens.Contact Information
42 South Main StreetWoonsocket, Rhode Island 02859
United States
Diamond level member
Description
Since the 19th century, Rhode Island has been a state populated by immigrants. Woonsocket stands as one of the best examples in the United States of a predominantly French-speaking city. Its French-Canadian immigrants began to arrive in the Blackstone Valley in the years around the American Civil War. Beginning in the 1880s and continuing through the 1920s, men, women, and children from Quebec came to the Valley, leaving unsustainable family farms behind them, and flooded into the Valley looking for factory work in the region