The Blackstone Valley Tourism Council, Slater Mill Historic Site and the Museum of Work and Culture present Ancestors of the Blackstone Valley, three free public speaking and oral history presentations about the people and cultural groups who shaped Rhode Island’s historic Blackstone Valley over the last 400 years.
Wednesday, June 25 at 6:30 p.m.: It’s Family Business – Draper Mills, Textiles and the Peculiarity of Family Business at Slater Mill, 67 Roosevelt Avenue in Pawtucket. Draper Mills, once the largest maker of power looms for the textile industry in the United States, operated in Hopedale, Mass. for more than 130 years. The program will discuss textile industry expansion and how family dynamics shaped the industrial and post-industrial business models. Photo: Draper Mills in 2009, Hopedale, MA.
Friday, July 25, at 6:00 p.m., the series moves to the water, aboard the Blackstone Valley Explorer riverboat, from the Central Falls Landing, 45 Madeira Ave. See the BVHS on the Go Event–BVHS members will be joining the interpretive cruise on the Blackstone.
Thursday, Aug. 14, 4-7 p.m. at the Museum of Work & Culture, Market Square, Woonsocket. Your Family History is a collection event. The museum is compiling an archive of our local work history for an interactive exhibit. This event will allow people to share their photographs or documents, which will be recorded and cataloged (and immediately returned) so that individuals’ heritage can become part of the museum. There will be a location where interviews with people who worked in the local mills will be recorded and preserved as part of history. Appointments will be taken. Photo: The Museum of Work and Culture.
For more information on the series, contact Dianne Mailloux 401-724-2200 or email keep.bv.beautiful@gmail.com .
Valley Breeze article Photos courtesy of Wikipedia.