‘Small State, Big History’ Tells Intriguing Stories

Some of the writers are locally known to the general public, including Newporters Keith Stokes and Kathy Abbass, and McBurney points out that most are not academics. Their contributions cover everything from the state’s World War II history and a controversial Watch Hill diva to how Providence’s Federal Hill got its name and early 20th century protests there over increasing prices for pasta that reveal the prejudices held against Italian immigrants.

Marian Matheson Desrosiers, who grew up in Newport and taught history for many years, has contributed articles to the site and shared her research about Colonial and Revolutionary era Newport. Retired and living in California, she continues with a focus on Newport’s 18th and early 19th century African American history. She said in a recent interview that the website’s value for historians might not be obvious to a casual reader, but it allows researchers to share information and obtain unexpected leads into new areas.

“For writers and historians, the website makes it possible to get your work into the public sphere in a shorter amount of time,” she said. “To get published in a history newsletter or a research publica­tion or magazine can take a year or longer. Getting work on the website can produce immediate feedback that helps with your re­search.”

McBurney, who has contrib­uted more than 100 articles to the site, practiced law for 38 years but began his amateur historian career at age 16 when he wrote a history of his hometown, Kingston Village, for children. Years later, he updated it in book form for adults, one of 10 books he has written, in­cluding three on the Revolutionary War that focus on Rhode Island.

The website offers free public access, and the authors who submit articles do not receive pay­ment. Without those conscientious writers and researchers, the site would not exist, McBurney said.

Considering his background and his work as a historian, McBurney said honest research about Amer­ican history is important at a time when political conservatives are objecting to what they call “woke” treatments of that history. “The history’s not all pretty, but it must be told honestly,” he said.

He has visited the Museum of African American History at the Smithsonian in Washington. He said it would have to be closed if the criteria for acceptable histor­ical presentation disallowed any­thing negative about the country’s history.

Among the many features of his website is a list of historical soci­eties in Rhode Island, which sur­prisingly adds up to more than 50.

The site archives hundreds of articles in 25 categories. It also makes the most recent and the most popular articles readily avail­able through links on the home page.

Among the most popular is the story of two young Saunderstown sisters whose families became friendly with soldiers stationed at installations along Narragansett Bay during World War II. One of the sisters fell in love with a pilot in training, who was killed in the Pacific theatre shortly before the end of the war. A treasured leather bomber jacket he gave to her is still in the family.

Desrosiers said personal stories like that enliven the public’s sense of history beyond names, dates and places. “There is real value in sharing those kinds of stories,” she said. “It brings the history alive.”

Old Home Days

Old Home Days was a mid-19th century New England tradition in which former sons and daughters of a town returned for a reunion.

The first such celebration in Rhode Island occurred in Newport in 1859. Nearly 500 former New­porters living in the state attended, with around 300 more coming from Massachusetts, 132 from New York and one from as far away as England.

In all, around 1,200 people re­turned to their former home in Newport. It was said that so many people were looking to sign the registration book at the mayor’s office that the book had to be dis­assembled and the pages were spread out to speed up the process.

— Russell DeSimone