Museum of Work & Culture unveils steamship exhibit
Mural highlights history of immigration by passenger ship
WOONSOCKET – The Museum of Work & Culture on Tuesday unveiled its new mural highlighting immigration to Rhode Island by steamship, and collected a generous donation from the Heritage Harbor Foundation in the process.
Foundation Chair Patrick T. Conley joined Foundation Board member Albert G. Beauparlant in presenting a check for $9,000 to the museum for the installation of the mural in a two-story stairwell by its artist, Ron Deziel of North Smithfield.
Deziel had originally designed the mural depicting the arrival of immigrants from Europe at the old Fabre Steamship Line dock for the historic warehouse at 200 Allens Ave. The warehouse had once served the State Pier where Fabre Line ships landed
their passengers and cargo in Providence. When the building was sold to a new owner, Deziel was able to rescue the painted canvas from its installation on the domed ceiling and relocate the work to the Market Square museum highlighting area immigration and work in local textile mills.
The Heritage Harbor Foundation board, which recently supported the Rhode Island Historical Society-operated city museum’s new “Mills on the Blackstone” exhibit with a $19,000 grant for digital database display equipment, also chose to fund the mural project with the added contribution noted on Tuesday.
“This evening is the first time most of the Harbor Foundation’s board members will see the new Mills on the Blackstone exhibit,” Museum of Work and Culture Executive Director Anne Conway said on Tuesday. “At the same time, we are unveiling the mural by Ron Deziel that was added to the back stairwell,” she said.
In addition to covering the redesign and installation of the mural at the museum, Conway said the foundation was also funding the purchase of UV screening for the large windows in stairwell that would help preserve the new exhibit.
As part of Deziel’s remastered art work, a number of posters from the Fabre Line, blown-up photos and newspaper pages of the steamship lines heydays in the early 20th century, have been installed on the walls of the stairwell along with historical information on the Providence arrival point.
The exhibit adds to the information and artifacts the museum already displays about the migration of French Canadian farmers to the textile mills of the Blackstone Valley, along with other ethnic groups looking for work here in the mid to late 1800s.
“It depicts a very important page of Rhode Island history, the immigrants who came by water,” Conway said.
“The people coming here to Woonsocket largely immigrated from Canada but it is important to show the many other ethnic groups that came here from Italy, Portugal, Greece and other places,” Conway said.
Looking over Deziel’s renewed mural in the stairwell, Conway said the work was a perfect addition to the museum’s story. “I like it very much, it is beautiful,” Conway said.
Conley also noted the significance of Deziel’s painting to the museum, calling it “a work of art,” and added he hoped the members gathered in the upstairs ITU Meeting Hall would agree.
Conley also took a moment to joke with Museum Board member Paul Bourget, a longtime city resident and member of the former St. Ann Parish on Cumberland Street.
The Harbor Foundation President and founder of the R.I. Heritage Commission recalled a 1957 match up of the CYO Baseball Team from St. Michael’s Parish in South Providence he captained that year, with the CYO Team from St. Ann for the CYO Championship.
“The final score of that game was 19 to 4,” Conley said while noting the St. Michael team went on to the New Englands while St. Ann went home went home.
Things have changed a bit for Woonsocket today as Beauparlant has become vice chairman of the Heritage Harbor Foundation and is rivaling the track record of another vice chair Conley served over while heading the R.I. Bicentennial Commission in 1975 and 1976. That vice chair, Newport Mayor Robert McKenna, did all he could to get Commission funding to Newport for the Bicentennial where a historic gathering of tall ships was planned.
“He almost drained the rest of the state,” Conley said of the past historical celebration effort. “And now I have a vice chairman of Heritage Harbor Foundation (Beauparlant) who is funneling all the money to Woonsocket,” Conley joked.
That scenario is likely to continue for a bit as the Heritage Harbor Foundation is now also a lead sponsor with other organizations in the planned The Feast of St. Jean Baptiste that is proposed as a Main Street celebration of local history and culture on June 25.