43. Museum of Work and Culture

Week 43  5/17/16

The Museum of Work and Culture in Woonsocket, RI preserves artifacts from the immigrant population that worked in Rhode Island mills in the late 19th and the 20th centuries. Apparently there were 900,000 French Canadian immigrants who were urged to do this work when their own farms in Canada were doing poorly. Woonsocket became the "most French" city in the United States. All was not rosy in Rhode Island, though, as there were poor conditions in the mills, child labor and other problems seen in many mill areas.

There were also displays about immigrants to this area from other parts of the world. Many of them still have neighborhoods and social clubs in RI and Mass.

The museum is actively collecting items from French immigrant families and memories about all of the individual Catholic schools in the area.

This beautiful WW I memorial mosaic had been in the Our Lady of Victories church and is now in the recreation of a chapel at the museum.

Pump organ in the chapel.

The mill section of the museum included several tasks for visitors, such as sorting bobbins, ordering time cards, etc. Paul long ago worked as a "bobbin boy" in a carpet mill. Maybe that's why he did very well beating the clock.

I've never seen a map like this one!

A mannequin and recorded conversations made it easy to imagine this loom display in a real factory.

Items from some of the local baseball teams with French players were displayed here. This man, Nap LaJoie and a few others went on to the major leagues. I wonder if this guy is related to friends of ours with this name.