Rhode Islands Industrial Revolution: The Rise and Fall of an Empire

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This documentary is now available for purchase on dvd. Fully remastered/rebalanced audio and video, re-edited sequences for a better viewing experience, and loads of bonus features from clips that didn't make it into the film, to photo galleries of original and period images and articles both from the film and related to it.
Check out anthrospin.bigcartel.com to order.
This is the second upload of this film. After several hundred views and responses, I had received a few comments that at a couple of points, the music overwhelmed my voice, especially when there was considerable background noise.
I took that to heart, and in anticipation of upcoming public screenings, I revamped the audio to give it a better overall balance and clarity.
The old version is now hidden from public view so that nobody has a sub-par experience.
Pedal Powered Anthropology's FIRST full-length documentary film. An accidental project, this video developed from brief research into a machine gun turret that I learned about having been mounted at a bunker at a West Virginia coal mine. This video has nothing to do with that. It quickly developed from learning about a strike in Rhode Island, to learning about the history of the Industrial Revolution and how Rhode Island led the way in the industrialization of the United States.
It goes over a brief history of the founding of Rhode Island through the turn of the 18th century and the onset of the Industrial Revolution, the structure of labor during the early years and the ways that changed with the progression of time. It covers the time period surrounding the American Civil War and the collapse of the textile industry in Rhode Island, culminating with the long strike of 1922, which was the foundation of this project. Finally it revisits the history and ties it to today and what's become of the mills and the railroad that serviced them.
A companion reader to this film is available at:
anthrospin.wordpress.com/2018...
Links to all of my digital research sources are included in that post.
A separate post detailing my route through Rhode Island as well as a GPS map/.gpx* file and cue sheet will be added to the Anthrospin wordpress.
Additionally, all original images and shorter video clips created for this project will be uploaded to anthrospin This has been my largest project to date...probably taking my entire life into consideration. Some of it is rough, but I wasn't going for professional; I want any viewer to feel that they can create equally engaging content with minimal equipment.
Please let me know what you think, and like this video and subscribe to this channel. If you want/are able to financially support Pedal Powered Anthropology, please consider becoming a patron at www.patreon.com/anthrospin
Thank you so much for watching!!!!!!
*.gpx files are used for GPS devices, and cyclists can download them to their cyclometer and use them for turn by turn directions.

Опубликовано:

5 фев 2018

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Комментарии : 57

@nolanbarry4754 3 года назад

Awesome Video! Very informative. The 401 will always have a place in my heart!!

@whiteymanngogh4489 3 года назад

A friend of mine mentioned meeting a man in Arizona who said"our family used to own Rhode island"the man was a Sprague.

@anthrospin 3 года назад

Ha!! Well he definitely wasn’t kidding. There is apparently a tunnel that runs from the Sprague Mansion to the Printworks that Amasa used to avoid being attacked. He wound up being beaten to death in the road between the two

@randalltkirby 5 лет назад

Great documentary. All of my ancestors were worked in the Pawtuxet Valley mills. Nice to see that their triumphs and struggles are not forgotten. it is a shame they do not teach this stuff in school.

@anthrospin 5 лет назад

I’m so glad you enjoyed it! The audio is a little rough on this version. It’s been cleaned up for the dvd release, if you’re still in Rhode Island maybe you can make it to a screening some time! The next is being put on by the Hope Historical Society but they’ve yet to set a date. Some time next year though.

@randalltkirby 5 лет назад

@@anthrospin Sounds great. Keep me posted. I'm in West Warwick so I will spread the word.

@Ann-kw1pn 3 года назад

Thanks for this video. I grew up in RI. I never met my maternal grandparents, as they died in the 30's. I know that my grandmother started working very young at a mill in southern CT. She lost two fingers working there; my mother told me that she always wore a glove to hide her injury. Despite that, my mother described her as "jolly" when she was growing up in Mount Pleasant in Providence. She and my grandfather had seven kids and I do know that when he was laid off from Brown and Sharpe, where he had a "good job" as a machinist, there was no "relief" at all. Nevertheless, several of their kids went to college, which was very unusual at the time. My grandfather demanded it. When so many complain about everything today, I think about how my aunts, mother, and uncles said, "we had nothin'" when asked about how they grew up.

@firecracker3911 3 года назад

Great job! Thanks!

@anthrospin 3 года назад

Yaaay thank you! Glad you liked it!

@fdoy Год назад

My Ggrandmother born in 1864 said she worked in the those mills and suffered terribly. She was 9yrs old and stood on boxes, and because her fingers were small, easy to work the looms. She died in 1953 at 98.

@anthrospin Год назад

When I started making this documentary i had no idea how long it would wind up being or the kind of impact it would have on those who have family history in the mill. These are the stories i wish I could have included. Thank you for this comment

@Dr_Augustus_MD 3 года назад

Simply put, this video not only was extremely informative in teaching me much about the history of the state I live in; It was incredibly entertaining as well. I came across your channel by a fluke, now my intention is to stick around for a while and watch more of your content. Great job.

@anthrospin 3 года назад

Very glad you enjoyed it. Whereabouts in Rhode Island are you located?

@hbrecker 4 года назад

I so enjoyed this!! found your film doing research for a term paper about providence for an urban history course. so helpful and succinct, and the images are killer as well!

@anthrospin 4 года назад

I’m so glad you enjoyed it and found it helpful. If you have any questions about any of it or would like any of the images or research sources or anything please let me know!

@jpevansireland 3 года назад

Hannah I am currently doing a project on urban history, any chance I can read your paper?

@jimplummer4879 3 года назад

Great Job, My friend .. Enjoyed it very Much..

@anthrospin 3 года назад

Glad you enjoyed it! If you can get to the West Warwick Library, the bonus features include a bunch of photos and some clips of me exploring some mill buildings that aren’t there anymore. If you get around to it I think they’re pretty neat but I wouldn’t go out of my way haha. Also a trailer for one of my upcoming projects (that’s been on hold because of Covid...I should be running off dvds by now )

@debrapoirier4435 3 года назад

awesome!!!! born and raised in pawtucket, now retired in warwick,,, at age 62 what a trip down memory lane... and some info i wasn't aware of,,,,, good job..... by the way.. i chased the trains coming thru prov towards boston, as i lived on the border of ri and ma where the tracks were less quarter mile from my home through the woods... it was ideal times....... ty for the memories..

@peterbertsch9624 Год назад

Remember very well train traffic on the old "Willimantic Line", which was a branch line of New Haven RR. Freight traffic was very important for the Narragansett Brewery, Otto Henn Coal and Oil and the Arlington Grain Company in Cranston! Remember a steam switcher at the A and P warehouse. Old track from the siding was still evident from the bike path! Enjoyed your film since I grew up in this area over 80 years ago.

@anthrospin Год назад

Hi Peter, I'm very glad you enjoyed it. In hoping to set up some screenings of it again soon, I haven't since the pandemic started. Whereabouts are you located? If you're semi local i can get in touch once i do!

@peterbertsch9624 Год назад

@@anthrospin Hi, I am now living in NH (we left RI after the great flood of 2010) Always interested in RI history especially Cranston and North Kingstown and Brown University. Best...........Peter

@raymondbergeron2853 3 года назад

Great and informative video, didn't get bored once, just to note two things, one I am currently wearing fruit of the loom underwear right now, though probably not made in Rhode Island and two my grandfather worked in these textile mills and retired from them.

@markbassett4394 3 года назад

This is great

@anthrospin 3 года назад

Thanks! Glad you’ve enjoyed it

@andrelinoge6096 2 года назад

Amazing video! It brings me back to a Rhode Island, that I never knew much about. I grew up in a Rhode Island, dominated by religious extremists, who made my life hell! There was no social outlet for me, because I was a gay nerd from a poor single-parent home. Rhode Island was a hyper-masculine state, where I was continually afraid for my life. I went back a few years ago for business to find that it was still the same miserable place, even though I have money now. Thanks for the video!

@raytheshredgod6987 3 года назад

Interesting Concept

@tippycolfax 3 года назад

Thanks ,I grew up in West Warwick,worked in most of mills and walked the tracks long before they became trails.

@anthrospin 3 года назад

So glad you enjoyed it! There’s so much history there and it’s so easy to overlook. Which mills did you work in and what jobs??

@tippycolfax 3 года назад

@@anthrospin I worked in pretty much every mill on the river from Victor Electric down to the mills in Centreville. We lived in Centrevillle. I did wire respooling in the basement at Victor. I did shipping and maintenance at Crompton on Pulaski. I stacked and counted a pile of doormats at a mill on Brookside for months. I did whatever I could to make a buck,started at 12,a lot of us did back then. Be well.

@joanchadbourne7041 3 года назад

Yes I was born there only hospital in many miles; there were wonderful homes and factories there- very alive and innovative.

@user-rj5wq6vl3r 4 месяца назад

Dark Work" the Business of Slavery in Rhode Island. Written by Christy Clark-Pujara a Black woman. Suggest reading or at least watching a quick RU-vid lecture of hers to better understand the full history of slavery and how Rhode Island/New England played such a heavy role in slavery and in particular the buying and selling of people/slaves from Africa to the America's

@IClassStruggle 3 года назад

Up the workers. Win the battle of democracy.

@anthrospin 3 года назад

🤘🏼🤘🏼

@edwardsmith4353 4 года назад

I was wondering why we held out on the ratification...

@gardenglory6624 4 года назад

amazing wow..I love anything that has to do with textile industry.but the music after a while killed this for me. so annoying. should have put the volume down a little more. good over all.

@anthrospin 4 года назад

I’m very glad you enjoyed it overall. This was my first major production and I didn’t quite expect it to be. I struggled quite a bit with the audio as I didn’t really know how to balance things for foreground and background. And honestly it surprised me when people began to care about this film. I tried to rectify it for the dvd version but I’m not sure I’ll ever be quite satisfied. Thanks for the feedback!

@357lockdown 4 года назад

No one was ever "burned alive" in Massachusetts. They were all hanged. I'm surprised you didn't know that.

@anthrospin 4 года назад

Hanged and pressed, yeah. That burnings occurred in the New England colonized is a fairly common misconception that I’d unfortunately bought into until a few months after publishing this. If and when I publish a newer edition I’ll remove that. You were right to point it out

@PartlySunny74 3 года назад

Indian villages with inhabitants were.

@happyholton352 2 года назад

What about William Blackstone?

@anthrospin 2 года назад

You're the first to ever bring him up! Either in a comment or in discussion at a screening. That guy really needs a lot more popular media about him. This particular project was primarily about the textile industry and its eventual collapse, and how to see that legacy all over the state and beyond even today. The project had spiraled almost out of control with wanting more back story and context. I started with Roger Williams for no other reason than having to have made the cutoff at some point. He's plenty worthy of the discussion of the founding of the state and wouldn't have been completely out of place within this film except that he's so comparatively little known I felt his inclusion wasn't necessary. Not a bad idea to make at least a short piece on him though!

@mattdoe916 3 года назад

Right boston oh they tossed tea in the Harbor yeah well RI burnt the whole ship and then took the captain as prisoner but yet somehow people Overlook Rhode Island first automatic see Boston awesome job on this video thanks for the 411

@anthrospin 3 года назад

haha yup! Boston pushed the Tea Party as a way to get people excited for the history there. Rightfully so, but it’s not the earliest example by any stretch.

@raymondbergeron2853 3 года назад

Not so much forgotten they celebrate Gasped days every year with a burning effigies of the Gaspee.m

@johnleach3654 2 года назад

Without the mills most of my family would not have emigrated from England to United States and I would not be here.

@girlfromprovri568 3 года назад

The portrait of Samuel Slater by John Lavalle was commissioned by H. Nelson Slater in the 1950s, specifically for the Old Slater Mill museum. It does not date to 1924. Also Samuel Slater began his apprenticeship at age 14 with Jedediah Strutt, following the death of Slater's father. He did not work in the mills at age 10. He was a management apprentice, not a mechanical engineer. I'll stop viewing and leave it there.

@anthrospin 3 года назад

Hey thanks for the comment. It’s been several years since this was researched so my memory of it isn’t 100% and I’d have to dig out notes for specific references. But I’ve read both 10 years old and 14 years old for when Slater began his apprenticeship. As this film is ultimately about the peak/collapse of the textile industry and how it shaped modern labor laws, and focused primarily on the 1922 strike, I went with the younger of the two ages in establishing the role of child labor in the mill system. I apologize if that is incorrect. If you are correct on the date of the portrait (and I don’t doubt you) then I’m definitely going to have to dig through my old notes and files and see where the hell that 1924 date came from. Lastly, I did not say he was a mechanical engineer. I said his proficiency in mathematics lead to his understanding the workings of the mill as a mechanical engineer would. I believe my exact wording was “he took to it like a mechanical engineer.” The wording was specific in referencing his capabilities, not his position.

@istepheniadeluca8531 2 года назад

🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆

@Growing1Souly 6 лет назад

The narrator's shortness of breath while pedaling doesn't add anything to an otherwise very interesting video. I was listening without watching; the breath issue became overpowering. I would still recommend watching.

@anthrospin 6 лет назад

Haha fair enough. As my first major project, some kinks are bound to crop up that will undoubtedly be resolved in future undertakings. Fortunately I’m only cycling for a few minutes of the film. I’m glad you enjoyed it otherwise, although if you decide to give it another go, the images and articles displayed are perhaps more valuable than the narration alone

@murdochmcreynolds8790 4 года назад

@@anthrospin From Arctic to Summit is a long climb! I was thinking I would have done that segment in the other direction! haha. I was really impressed that you weren't breathing much harder!

@anthrospin 4 года назад

Ha! I spent a lot of time commuting on this bike path so it’s a pretty cozy ride for me at this point. Full disclosure though, there were several takes of each spiel so what didn’t make the cut wasn’t quite as composed all the time 😂

@syabelman696 2 года назад

i wished you talked more about the huge sums of money slater and the other capitalists made from the people of RI. the idea that they did it for the betterment of society is propaganda.

@anthrospin 2 года назад

The documentary was ultimately about the 1922 textile strike. The vast majority of the documentary which did not discuss the strike was context. I did not claim they did any of it for the betterment of society. That quality of life improved (especially early on) is undeniable, but I'm pretty sure any documentary that discusses mounting machine guns to the roofs of buildings to break strikes that were being held due to mass wage cuts, increased work hours, and mill owners evicting workers to sell their housing is not trying to claim it was done for the betterment of society.

@johnbrown7202 6 лет назад

A good account of the empire's rise -- not so good on the fall. While ducking the role of the labor unions in the latter is politically correct, it leaves a huge gap. The destruction of the empire left more than abandoned factories and a bike path in Rhode Island. Grinding poverty, low education levels, government corruption, a viciously anti-entrepreneurial spirit -- these are all part of the era's legacy.

@anthrospin 6 лет назад

The film directly addresses the role of the labor unions in their increasing influence leading directly to the end of the paternalistic era of labor in the region. I went to some length to avoid giving weight to either side and rather tried to present what happened without spinning it to a particular current political perspective except insofar as it illustrating the modern incarnation of the two-party system taking shape, though that isn’t exactly spin. The political dynamics of the time period are relevant; however, (and this isn’t a comment on the validity of your statement) an investigation of the current political and socioeconomic climate is beyond both the scope and intention of the film.