FIRING UP THE CROWD: Labor activist and noted Communist Ann Burlak exhorts a Central Falls crowd in 1931.
12.19.99
Labor activist Ann Burlak was called the Red Flame because she was a Communist and a firebrand; above, she exhorts a crowd in Central Falls, in 1931, the year she was arrested for throwing pepper in the eyes of a strike-breaker.
Antoinette Downing started studying Rhode Island's historic buildings in the 1930s, writing books and architectural guides.
By the 1950s, she was working to preserve the Colonial buildings of Providence and Newport. Rhode Islanders today may take the grandeur of Benefit Street and Newport's restored mansions for granted, but the secular religion of the 1950s defined Progress as tearing down the old and replacing it with the new. Downing and her band of preservationists -- most of whom were women -- fought back to save the state's treasured buildings.
Former Governor and U.S. Senator John H. Chafee had a pretty safe seat in Rhode Island -- just ask most of the Democrats who went up against him.
He used that security to take on some thankless crusades.
While other senators quailed at provoking the National Rifle Association, Chafee worked to ban handguns. He tackled the health care mess, a topic so convoluted and politicized that it seems light-years away from an honest solution.
And year in, year out, he worked to clean the air, clean the water, save the Bay, and preserve the earth for future generations.
Congressman John E. Fogarty was a bricklayer and labor union leader who won 14 terms before dying of a heart attack on January 10, 1967, at age 53. An early supporter of John F. Kennedy's presidential bid, Fogarty was a JFK confidante and key member of the House Appropriations Committee. Known as a man whose word was his bond, Fogarty authored legislation that helped the mentally retarded. He also was responsible for increasing federal financing for medical research and expanding the National Insitutues of Health. A supporter of the unification of Ireland, Fogarty often sported a green bow tie.
During World War II, you couldn't eat an oyster from Narragansett Bay without risking illness. Most rivers in the state were in trouble as well; in the picture below, taken in 1944, oystermen work polluted waters in the Pawcatuck River below Westerly.
For more than 100 years, mills and factories had been dumping all kinds of waste into the rivers of Rhode Island -- between that and the untreated sewage, the Bay was anything but beautiful.
Nobody set out to despoil the water. It's just that almost any business proposal was considered solely on how many jobs it would provide, and how much it would cut taxes.
So when Northeast Petroleum Industries proposed a refinery on the Bay in North Tiverton, most people thought it was a done deal. Until a group led by Louise Durfee organized to turn public opinion around, showing what such an installation could do to the fragile Bay.
Early in the morning of Jan. 21, 1971, the Tiverton Town Council made history by rejecting the refinery. Durfee's success inspired others to help found Save the Bay, today an effective player on the Rhode Island political scene.
Today the Bay is cleaner, the air is cleaner, more sewage is treated, and oysters are growing as far north as the Providence River.
Labor activist Ann Burlak was called the Red Flame because she was a Communist and a firebrand; above, she exhorts a crowd in Central Falls, in 1931, the year she was arrested for throwing pepper in the eyes of a strike-breaker.
Antoinette Downing started studying Rhode Island's historic buildings in the 1930s, writing books and architectural guides.
By the 1950s, she was working to preserve the Colonial buildings of Providence and Newport. Rhode Islanders today may take the grandeur of Benefit Street and Newport's restored mansions for granted, but the secular religion of the 1950s defined Progress as tearing down the old and replacing it with the new. Downing and her band of preservationists -- most of whom were women -- fought back to save the state's treasured buildings.
Former Governor and U.S. Senator John H. Chafee had a pretty safe seat in Rhode Island -- just ask most of the Democrats who went up against him.
He used that security to take on some thankless crusades.
While other senators quailed at provoking the National Rifle Association, Chafee worked to ban handguns. He tackled the health care mess, a topic so convoluted and politicized that it seems light-years away from an honest solution.
And year in, year out, he worked to clean the air, clean the water, save the Bay, and preserve the earth for future generations.
Congressman John E. Fogarty was a bricklayer and labor union leader who won 14 terms before dying of a heart attack on January 10, 1967, at age 53. An early supporter of John F. Kennedy's presidential bid, Fogarty was a JFK confidante and key member of the House Appropriations Committee. Known as a man whose word was his bond, Fogarty authored legislation that helped the mentally retarded. He also was responsible for increasing federal financing for medical research and expanding the National Insitutues of Health. A supporter of the unification of Ireland, Fogarty often sported a green bow tie.
During World War II, you couldn't eat an oyster from Narragansett Bay without risking illness. Most rivers in the state were in trouble as well; in the picture below, taken in 1944, oystermen work polluted waters in the Pawcatuck River below Westerly.
For more than 100 years, mills and factories had been dumping all kinds of waste into the rivers of Rhode Island -- between that and the untreated sewage, the Bay was anything but beautiful.
Nobody set out to despoil the water. It's just that almost any business proposal was considered solely on how many jobs it would provide, and how much it would cut taxes.
So when Northeast Petroleum Industries proposed a refinery on the Bay in North Tiverton, most people thought it was a done deal. Until a group led by Louise Durfee organized to turn public opinion around, showing what such an installation could do to the fragile Bay.
Early in the morning of Jan. 21, 1971, the Tiverton Town Council made history by rejecting the refinery. Durfee's success inspired others to help found Save the Bay, today an effective player on the Rhode Island political scene.
Today the Bay is cleaner, the air is cleaner, more sewage is treated, and oysters are growing as far north as the Providence River.
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