South Providence
Patrick T. Conley and Paul Campbell
The themes of South Providence — urbanization, immigration, and industrialization — best characterize the nation’s modern development. This volume reveals how a well-known Providence community worshipped, studied, worked, played, ate, and drank. The denizens of South Providence were an extraordinary mix. The geographic and demographic developments of the 19th century crafted the economically diverse, dense, and multicultural community of the 20th century. Today almost every major avenue still contains a varied mixture of residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional uses.
Patrick T. Conley and Paul Campbell, natives of South Providence, know the highlights of their neighborhood from actual experience and from their expertise as Providence historians. This is the fourth book about Providence on which they have collaborated. Conley was the founding chairman of the Providence Heritage Commission and has written 16 books. Campbell is the librarian emeritus of the Rhode Island Historical Society and the historian of the Providence Housing Authority. Combined they have spent 124 years living or working in the South Providence neighborhood — a place they never left.