online: www.rihumanities.org email: info@rihumanities.org phone: 401-273-2250
How did teenagers in Rhode Island live over two hundred years ago? Peeking at the private writings of adolescent girls reveals how young people passed their time before taking on adult responsibilities. While such personal accounts come mostly from girls of relative privilege, they write of places and events that would have been familiar to all Rhode Islanders. Their diaries offer a glimpse at the social expectations and constraints that shaped the lives of women. Recording confidential thoughts about boating on the Narragansett Bay or sharing a coach ride to Providence with a handsome "Indian Chief," these young women comment on the world around them with candor and spirit.
Jane Lancaster is an award-winning teacher, researcher, and writer. She received a PhD from Brown University, writing a dissertation on the life of engineer Lillian Moller Gilbreth (the mother of twelve celebrated in Cheaper by the Dozen). Her work on Rhode Island women has been published in periodicals ranging from the Providence Journal to the Journal of American History.
Availability: is sometimes away during the summer months Needs: slide projector and screen; lighted lectern/water
Needs: slide projector and screen; lighted lectern/water