How Much of Rhode Island Have You Never Really Seen?

Rhode Tour Run. Photo by RI Humanities.

How much Rhode Island history have you passed without ever knowing it was there?

Living in Rhode Island means passing pieces of the state’s history without always knowing what happened there. Places you may have seen hundreds of times can carry surprising connections to the people and events of the past, giving even lifelong Rhode Islanders something new to discover close to home.

Rhode Tour puts hundreds of those stories within reach through a free app and website from Rhode Island Humanities and the Rhode Island Historical Society. With 39 tours and more than 365 story pins across the state, users can pull up their location, see what is nearby, and discover the people, events, and ideas connected to places they may have passed countless times.

This October, Rhode Tour will reach a milestone with the launch of its 40th tour, “Revolutionary Traces.” Created as the country marks its 250th anniversary, the statewide tour explores the complex history of the Revolutionary period and the traces still present across Rhode Island today.

As the country marks a national milestone, Rhode Tour is bringing the conversation closer to home. What traces of the Revolution have been hiding in plain sight?

See What’s Hiding Near You

Watson Farm, Orman Remington Stopping Stone. Photo by Eric Sung.

Rhode Tour makes exploring the state’s history as easy as opening a map. The app uses geolocation to show nearby pins, so users can follow a full themed tour or just see what they might discover near a place they are already visiting.

A tour might lead users through a single walkable neighborhood or take them across Rhode Island. “Revolutionary Traces” will take users from Providence and Central Falls to Newport, Jamestown and Tiverton, with each stop adding another piece of the Revolutionary period to explore.

“You could find yourself in Jamestown going to the beach one day and say, ‘I wonder if there are any Rhode Tour sites around here,’” says Rachael Jeffers, Associate Director of Engagement at Rhode Island Humanities.

Each pin includes a brief and informative story along with archival photographs, documents, audio, or video. People can visit locations in person or explore the same content through the Rhode Tour website from home.

“Our goal with Rhode Tour is to make local history accessible to everyone and help connect this web of stories from communities across the state,” Jeffers says.

How Much of the Revolution Do We Really Remember?

Newport Common Burial Ground. Photo by Eric Sung.

Revolutionary history can bring familiar names and places to mind, but “Revolutionary Traces” is interested in what else is waiting to be noticed. The tour looks at what remains across Rhode Island today, whose experiences have been remembered, and which parts of the past may be less visible.

“We’re not trying to create a comprehensive history of the Revolution in Rhode Island,” Jeffers says. “We are looking through the lens of commemoration — highlighting the many ways that this important period is marked in our landscapes and communities, and what we can learn from the ways those stories are being told, or not, across our state.”

This Rhode Tour was supported by “By the People: Conversations Beyond 250”, a series of community-driven programs created by humanities councils in collaboration with local partners. “By the People: Conversations Beyond 250” was developed by the Federation of State Humanities Councils and the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. In addition to national support for this project, it also received a grant from the Rhode Island Semiquincentennial Commission (RI250).

The tour updates existing Rhode Tour content and adds four new pins created with community partners. Rhode Tour users will encounter recognizable pieces of Revolutionary history, including the Stephen Hopkins House in Providence, home of Rhode Island’s signer of the Declaration of Independence, while also finding perspectives they may not expect.

At Newport’s Common Burial Ground, the recent “Life After Life” project brought greater attention to the personal stories of people buried there during the period. Revolutionary Traces will also feature the Indigenous Veterans Monument in Exeter’s Rhode Island Veterans Memorial Cemetery, which honors the Indigenous people who served in the Revolutionary War and in every American armed conflict since. Choosing what to include meant taking a closer look at whose experiences were already represented and whose were harder to find. Rhode Island Humanities sought to broaden the picture through featuring women’s and Indigenous perspectives while also making sure the tour reached communities across the state.

“We wanted people to encounter parts of the period they might not immediately associate with Revolutionary history,” Jeffers says.

This approach gives Revolutionary Traces a different way into a period many people may assume they already know. A familiar historic site can become an invitation to look again, ask another question, and discover who else belongs in Rhode Island’s Revolutionary history.

A Decade of Rhode Island Stories in Your Pocket

Gilbert Stuart Birthplace & Museum. Photo by Eric Sung.

More than a decade ago, Rhode Tour began with a small Rhode Island Humanities grant to Brown University’s former Center for Public Humanities. Since then, a partnership with the Rhode Island Historical Society has helped it grow into a statewide resource reaching about 40,000 users each year.

Its impact can also be seen in the organizations whose research and collections reach new audiences through the platform. Rhode Island is home to more than 1,000 cultural organizations, with many important stories to share but limited resources to create their own digital experiences. Rhode Tour gives more of this history a place to be discovered while supporting each tour with archival research and expert review.

Revolutionary Traces marks the platform’s 40th tour, but the milestone is also a reminder of how much remains to be discovered. As the country commemorates 250 years since the Revolution, Rhode Islanders have an opportunity to reconsider the places they thought they knew and encounter people whose experiences may have received less attention.

History can become easy to overlook when it sits along a road you travel every week or inside a building you have passed countless times. Rhode Tour gives people a reason to look closer at familiar places and discover the history they may have been passing all along.

Learn more about Rhode Island Humanities at rihumanities.org and explore Rhode Tour for free by visiting rhodetour.org or downloading the app on IOS or Android.