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ing occupies a floodplain, and basement
sump-pumps continually beat back the river,
which gurgles though a hole in the floor.
What was considered a vast improve-
ment when the state signed the first five-
year lease looks shabby today. The public
space is outfitted with mismatched chairs
and is too small to host events. The histori-
cal all-stars are in a climate-controlled
space, but more than half of the collection
is not. In May, Gorbea released a report
estimating that more than a third of the
documents were at high risk for damage.
“The danger is water and temperature,”
says State Archivist Ashley Selima. Many
things are in open stacks and we can’t have
it at the lower temperature we prefer.”
Regular users, such as author Cherry
Bamberg, editor of Rhode Island Genea-
logical Society journal Rhode Island Roots,
can easily tick off other deficits: a lack of
accessible electrical outlets, microfilm
readers or proper archival page weights.
“As much I appreciate the archives, I
also understand how much worse things
have gotten in the last twenty years simply
because there are so many more docu-
ments,” she says. “Nobody is unaware of
smell. I look up at the ceiling vent and see
the black around it.”
Maureen Taylor, who uses the archives
for her business, the Photo Detective, and
her website, oldpvd.com, agrees.
“I travel all over the country lecturing
in state archives and it’s always kind of sad
to come home to Rhode Island, because
the state archives are so small,” she says.
“But don’t underestimate the amount of
history that’s here. If you are from Rhode
Island, your family history is in that archive
somewhere.”
The 1887 referendum lost by a wide
margin and Rhode Island women did not
get equal suffrage until 1920, when the
nineteenth amendment was ratified here.
More than 130 years later, some men from
East Greenwich still dismiss women’s par-
ticipation in politics — read: former Town
Council Vice President Sean Todd’s tweet
about the 2017 Women’s March: “Definitely
a guy came up with the #womensmarch
perfect way to get the wives outta the
house.” But, in 2018, twenty-seven women
were elected to the General Assembly. Two
are from East Greenwich.
And that is just one fascinating history
of us, told by the archives.
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l MARCH 2020 35