RIHS, PC’s Phillips Library Release a new Chapter of Free Online Textbook
‘Before Rhode Island’ Now Available on EnCompass Website
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The Rhode Island Historical Society and Providence College’s Phillips Memorial Library have released a new chapter for EnCompass, the free digital textbook of Rhode Island history.
Before Rhode Island: Early Peoples and Archaeology,” features essays about the early archaeology of the region. Topics include early technologies, foodways, and archaeological methodology with primary and secondary sources from collections at RIHS and partner organizations. EnCompass is geared mainly toward middle school and high school readers, but is easily adaptable by teachers of lower grades
The first chapter, “Roger Williams and the Founding of Rhode Island,” was released in 2016 and revised in 2017. Thanks to a major grant from the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, we are working on seven additional chapters whose topics include women’s suffrage in Rhode Island, the African American struggle for Civil Rights in Rhode Island, and Narragansett history.
“We are working to build this free and open resource to provide teachers and students of history an easily digestible way to find historical information and primary sources about our state, and allow them to connect major national themes with local examples,” said Geralyn Ducady, director of the RIHS’s Newell D. Goff Center for Education and Public Programs.
All chapters are aligned with Rhode Island Grade Span Expectations for Social Studies.
The EnCompass project, utilizing images of primary sources and artifacts, aims to provide teachers with free resources, content, and activities for their classrooms. EnCompass was launched in 2016 with the help of a grant from the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities.
Visit EnCompass at http://library.providence.edu/encompass/.
About the Rhode Island Historical Society
Founded in 1822, the RIHS, a Smithsonian Affiliate, is the fourth-oldest historical society in the United States and is Rhode Island’s largest and oldest historical organization. In Providence, the RIHS owns and operates the John Brown House Museum, a designated National Historic Landmark, built in 1788; the Aldrich House, built in 1822 and used for administration and public programs; and the Mary Elizabeth Robinson Research Center, where archival, book and image collections are housed. In Woonsocket, the RIHS manages the Museum of Work and Culture, a community museum examining the industrial history of northern Rhode Island and of the workers and settlers, especially French-Canadians, who made it one of the state’s most distinctive areas.