Attractions
  
You can see more serious art at the Museum of Art of RISD, the
Rhode Island School of Design. There are surely several places in
the Unites States where tourists discover unexpected treasures in
the form of small museums they've never, in their innocence, heard
of. The Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, California might be one; the
Kimbell in Fort Worth another, the Currier in Manchester, New Hampshire
one more. The RISD Museum of Art is such a jewel. It houses (in 45
galleries) nearly80,000 works of art from ancient Greek and Roman
sculptures to Colonial silverware. It exhibits examples of art in
every medium as one would expect in a city internationally known
for its school of design.
 
 
Displays of a different kind can be seen at another school that,
like Brown University, has made Providence famous: Johnson & Wales
University. Originally started by those two women as a typing school
with one typewriter and one student, the institution has grown to
encompass a major university that gives degrees from MBA to degrees
in hospitality and culinary arts. The latter school maintains its
museum and archives on its Harborside campus where an unbelievable
half million artifacts are stored or on display – ranging from
a fascinating history of the American Diner to some kitchen tools
from ancient Egypt, the chef jacket of Paul Bocuse or an 1831 cookbook,
the Virginia Housewife.
The archives contain the Bill of Fare for the Inauguration of
Abraham Lincoln and menus for a dinner for Teddy Roosevelt 1905;
a luncheon for JFK 1962 and a reception for Bill Clinton 1994.
The collection now named the Presidential Archives was once called
the "First Stomach" again showing that Providence delightfully
doesn't take itself too seriously.
 
 
There's a sense of fun also at Cloud Hills Victorian House Museum
where owner Anne Holst, assisted in similar period costume by three
other enthusiasts, shows off the 1870 granite country mansion that
has been passed female to female down to her, its present owner. "I'm
the 11 th great granddaughter of founder Roger Williams," says
Anne. "We have all the original bills showing
the history of the house – it cost $136,000 when ready for occupation in
1877, a lot for a family of swamp Yankees and religious dissidents!" Asked
if she could feel the presence of her ancestors as she walked its halls, Anne
replies: "No I can just feel the neglect that allowed them to defer maintenance." |
