{"id":1794,"date":"2021-02-09T12:04:20","date_gmt":"2021-02-09T12:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dodgemillmuseum.com\/?p=1794"},"modified":"2021-02-09T12:04:20","modified_gmt":"2021-02-09T12:04:20","slug":"museum-of-work-culture-paper-to-plastics-a-legacy-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dodgemillmuseum.com\/?p=1794","title":{"rendered":"MUSEUM OF WORK & CULTURE: PAPER TO PLASTICS A LEGACY STORY"},"content":{"rendered":"

F<\/span>ree Virtual Valley Talks Continue with Exploration of the Environmental Legacies of Manufacturing\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

WOONSOCKET, R.I. \u2013\u00a0Valley Talks, a series of biweekly historical lectures by the Museum of Work & Culture, continues Sunday, February 21 at 1pm on Zoom.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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MEXICO, MAINE<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Writers Kerri Arsenault and Rebecca Altman will present \u201cPaper or Plastic? Legacies of Work, Family, Community\u201d a discussion of their work about North American manufacturing and the environmental, political, and personal legacies it has left behind.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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THE MILL MEXICO,\u00a0 MAINE<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Arsenault grew up in the rural working-class town of Mexico, Maine, where for over 100 years the community orbited around a paper mill that provided jobs for most people, including three generations of her family, which is the focus of her book,\u00a0Mill Town: Reckoning with What Remains<\/em>.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

She had a happy childhood, but years after she moved away, she realized the price she paid for that childhood. The price they all paid. The mill, while providing community, jobs, stability, also contributed to the destruction of the environment and their lives.\u00a0Mill Town\u00a0<\/em>examines and interrogates the modern world and its contemporary conundrums: the rise and collapse of the working-class; the hazards of nostalgia and memory; the ambiguous nature of toxics and disease; and how the past affects our present-day lives.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

At the center of the narrative is this central question; who or what are we willing to sacrifice for our own survival.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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FIRST COMMUNION \u2013 SAINT THERESA\u2019S \u2013 MEXICO, MAINE\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Altman\u2019s forthcoming book,\u00a0\u00a0The Song of Styrene<\/em>, contains an intimate story about a seemingly un-intimate thing: plastic. Plastics are personal to Rebecca, not only because her father made plastic, but because plastic is so embedded in our everyday lives, bodies, even used in life-saving medical devices.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

This intimacy, Rebecca writes, also stems from plastics\u2019 connection with changing climate, water-borne legacy contaminants, and other far-reaching consequences wrought by petrochemical production. The systems integral to plastics are as complex a system as a human heart or her family tree.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

This marriage of petroleum with oil hurtles across history and family, science and emotion, macro and micro to produce something unmanageable, unrecyclable, and ultimately inextricable from our planet and our lives. Plastics are humankind\u2019s legacy.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Q&A portion of the program will also feature Johnathan Berard, who is the Rhode Island State Director for Clean Water Action. His advocacy portfolio includes toxics and chemical policy and he has been working for the last five years to strengthen chemical policy in Rhode Island, including passing in 2017 the second-strictest prohibition on organohalogens in flame retardants in the US.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Individuals can register for the talk by visiting\u00a0https:\/\/bit.ly\/3s3ysMn<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0This year\u2019s series is presented as part of the Rhode Island Historical Society\u2019s Taking a Stand in Rhode Island, a yearlong examination of how the people who have called this place home, from the 17th century to the recent past, have identified aspects of society that needed to shift and how they worked to change them.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Arsenault<\/a>\u00a0is a book critic, book editor at Orion magazine, contributing editor at Literary Hub, and author of\u00a0Mill Town: Reckoning with What Remains<\/em>. Her work has appeared in the Paris Review Daily, NYRB, Freeman\u2019s, the Boston Globe, and Air Mail.\u00a0Altman<\/a>\u00a0holds a PhD in environmental sociology from Brown University. Recent essays have appeared in The Atlantic, Aeon Magazine and Orion Magazine, for whom she is currently guest-editing a special series on plastics.\u00a0The Song of Styrene<\/em>\u00a0is her first book and is forthcoming from Scribner Books.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Photos Thank You\u00a0Kerri Arsenault<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Other Valley Talks will include:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

March 7: Writer and historical reenactor Paul Bourget will examine the Sentinelle Affair, the local underground movement that led to the excommunication of 61 congregants.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

March 21: Author David Vermette will discuss how the U.S. mainstream perceived French-Canadians when they were an immigrant community in New England at the turn of the 20th century.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

About the Museum of Work & Culture<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The interactive and educational Museum of Work & Culture shares the stories of the men, women, and children who came to find a better life in Rhode Island\u2019s mill towns in the late 19th- and 20th centuries. It recently received a\u00a0Rhode Island Monthly<\/em>\u00a0Best of Rhode Island Award for its SensAbilities Saturdays all-ability program.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

About the Rhode Island Historical Society<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Founded in 1822, the RIHS, a Smithsonian Affiliate, is the fourth-oldest historical society in the United States and is Rhode Island\u2019s 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\u2019s most distinctive areas.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Free Virtual Valley Talks Continue with Exploration of the Environmental Legacies of Manufacturing\u00a0 WOONSOCKET, R.I. \u2013\u00a0Valley Talks, a series of biweekly historical lectures by the Museum of Work & Culture, continues Sunday, February 21 at 1pm on Zoom. MEXICO, MAINE Writers Kerri Arsenault and Rebecca Altman will present \u201cPaper or Plastic? Legacies of Work, Family,<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/dodgemillmuseum.com\/?author=1"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Uncategorized<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Free Virtual Valley Talks Continue with Exploration of the Environmental Legacies of Manufacturing\u00a0 WOONSOCKET, R.I. \u2013\u00a0Valley Talks, a series of biweekly historical lectures by the Museum of Work & Culture, continues Sunday, February 21 at 1pm on Zoom. MEXICO, MAINE Writers Kerri Arsenault and Rebecca Altman will present \u201cPaper or Plastic? Legacies of Work, Family,Read…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dodgemillmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dodgemillmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dodgemillmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dodgemillmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dodgemillmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1794"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dodgemillmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1798,"href":"https:\/\/dodgemillmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794\/revisions\/1798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dodgemillmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dodgemillmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dodgemillmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}