LIVE: Exploring Providence’s Housing Struggle Through Historic Records With Archivist Horton

LIVE: Exploring Providence’s Housing Struggle Through Historic Records With Archivist Horton

Providence City Archivist Caleb Horton says Providence experienced a great population loss starting in the 1950’s and the civil rights movement in Providence revolved around fair housing.

“Our story is unique to the out-migration, and how it left the city in kind of an urban decay and the lack of affordable housing and fair housing,” Horton says. 

The story is told through documents, records and photographs from the archive collection for the 2018 Black History Month Exhibit: Home? The Housing Struggle in Providence From 1950 through Today.

The exhibit opens on February 22 at a special event at 11 a.m., at City Hall outside the City Council Chambers.

Horton says the archives “contains one of the most complete and continuous collections of municipal records out of most cities in the nation” holding nearly 40,000 cubic feet of records that date back to 1637.