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TRANSCRIPT:
Luis Hernandez: First, give us a picture of what kind of records, what kind of things are in the archives? What do you have?
Gregg Amore: So we have what I like to refer to as treasures. We have an original Declaration of Independence, one of the original 13 before the signing. It only has one signature on it and that’s John Hancock. We have the original Bill of Rights, one of the original 13 Bill of Rights documents. We have 64 letters from George Washington. We have the act of renunciation from May of 1776, which made Rhode Island the first colony to declare its independence. We have a request for troops from Abraham Lincoln signed by Lincoln. We have the documents associated with the Gaspee incident. We have the map from the Battle of Rhode Island. It is a treasure trove of historical documents.
Hernandez: I would hope that these are all in very protective cases. They’re safe?
Amore: They are in a vault. But that’s a good point because we are one of the few states that does not have our treasures displayed. So you would have to go to our archives, make an appointment, go into the vault with the archivist, the archivists would pull out a drawer, and then you take a look at that document in limited time. You compare that to our charter museum, which is at the State House where the charter of 1663 is displayed for the public. Now it is very secure, very safe, temperature controlled, light-controlled. That’s what we would like to do with all of our treasures so that the public could come visit those treasures as they do in so many states and as they do at the National Archives every day.
Hernandez: You gave me some examples of what you’d like it to be. So paint the picture for me. Where would this be? What would it look like? What do you want? What’s ideal?
Amore: So the Gorbea administration did a lot of work on this prior to our arrival. There was a site study done. There are actually multiple site studies done. There was an architectural rendering. We’re working off the work that they already did and were trying to make a public case for this. Now, when Secretary Gorbea engaged in this, we were just at the advent of building new schools and refurbishing schools. Well, that has gone well. And that continues to go well. And so we know this is connected to that. This is a public construction for educational purposes. We would like to see it in the State House area because we know that we get roughly, pre-pandemic, 18,000 visitors to the State House who were led on a tour, and then we have walk-ins and that number increases, and we have student groups. We would like it to be seamless so that groups visiting the State House would then visit this history center and archives.
Hernandez: In the State House?
Amore: Adjacent. So two of the sites are being looked at. One in front of the administration building on Smith Street, and the other would be the parking lot that connects to the Vets Auditorium. Those are two of the sites that are looked at. There’s been some talk recently of the site next to the train station. But we believe a site near the State House is really important.
Hernandez: Obviously, the (legislative) session’s coming up. It’s around the corner. Do you see the support for it?
Amore: We know that the governor is very open to this project because he looks at it not only as engaging Rhode Islanders and people from outside Rhode Island about our history, our rich history. But he looks at it as an economic driver, something that will bring tourists to Rhode Island, and maybe bring the tourists that are already here to this location to explore Rhode Island history. So he’s interested.
Hernandez: You know how much you have. But when you mentioned some of the things earlier, again, you’re going to need the space, but also a way to keep it protected and safe. So in the end, what’s this going to cost?
Amore: So we think it’ll be just shy of $100 million to build a building that has all the features it needs. There’s a process. And we’re leasing now for short of $300,000 the space that exists for these documents. So there’s a built-in cost for maintenance, but the construction of the building will be in the neighborhood of $100 million.
Hernandez: You did mention some spaces earlier but I’m wondering if like there are any other states that you’ve been to and you’ve seen theirs and you’ve thought ‘Why don’t we have this?’
Amore: Yeah, we have. One of our team members visited the Tennessee archives, which is the newest of the archives. A history museum just opened up. It’s a fantastic place. Our team visited the Massachusetts archives. I personally have been to over a dozen history museums and archives around the country and state houses. And what I know is when I visit, I’m never alone. There is a market for historical tourism. We know that that exists. But we also know that this is a place where we can tell the story of Rhode Island to Rhode Islanders and can serve as an education center for our students. We know that civic education is incredibly important. And we want to highlight that as well.
Hernandez: What do you think people miss out on if we don’t build this?
Amore: Well, I think Rhode Island has a practical issue here in preserving our historical documents and our state records. We have four thousand boxes of documents off-site as we speak. There’s a real need for that. So that’s the first point. But I also think that when you are Rhode Island, one of the original 13 states, one of the original 13 colonies, to share our history and to embrace our history and celebrate our history is really something we should be doing. And I believe that it is an incredible marketing tool to draw people to Rhode Island.
Hernandez: Alright, so we talked about the big treasures, some of these really cool letters as you said, but are there any everyday things that you think are really cool that people should know about?
Amore: So I’ll answer that in two ways. One, genealogy is very popular right now. So many of our visitors to the state archives are interested in their past, right? To get people excited about history, you get them excited about their own history. And then that kind of spills over into the history of the community and the state and the nation at large. And then, we serve a lot of teachers. There are many teachers who use our archival material as part of their curriculum, and we have expanded that and we’ve digitized many of these documents so they can be used in classrooms, and that’s classrooms from elementary level all the way through college and university.
Hernandez: Secretary of State Gregg Amore, I really appreciate the time. Thank you so much.
Amore: Thanks, Luis.
