4 Best Sights in The Blackstone Valley, Rhode Island

In a former textile mill, this interactive museum examines the lives of American factory workers and owners during the Industrial Revolution. Focusing on French Canadian immigrants who came to work in Woonsocket's mills, the museum's cleverly laid out, walk-through exhibits begin with a 19th-century Québécois farmhouse, then continue with displays of life in a 20th-century tenement, a Catholic school, a church, and the shop floor. The genesis of the textile workers' union is described, as are the events that led to the National Textile Strike of 1934. There's also a fascinating presentation about child labor. Exhibits are presented in both French and English.

Concord and Lexington may legitimately lay claim to what Ralph Waldo Emerson called "the shot heard 'round the world" in 1775, but Pawtucket's Slater Mill provided the necessary economic shot in the arm in 1793. This National Historic Landmark, the first successful water-powered spinning mill in America, touched off an industrial revolution that helped secure America's sovereign independence in the early days of the republic. The museum complex explores this era with U.S. National Park Service rangers and expert interpretive guides, who demonstrate fiber-to-yarn and yarn-to-fabric processes and hand-operated and powered machinery and discuss how industrialization forever changed this nation. It's peaceful just to watch the water wheel turn and to contemplate how much we owe to "Slater the Traitor."

The surviving redbrick buildings of the former Hope Webbing Company's textile mill now hold artists' studios, galleries (including the always-interesting Giraffes and Robots), shops, an escape room, the Met music venue, and the marvelously retro BreakTime Bowl and Bar duckpin bowling alley. The popular Pawtucket Indoor Farmer's Market is held Wednesday from 4--7 pm.

Within the stately grounds of this park along the Ten Mile River are picnic tables, tennis courts, a playground, dog park, bike path, and a disc golf course. The park's Looff Carousel, built by Charles I. D. Looff in 1895, has 44 horses, three dogs, a lion, a camel, a giraffe, and two chariots that are the earliest examples of the Danish immigrant's work—rides operate spring through fall and cost 50¢. The Haunted Tunnel in the park is a popular Halloween attraction.