Valley Talks: With These Hands with Photographer Steve Dunwell

Valley Talks, a series of biweekly historical lectures, continues Sunday, February 23 at 1:30 p.m. at the Museum of Work & Culture. This year, all Valley Talks will be presented in a hybrid format, meaning guests have the option of joining the speaker in person at the Museum or online through Zoom.

Woven fabric made New England a success. Textile workers made that fabric. Dominating New England for over a century, textile work peaked in 1920. Half a century later, Steve Dunwell photographed mill workers to capture a fading industry. When Dunwell took the photographs, six out of seven jobs were gone. Yet thousands of mill workers remained in the 1970s, keeping the machines running. Their jobs were sometimes difficult, often dangerous, and always noisy. Each had an immigration story to tell. Like the textile industry, this project began in Rhode Island before expanding across New England. 

Join Dunwell as he discusses how he captured this project through the exhibit With These Hands, which will be on display in the Museum’s changing gallery from Friday, February 21st until Saturday, April 26th. With These Hands captures a special time in a unique environment, now almost, but not entirely, gone. The Museum will open early at 12 p.m., giving guests a chance to explore the exhibit before Dunwell’s talk at 1:30 p.m.

Admission to the Valley Talk is free, but registration is required. Guests can register online at the event website.

Dunwell is a professional photographer living in Boston. He creates images of New England – its people, landscape, and industry – for publications, collectors, and advertising. Starting in 1973, with a grant from the Rhode Island Arts Council, he began photographing mill workers around New England. Adjacent to small rivers like the Blackstone, he found scores of industrial sites, vestiges of a vanishing world. These portraits were shown, along with history, in the book “The Run of the Mill.” His interest in industrial documentation and preservation continues to the present, alongside a career centered on architectural and aerial imagery. His 15 photo books on regional landscape and cityscape include “Extraordinary Boston” and the best-seller, “Boston Freedom Trail.”

Other Valley Talks will include:

March 9: Celebrate the beginning of the month of Francophonie with University of Rhode Island Professor Linda Welters as she presents quilts from the French-Canadian immigrants who came to Rhode Island to work in the textile mills.

March 23: Join Paul Bourget as he takes a closer look at “America’s Sistine Chapel,” St. Ann’s Church in Woonsocket and explores its artistry, history, and community.

The Museum’s 2025 Valley Talks series is presented by the Museum of Work & Culture Preservation Foundation and the RI AFL-CIO.