Year Inducted: 2009
Alan G. Hassenfeld - Alan Hassenfeld is the former chairman of the board and present chairman of the executive committee of Hasbro, Inc., a multi-billion dollar international toy company. Under his leadership, Hasbro has become a worldwide leader in children's and family entertainment. Its brands and products are some of the most recognizable and respected throughout the world. Alan…
Amasa Eaton - Eaton, Amasa M. (Amasa Mason), 1841-1914 Amasa Eaton was a prominent Providence attorney who might be described as the quintessential Progressive reformer. His distinguished lineage included Providence's Brown family and the Herreshoffs of Bristol. He was an outspoken advocate of home rule for Providence and a member of the Metropolitan Park Commission, the Blackstone Neighborhood…
Annie Smith Peck - Annie Smith Peck was an American mountaineer and adventurer. She was an ardent suffragist and noted speaker, lecturing extensively for many years throughout the world, and writing four books encouraging travel and exploration. Peck was born on October 19, 1850, in Providence, Rhode Island. She was the youngest of five children born to Ann Power Smith Peck and George Bacheler Peck.…
Arthur A. Coia Esq. - Arthur A. Coia was born on March 21,1943 in the Italian section of Charles Street, Providence, Rhode Island graduating from LaSalle Academy, Providence College, and Boston University Law School. He is a founding partner with over 40 years of experience in the New England-based law firm of Coia and Lepore, LTD. specializing in labor law,…
Bishop William Stang - William Stang (1854-1907) was born in Langenbucken, Germany, studied for the Catholic priesthood at Louvain in Belgium, and was ordained in June 1878. Little else is known of his early life. Irish-born bishop Thomas F. Hendricken (whose surname indicates his German ancestor) sought a German-speaking priest for the small but growing German community in the…
Chief Justice Thomas Durfee - Durfee, Thomas, 1826-1901 Thomas Durfee was the eldest son of Job Durfee, who was chief justice of Rhode Island from 1828 to 1849, was marked from the outset for a career in law. His mother was Judith Borden, member of a prominent Fall River Family. Thomas completed his preparatory education at the East Greenwich Academy…
Colonel Robert Hale Ives Goddard - Goddard, Robert H. I. (Robert Hale Ives), 1837-1916 Colonel Robert Goddard (1837-1916) was a son of Professor William G. Goddard, newspaperman and first Chancellor of Brown University, and Charlotte Rhoda Ives Goddard. Through his mother's line of descent, Goddard was related to the Ives family, who partnered with the Brown family in shipping, manufacturing, real…
Dr. Charles Carroll - Carroll, Charles, 1876-1936 Dr. Charles Carroll, Rhode Island's foremost historian of his era, was born in Providence to newspaper printer William Carroll and Mary (Sheehan) Carroll. He was educated in the Providence public schools and at Brown University where he excelled in mathematics, edited the Brown Daily Herald, captained the debate team, and served as…
Dr. D. Scott Molloy Jr. - Scott was born on August 17, 1946 into an Irish-Catholic, blue-collar family from the Reservoir Triangle neighborhood of Providence that had close ties to organized labor. His working-class background and his Irish ethnicity exerted profound influences upon his career and his achievements. Scott eventually became a labor leader and Rhode Island's foremost labor historian as…
Dr. John William Keefe - State and national eminence in the medical profession came to Dr. John W. Keefe of Providence, Rhode Island, through his exceptional skill as a surgeon and his many notable and humane achievements in a career in which his service in his chosen profession was distinguished for nearly half a century. He was a founder of…
Dr. Ramon Guiteras - Dr. Ramon Guiteras, founder of the American Urological Association, surgeon, statesman, and sportsman, was the most prominent Rhode Islander of Latin American heritage at the turn of the 20th century. He was born in Bristol, Rhode Island, on August 17, 1858, to Ramon and Elizabeth Manchester (Wardwell) Guiteras. His grandfather sailed from Spain to Cuba,…
George M. Sage - George M. Sage, 1931-2006, was one of the most beloved Rhode Islanders of his generation. A gifted businessman, Mr. Sage had an even more substantial impact for his philanthropic endeavors, planning and executing a legacy of giving that will benefit Rhode Islanders for years to come. George was born in Rochester, New York in 1931,…
Irwin Chase - Irwin Chase is the eldest son of Martin Chase, a Russian Jew who immigrated with his family from the Ukraine to Providence in 1912. The Chase family first settled in South Providence but later moved to the East Side. Born in 1926, Irwin attended Hope High School. At eighteen he joined the army and fought…
James Joseph O’Connell M.D. - Dr. James J. O'Connell, a native of Newport and a graduate of Harvard Medical School, has truly made a difference in the world of medicine. Since 1985, when he helped found the Boston Health Care For The Homeless Program, he has worked tirelessly to bring medical care and dignity to the less fortunate. Today he…
John Gorham - Gorham, John, 1820-1898 John Gorham was born in Providence on November 18, 1820. He was the eldest son of Jabez Gorham who had established himself as a leading manufacturer of silverware and jewelry in Providence in the 1830s. John began his apprenticeship in 1837 and in 1841, at the age of 21, he became a…
Judge Joseph F. Rodgers Jr. - Joseph R. Rodgers, Jr., presiding Justice of the Rhode Island Superior Court since 1991, is the youngest judge in modern Rhode Island history to be appointed to both the District and Superior courts. In 1974, at age 33, he became associate justice of the District Court and was elevated to the Superior Court in 1976.…
Major General Zenas Randall Bliss - Major General Zenas Randall Bliss was born in the Johnston village of Simmonsville on April 17, 1835. He passed a comfortable youth in a middle class family until he won a direct appointment to the United States Military Academy in 1850, at the age of fifteen. At West Point Bliss graduated near the bottom of…
Randall C. “Randy” Hien - Randall C. ("Randy") Hien, 1949-2006, became legendary in Rhode Island for his remarkable accomplishments in two fields. As one of the most successful baseball coaches in the state, he devoted himself tirelessly to Rhode Island youth sports for thirty years. During that time, he transformed his beloved Lincoln Little League All-Stars into a nationally-competitive powerhouse,…
Reverend Angelo D’Agostino S.J., M.D. - Father Angelo D'Agostino, 1926-2006 was born on January 26, 1926 in Providence, Rhode Island and died at work in Nairobi, Kenya on November 20, 2006. Raised in the Mount Pleasant section of Providence, Angelo was educated at Holy Ghost School, LaSalle Academy, and St. Michael's College in Vermont. He received both an M.D. and Master's…
Reverend John Byron Diman - Armed with his religion and dedication to "the spirit of social service," Rev. John Byron Diman founded St. George's Episcopal boarding school. He continued establishing two other education hubs — a vocational school in Fall River for high school "dropouts" and Portsmouth Priory School. Diman came from a line of prestigious Rhode Islanders — his…
Walter Scott - The steps leading to the invention of an American cultural original, the diner eatery, began in Providence through the initiative of Walter Scott. He was born on November 28, 1841 in Cumberland, the son of lawyer Joseph A. Scott and Juliet Howland Scott. By age eleven Scott was peddling candy, fruit, and newspapers on the…
