Rooster Boosters

Antonia Farzan, a colleague here at the bricks-and-mortar home of Half Shell in Newport, showed me a piece of Rhode Islandiana last week. She inherited a small enamel label pin of a Rhode Island Red rooster superimposed over an anchor from her grandfather. The souvenir dates back to sometime in the middle of the 20th century, when a group of Providence businessmen got together to think of ways to promote the state. Part of the campaign involved wearing the pins with the pride. There was also a jingle:

Be a Rooster Booster/Now’s the time to crow!/Be a Rooster Booster/And help Rhode Island grow!

The pins are collector’s items today, but they also point to a time when the rooster had more cache than it does now in the state. As recently as the 1980s, people were more aware of Rooster Boosters in our midst. The second item on a Google search of the phrase includes a reprint of a St. Petersburg Times column from 1983 announcing a dinner of the R.I. Rooster Booster Club at a Florida Holiday Inn.

For about a century, the Rhode Island Red was the state's second-most visible symbol, after the anchor. The breed was established in the mid-1800s in Adamsville when farmer William Tripp crossed his Cochin hens with a Red Malay or Chittagong rooster he bought from a sailor in New Bedford. A neighbor bred his hens with the “Tripp fowl” and turned his flock into what he called the “Biggest Poultry Farm on Earth.” The bird’s fame spread quickly near and far, and its immediate success in the international poultry market made it a source of pride for Rhode Islanders.

This was around the time when Rhode Island led America into the Industrial Revolution. The state, which became world-famous for engineering and manufacturing achievements, started to romanticize about its pastoral, agrarian past. Once a place of farmers and fishermen, Rhode Island turned rapidly into a state of mills, factories, mechanical triumphs and immigrant workers. Somehow in the psyche of the average Rhode Islander, a rooster had more personality than a steam engine. So it became the state icon. (Although to be fair we should note that Providence once had a professional football team named Steam Roller and a professional basketball team called Steamrollers. It also had the minor-league hockey Reds, with their rooster logo, which lasted for 51 years.)

Rhody’s agrarian symbols weren’t limited to poultry. The University of Rhode Island mascot, the Rhody Ram, is a direct link to the state’s longtime heritage as an innovator in the design and manufacture of textiles. But sometime in the early 1970s, the state began to wean itself from its agricultural roots and went all in on the ocean. Part of it may have been a growing consciousness surrounding the pollution of Narragansett Bay and the notable efforts of the Save The Bay, one of the most significant environmental charity success stories in the country. The state also changed its license plate signature from “Discover” Rhode Island to adopt “The Ocean State” nickname. An American Soccer League championship team dubbed the Rhode Island Oceaneers played in East Providence. And suddenly, it seemed, everyone started talking about quahogs.

Rhody billed itself as Quahog Country, harvesting a quarter of the nation’s annual catch. Quahog festivals popped up here and there in places like North Kingstown and Warren, and quahogs began getting more of a mention in Rhode Island menus. The quahog became the official state shellfish, and even though the Rhody Red remained the state’s official bird, the fact that the Rhode Island Reds hockey team eventually disbanded didn’t help the rooster in its rivalry with the hard clam. If you add the prevalence of steamers, oysters, mussels and scallops to the local mania for all things oceanic, Rooster Boosters never stood much of a chance. Today, bivalve mollusks rule, and the state taste tends to the salty and briny. In fact, many Rhode Islanders nowadays, when they hear the word chicken, think of the name for one-pound lobsters.

None of that should discredit the triumphant role of the Rhode Island Red in helping to form the state identity. Still, it might be time to put on a clam pin and change the booster jingle to something like:

I’m a happy clam/At the beach or in the fog/Rhode Island’s where I am/Home of the wild quahog.

(Life lesson No. 8,472: Never try to jingle before your second cup of coffee.)

What is your favorite Rhode Island souvenir?