Albert T. Klyberg, a prolific teacher, researcher, Rhode Island historian and for nearly three decades the executive director of the Rhode Island Historical Society, died last night in his sleep. He was 76.
Klyberg ran the society during a period of rapid expansion. Under his leadership, the society grew to include the Robinson Research Center, the Aldrich House on Providence’s East Side, and the Museum of Work and Culture in Woonsocket.
As was the case in many New England cities, the historical society Klyberg took over in 1967 was a Yankee Protestant redoubt, dominated by old families who, in some cases, traced their lineage to the colonial era or even the Mayflower.
Klyberg changed that, bringing to the forefront the stories of mill workers, African-Americans and the European immigrants who forged the modern Rhode Island. His vision for the work and culture museum resulted in a living tribute to the French-Canadian immigrant experience and the labor unions that helped assimilate immigrants and gave them better lives amid the mind-numbing clatter of a textile mill.
“There are people in this world who change the way we think about a place. Al Klyberg was one of those people. He came to Rhode Island with a passion for history, and not just any history, the history of every single person. And he committed his life to sharing that history with everyone,’’ said C. Morgan Grefe, the current executive director of the society.
A graduate of the College of Wooster in Ohio, where Klyberg was a history major, he earned a masters degree in history at the University of Michigan, Klyberg came to work at the RI Historical Society in 1967.
Klyberg left a meeting with fellow Rhode Island history expert Patrick T. Conley at 3:30 yesterday afternoon in Providence , said Conley. Conley said Klyberg was in his usual good spirits and left to pick up his wife, who was shopping in Warwick.
The news of Al’s death, said Conley, was “not only sad, but devastating. Klyberg was inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame in 2014.
Klyberg taught Rhode Island history at the University of Rhode Island and was a celebrated researcher and writer on local history topics. He was a friendly, outgoing fellow who carried his passion for Rhode Island’s long and florid history just about anywhere he went. He was very helpful to researchers and journalists interested in historical topics. He was a grand help to yours truly and Jody McPhillips when we were researching the Providence Journal’s Rhode Island Century series at the Providence Journal in 1999.
Klyberg, universally known as “Al’’ had a wide knowledge of our small state’s big history – from the well-trod path of the colonial era to such modern elements as the ill-fated Greenhouse Compact and the ethnic waltz of immigration that continues to mold. He was a self-effacing man and never played the know-it-all; one of his best attributes was his knowledge of other historians who had dug deep into themes in Rhode Island’s past. He had an infectious enthusiasm for state history.
“He had a beautiful vision of the role that history should play in our lives, and I am honored to have known and worked with him,’’ said Grefe in a statement.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
