Writers Kerri Arsenault and Rebecca Altman will present “Paper or Plastic? Legacies of Work, Family, Community” a discussion of their work about North American manufacturing and the environmental, political, and personal legacies it has left behind.

This year’s series is presented as part of the Rhode Island Historical Society’s Taking a Stand in Rhode Island, a yearlong examination of how the people who have called this place home, from the 17th century to the recent past, have identified aspects of society that needed to shift and how they worked to change them.