WOONSOCKET, R.I. -- You've seen the signs out on I-495, and maybe even read about the Labor Day festivities held there each year. Yet, still you may wonder, what the heck is The Museum of Work and Culture?

Well, it's a place you very well may want to visit, especially if the history of the Blackstone Valley is of any interest to you.

The eight-year-old museum is a must-stop for those who visit the Slater Mill in Pawtucket. A tour of the museum and mill will provide a potent one-two punch of history, detailing how the American Industrial Revolution took root.

Located in downtown Woonsocket and surrounded by old mills (many now refurbished into business and retail space), the Museum of Work and Culture tells a very specific part of the Blackstone Valley story. While the Slater Mill tour does a great job depicting the ways technology reshaped 19th century society, one comes away wanting to know more about the men and women -- and children -- behind the machines.

This is where the Museum of Work and Culture comes in. The mills were operated in large part by French Canadian immigrants who left Quebec, Canada, in the early to mid 1800s, hoping to find better jobs. They found the work, but also had to deal with the displacement of coming to a foreign land, and brutal working conditions. Co-director Raymond Bacon said the goal of the museum is to shed a light on the lives of those who came and sacrificed as they powered up America's earliest industries and later struck a blow for workers' rights.

`` I hope visitors get an appreciation of how hard these people struggled to raise our standard of living,'' he said.

The museum may tell the story of the French Canadian influx into Woonsocket, but it's a universal tale that's still relevant, Bacon said.

`` It's still a struggle for those who come to the United States. We hope people will leave here more sympathetic to their plight.''

The story begins in the early decades of the 1800s. The Slater Mill, the first water-powered cotton mill, was going strong, so a series of similar mills followed that example and opened along the Blackstone River and throughout the region. This meant that workers were desperately needed, and mill owners, beginning around 1840, looked north.

Promised they could make in a day what their farm work brought in a week, many French Canadians left home to fill the jobs. What followed was a huge exodus. By 1900, nearly half of New England's textile mill workers were French Canadians. By the 1930s, Woonsocket was 75 percent French-Canadian. (Even today, many of the ATM machines in the city are in both English and French.)

The life these people found was hard. To cope, many tried to hold on to what they could of their homeland. `` La Survivance'' was their word for this survival measure. It was a practice first learned in 1763, when Britain took control of Canada's French settlements.

Those who came to America to work the mills found themselves resorting to the same practice of hanging on. Those that stayed held tight to their religion, language and culture; many others -- maybe half -- returned to the family farms at some point.

The museum outlines this story with a comprehensive film that starts you on your way. Once you beginning roaming through the two floors of galleries, the story comes to life in different ways.

Farm displays show what the immigrants left behind, while a replica of the exterior of the Precious Blood Church, which stood on the banks of the Blackstone, highlights the importance the Roman Catholic faith had to the majority of immigrants. The working life is portrayed with displays that are similar to those found inside the Slater Mill buildings.

A large spinning machine gives visitors a chance to see the one thing that kicked off this entire era of history, while the loud noise of the mills comes rumbling through the speakers to provide another dose of the reality the workers faced. There's even a few interactive displays to allow you to test your own mill skills.

Another display gives you a sense of the cultural life found in old Woonsocket, with parades, picnics and other things meant for recreation in the workers' limited down time.

Upstairs there's a replica of a triple-decker, the kind of housing many of the French Canadians lived in -- creating a so-called `` city of porches.'' One features a walk-in parlor that will transport you back a few generations (if you don't remember whether your parents or grandparents had one of those thick brown glass ashtrays that's in this display, you simply didn't visit enough).

To show how much the French Canadians tried to hold to their roots while also trying to make the most of their new home, there's even a schoolroom replica, where the nuns taught both French and English. The textbooks back then also contained lessons in both languages.

A final room details the rise of the unions and the various struggles the workers had to endure to earn many of the rights enjoyed by today's workers. And while the story would seem to end on a sad note -- with most of the mills eventually closing down and jobs going south or overseas -- the tale doesn't end there. The museum points out that Woonsocket is still a thriving place to live and work.

One feature that makes the Museum of Work and Culture stand out is the use of real voices. Throughout many of the galleries, the recorded voices of Woonsocket mill workers call out and tell their stories as if reaching through the generations. From the oppressive heat of the mills, to the poverty, to the sense of community and love of family they enjoyed, these voices of some of Woonsocket's old timers add a wonderful human dimension to the story.

In short, the Museum of Work and Culture tells the story of how Woonsocket went from a `` bend in the river to a New England textile town.'' It's a tale worth hearing and, as the highway signs on I-495 point out, it's just down the road.

JOHN WINTERS can be reached at 508-236-0434 or at jwinters@thesunchronicle.com. Some of the historical information used in the story comes from "LaSurvivance," an excellent companion book to the museum's exhibits. It is available at the museum bookstore for $5.