Connecticut News Archive
Gov. Dan Malloy's "Dark Day" Inaugural Address Big View
Bill Hosley on the Latest Issue of Connecticut History
" 'Connecticut History' is an academic publication that ranges from good to exc
ellent. This 375th issues is a real keeper - filled with State historian Walt Woodward's pithy summary, Bruce Daniels on Puritan prejudice, gun-making 1637 to today, immigration, transportation policy history, 11 Fundamental Docs in Ct history, and why CT lacks a strong identity - plus several exhibition reviews. Check back with FB "Making Sense of Place for CT" for where to buy - or the CT History website. Worth a place on every CTophile's bookshelf." More
Candidate Dan Malloy On His Love for Connecticut History. Here's Hoping!
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News stories about Connecticut history and the people and institutions who preserve, present and protect our historical resources.
100 Best Books on Connecticut History - The List So Far
Thanks to the efforts of so many of you, I have received a steady stream of suggested titles for a "Top 100 Books In Connecticut history. (Please continue to send them to me at walt@uconn.edu). The list below includes all the suggestions received to date, descriptions of the tiles, when furnished by the recommender, and the name of the person or persons who have recommended the title. Previously unlisted titles - or titles being recommended again by new people - appear in this article in blue.
I'll be closing out this search for the best books on CT history on Monday, February 21st. So please dust off those bookshelves and see if there are some titles you'd like to add to the list. The criteria are broad - any kind of book, primary or secondary sources, fiction or non-fiction. If you think it is one of the best book about CT history you've read, let me know. Thanks Much - WWW
Acts of the Commissioners of the United Colonies of New England volumes I and II. – Rebecca Walsh.
When A Tiny Couple Was Big News
One hundred and forty-eight years ago this week, Charles Stratton of Bridgeport married Lavinia Warren of Middleboro, Massachusetts. If not the "Wedding of the Century" it was definitely a miniature version of it.MORE
Thanks to ECHO UNDERWAY for posting this story.
Connecticut Explored Prepares for War
Connecticut Explored, the state's award-winning history magazine, is about to release a special issue dedicated to Connecticut's role in the American Civil War.Among the topics featured in the upcoming issue are:
* Connecticut's surprising contributions to the Union Navy
* African Americans fight for freedom and the Union
* Valor and sacrifice on the home front
* The power of the battle flag
* Hazardville to Coltsville--"As Many As You Can Make"
* Memorializing builds a Connecticut industry
The Connecticut explored website not only describes the special issue, but lists many of the exciting exhibits that will be presented around the state in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of America's defining conflict. More
Harvesting Connecticut's Historic Barns - On the Web
The Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation has taken on one of the most unique preservation projects in the region - inventorying Connecticut's historic but endangered barns before they are lost to memory. IN the process, they're creating a remarkable website to make what they've found accessible to all. Note: click on the map! More
This Week 109 Years Ago, Downtown Waterbury Was in Cinders
It began in the upholstery room of a dry goods company, spread to the Salvation Army Barracks and a Turkish Bath. Then the flames crossed Bank street and took on the rest of downtown. Before the fire was brought under control. 42 buildings had gone up in flames and Waterbury was a disaster area. The date was February 2, 1902. More
Thanks to ECHO Underway For Posting this Story.
First Suggestions for "Top 100 Books on Connecticut History"
On Friday, I invited readers to submit their recommendations for books to be included in a list of the "Top 100 Books on Connecticut History."
The initial response has been excellent, and I'm pleased to post the first group of recommendations at the end of this article. I have listed the recommended books by title, then author, followed by the name of the person or persons who recommended the book. In those wonderful instances where a recommendation has provided an explanation for why they are recommending the book, I have included that too.
Please continue to send your recommendations to me at walt@uconn.edu, or respond to one of the postings on the H-Connecticut listserve, Facebook, or Twitter. Selection criteria are open-ended: fiction or non-fiction, primary or secondary sources, specialized or general - if you think it's an important account of some aspect of Connecticut history, send your recommendations along, I'll continue to post entries as the suggested list grows. – Walt Woodward
John Brown Pike Find Brings PBS Producers to Unionville.
Producers from the PBS show History Detectives will be filming at the Unionville Museum Monday, January 31st, for a segment about a "John Brown Pike" a viewer in Ohio brought to them for examination.
While fund-raising in Connecticut in 1857, Brown contracted with Charles Blair of the Collins Company in Collinsville, to make 1000 pikes to be used during the slave uprising he planned to trigger through his raid on the Federal Armory at Harper's Ferry.
Blair, a master forger, agreed to make the pikes - essentially long spears for use by footsoldiers - for $1 a piece. According to Cliff Alderman, President of the Unionville Museum, after Brown failed to pay Blair the full amount promised for the pikes, Blair stopped work on them. In 1859 he turned over the materials he had assembled to Chauncey Hart of Unionville, who finished the initial 500 pikes that Blair had started and then made 450 more.
Legend holds that Hart was charged with conspiracy and arrested, notes Alderman, but was later released upon testifying that he did not know the intended use of the pikes.
Two Exhibits Recall When Connecticut Women's Status Was Remarkably "Sew Sew".
Historical consultant and preservationist Bill Hosley highlights two current exhibits on Connecticut textiles that are "two of the most astonishing displays of Connecticut art ever assembled." That's quite a compliment coming from Hosley, whose "The Great River: Art and Society of the ConnecticutValley, 1635-1820" exhibition at the Wadsworth Athenaeum in 1985-86, is still remembered as a high water mark in the display of Connecticut history and culture. More
Bringing Bristol's Sylvia Lewis Tyler (1785-1851) Back to Life Took Years of Research, Multiple Trips, & A Dowsing Rod.
For Alden O'Brien, giving life to the thirty-year diary of Sylvia Lewis Tyler of Bristol, CT and later Ohio's Western Reserve, has been a labor of love.
What began as a short investigation evolved into a decade long quest that took her to many states, archives, museums, and homes. The most unusual stop along the way might have been the cemetery in Vienna (pronounced Vye-ennuh) Ohio, at which her companion, the genealogist Sally Mazur, nonchalantly pulled out a dowsing rod and gotdown to work. . . . More (Thanks to Caroline Sloat of the American Antiquarian Society for this story.) MoreCT's College History Programs: More Part-Time Faculty Are Teaching Less Well-Prepared Students. And They Are Not Studying Connecticut History.
A just-released survey of history departments in Connecticut's colleges and universities reveals that Connecticut's institutions of higher education increasingly rely on part-time faculty to teach a generation of students less well-prepared than their predecessors to study history at the college level.
The survey, conducted by CCCPH ( the Connecticut Coordinating Committee for the Promotion of History), a group of leading academic and public historians, librarians, and preservationists, received responses from eight of Connecticut's seventeen colleges and universities, and five of it's twelve community colleges. The findings were released in a report written by Donald Rogers, Ph. D. of Central Connecticut State University and Housatonic Community College.
The study revealed that at the state's community colleges, 83 per cent of history faculty members are part timers, while at the two Connecticut State University campuses offering masters degrees in history, 38 percent of the faculty are part-time. Private institutions divided sharply - three private schools reported 71% of history faculty are part time, while three others reported virtually no adjunct use. One doctoral degree granting institution reported that 25% of its academic staff consisted of graduate student.
Bills Concerning History Before the New Legislature
Your Tax Dollars At Work. As of last Friday a number of bills regarding the recognition, commemoration, or teaching of state history had been proposed for passage by the current session of the General Assembly. Listed below are the numbers, topics, and proposers of the bills, with links to pdf files the bills themselves. Thanks to State Archivist Mark Jones for forwarding this.
Bill 141 Sen. MacLachlan AN ACT CONCERNING THE INCLUSION OF THE HISTORY AND MEANING OF VETERANS' DAY AND MEMORIAL DAY IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL CURRICULUM. More
Bill 394 Sen. Markley AN ACT ESTABLISHING RONALD REAGAN DAY. More
Bill 426 Sen. MacLachlan AN ACT CONCERNING THE INCLUSION OF THE STUDY OF THE
FOUNDING DOCUMENTS OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE HIGH
SCHOOL CURRICULUM.
Bill 557 Sen. Cassano AN ACT DESIGNATING IRISH-AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH AND
ITALIAN-AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH. More
Bill 567 Rep. Adinolfi AN ACT CONCERNING THE POSTING OF THE DECLARATION OFiNDEPENDENCE AND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES IN SCHOOLS. More
Gov. Malloy Puts Connecticut Back on the Map.
In a move that suggests Connecticut's new governor means what he says when he talks about his commitment to history and cultural tourism, Gov. Dannel Malloy has instructed the Commission on on Culture and Tourism to reallocate funds, thus enabling Connecticut to be included in the promotional efforts (and the map) of Discover New England, the regional group that promotes New England tourism at home and abroad. More. Related Story
What Connecticut Taught Martin Luther King, Jr. About Civil Rights
Today marks the 25th Anniversary of the formal recognition of Martin Luther King day as a national holiday. Many people are unaware of the formative influence King's summer experience as a youth working in Connecticut's tobacco fields had on his view of race relations. “Negroes and whites go [to] the same church,” he noted in a letter to his parents. “I never [thought] that a person of my race could eat anywhere.” More & More & More
Today is (sort of) the 372nd Anniversary of the Fundamental Orders
Sure the Fundamental Orders - arguably the world's first written constitution and the reason we're the Constitution State - were adopted on January 14 of 1639. But you've got to consider that pesky Julian calendar. . . . More
Barnum: Before Reality TV, There Was P.T.
Phineas Taylor Barnum's capacious character straddled two different and chronologically distant worlds. On the one hand, he embodied the sleight-of-hand deception of the early nineteenth-century Yankee Peddler; on the other, the promotional genius of the twenty-first century reality TV idol-maker. His "brash showman's personality," says Charles Baxter,"was an egg from which many monsters have hatched." More
Lecture: Archaeology at Two Civil War Prisoner of War Sites in Georgia
A Special Presentation by Archaeologist John H. Jameson to be held at FOSA's Annual Meeting on Saturday, January 29, 2011 at 2 p.m. While the American Civil War may be best known from pivotal events such as the battles of Fort Sumter, Antietam, and Gettysburg, another kind of battle was burned into the historical consciousness of the United States, the horrific prisoner-of-war experience. An estimated 56,000 men perished in Civil War prisons, a casualty rate much higher than on the battlefields.More
100 Years Ago, Connecticut Ice Meant Cold Cash
Until it went up in flames in August of 1929, the Bantam Lake Icehouse ( 2 football fields long and holding 112 million pounds of ice) was just one of the places that made Connecticut a center of the lucrative ice-harvesting industry. More
Governor's Sense of History Is Inspiring
Connecticut's passionate history advocate WIlliam Hosley, who encountered Dannell Malloy's sense of history repeatedly during the gubernatorial campaign, finds the idea of a leader who uses the past to inspire, simply inspiring. More
Professor Lawrence B. Goodheart Becomes Acting State Historian
Professor Lawrence B. Goodheart of the University of Connecticut has assumed the position of acting state historian while state historian Walter Woodward is on sabbatical through early August of 2011.
Since 1990, Lawrence B. Goodheart has taught U.S. history, African American history, and the Civil War at the University's Greater Hartford Campus. A former social studies teacher in the Rochester, N. Y. schools, he has a strong commitment to excellence in public education. More
Why Connecticut History Matters
In a recent interview, state historian Walt Woodward was asked why knowing Connecticut history matters. His answer, surprisingly, had nothing to do with the suggestion that history repeats itself. Learn More