Inside the CHS

There are three hard drives clustered around my desk. These days I look less like an archivist and more like a computer geek.

“All are well. Wish you all a Merry Xmas, Mother,” reads the scribbled message on the postcard, which is postmarked “December 24, 1906.” An additional stamped message reads “GREETINGS FROM HARWINTON.”

As we approach 2015, what things from 2014 should we keep and what things should we throw out? I thought of this as I finished reading “Twas the Night Before Christmas” to my son. It dawned on me how many things we pass on to the next generation in terms of traditions, stories and folklore…
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I have about a thousand Post-It notes piled together in a drawer in my desk.

As a history museum curator I am ever on the lookout for objects that tell a story (or maybe multiple stories if I am lucky).

The Williams sisters used every available spot on the paper to write their letters even when the paper was oversize.

Houses, apartments, businesses, schools, places of worship. Like all cities, Hartford’s built environment—its physical structures and shape—has changed over time for many different reasons.

I am coming to the end of the Richard Welling material I have left to catalog. This seems impossible considering how large the collection is, but I suppose everything ends sometime.

What can you do with three hundred toilet paper rolls?

In the nineteenth century, my father’s grandparents emigrated from Germany to work in the Cheney Brothers Silk Manufactory in Manchester. In many ways, Manchester was a classic mill town.

Give the gift of a special history experience! Unique Behind-the-Scenes Tours take visitors to hidden areas of the museum to see treasures not featured in public exhibits.

Your help is needed. The Connecticut Historical Society is on a “treasure hunt.” If an object could define Connecticut, what would it be?

The term consumption, particularly in the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, means something very different today than what it meant in the 19th century.

Urban renewal changed the face of Hartford by removing homes, movie theaters, restaurants, and shops in the downtown area and replacing them with large-scale office buildings and parking lots.

While we associate the Thanksgiving holiday with turkey and cranberry sauce, the actual art of giving thanks has had a range of meanings throughout history.

Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks…for all of you!

Fitz Green Hollister was a young farmer from Washington, Connecticut, when he joined the 18th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers, in 1861. His letters home and his dairies evidence a keen intellect and an eye for detail.

Like many people, I always used to drive home for Thanksgiving. Home was always Connecticut, even when I lived in Massachusetts or New Jersey or New York.

When was the last time you saw a bootblack—or shoe shiner—anywhere?

Kids in the 1940s were not all that different from kids today. They don’t always get along with their parents, don’t always want to go to school, want to go to the movies (or play on their X-boxes today) instead of doing homework. Most of all, though, girls get crushes on boys!

Hundreds of families and dozens of businesses were moved out to make way for urban renewal projects in Hartford.

What would Hartford have looked like if three proposed building developments had been realized in the 1980s? See Richard Welling’s depictions of these modern edifices that were sure to bring added vibrancy to our capital city’s downtown core.

Don’t worry, the educators haven’t left – they’re just on the road teaching!

How do we mark where things come from in our storage areas….read on to find out!

CHS has an extensive array of account books ranging in date from the early 18th century to the later 19th century and covering every part of the state.

It’s comforting to think that certain basic things don’t change and to a certain extent it’s even true.

The CHS is proud to once again host Open Studio Hartford on November 15 &16, 11:00 am–5:00 pm, when we will welcome 17 local artists to display their work and offer it for sale.

Book your dinner reservations. We’ve just installed a new exhibit at Firebox Restaurant.

Connecticut has had a long and close association with this type of aircraft, harkening back to Igor Sikorsky’s pioneering work in the 1930s.

Monday, October 27, was World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, sponsored by UNESCO. We did nothing to publicly mark the occasion, but we are taking an inventory of our audiovisual collections in preparation for writing a grant proposal to get them digitized.

The plaza was considered a model for urban renewal in the 1960s, replacing the Front Street neighborhood, which consisted of 18th- and 19th-century buildings, housing mostly Italian immigrants.

The Legend of the Charter Oak can be a bit of an enigma for those who haven’t personally experienced this fantastic program.

This years fall line looked a little familiar….and the reason why was awaiting me right in my office.

CHS is a member of the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium, a group of research institutions in New England that pool their resources to offer grants to scholars so they can spend several weeks at repositories in the region.

Richard Welling loved to draw and he loved to share his enthusiasm for art with others.

As I was pondering this week’s blog I started to think about some of the tasks we undertake to ensure that the examples of material culture in our collection remain available for future researchers.

When new manuscript materials, whether a single item or a whole collection, come to CHS, I need to spend time getting to know the individuals whose names appear in the documents in order to put things into context.

I-84 cut through downtown Hartford, demolishing historic neighborhoods. I-91 traveled along the riverfront, blocking downtown from the Connecticut River.

This familiar tagline may not only describe the travelling circus; it could aptly describe the man behind the entertainment.

Customs surrounding the mourning of deceased loved ones were prominent in the 19th century and the objects created around these practices tell quite a story.