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By bmiller, July 21, 2010 4:27 pm

Please join us!

      Also speaking on Monday, August 23 –

      David Fay of the Bushnell will discuss iQuilt as the visionary leadership of tomorrow.

 Coming in September…

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By bmiller, May 3, 2010 4:40 pm

You’re invited….

Opening Reception Friday, June 4, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m

Municipal Building in Hartford by Richard Welling

“Hartford Treasures: Art and Artifacts on the ArtWalk,” an exhibit showcasing some of the wonderful holdings in the Library’s historical Hartford Collection, will be on display from June 4 through September 30, 2010 with an opening reception Friday, June 4 from 6:00-8:00 p.m.

The exhibit will also pay tribute to Hartford artist and Hartford Public Library corporator Richard Welling (1926-2009). Welling chronicled Hartford’s changing landscape with pen and ink drawings for more than 40 years, capturing the essence of our community, landmark structures and city that continues to be a remarkable blend of past and present.

The tribute to Welling will hang in the Hartford History Center. “Hartford Treasures” will hang in the Library’s ArtWalk gallery, which opened in 2009. “Hartford Treasures:  Art and Artifacts on the ArtWalk” is free and open to the public and can be viewed at the Downtown Library Monday – Thursday, 10:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.  and Friday and Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.  June 4 – September 30. The Welling tribute can be viewed in the Hartford History Center during its public hours, Tuesday through Saturday, 1:00 -5:00 p.m.

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By bmiller, April 5, 2010 7:14 pm

Hartford Poet Lydia Huntley Sigourney

Saturday, April 24, 2-3 p.m.  

Join historian Gary E. Wait as he explores the life and work of celebrated poet Lydia Huntley Sigourney, the “Sweet Singer of Hartford.” Sigourney published her first book, Moral Pieces in Prose and Poetry in 1815. During the next 50 years, she published more than a book a year. Many of her nearly 60 volumes were printed in Hartford. Come and learn more about this prolific Hartford poet and the library’s Sigourney Collection of books and manuscript material that illuminates her life.

Hartford in the Gilded Age – Sunday, April 25, 2-4 p.m.  

Trinity professor and historian Dr. Eugene Leach will take us back  to Victorian Hartford, to a time when Mark Twain walked the streets of this city. This Sunday afternoon program will include music provided by the Boys of Wexford, a dynamic three-man ensemble – Don Sineti (the Chantey Man of Mystic Seaport), Bill Wallach and Mike McGarry. Songs will speak to life along the Connecticut River. Join us for a fun and informative afternoon of music and history on Main Street!

Free and open to the public. For more information call 860-695-6297.

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By bmiller, March 24, 2010 4:02 pm

Hartford Spotlight on Gwen Reed (1912-1974)

Gwen Reed came to Hartford as the daughter of a migrant farm worker and grew up to become a beloved actress, storyteller and teacher. In June 1937, Reed debuted on stage in a small role as “1st lady” in “Trilogy in Black,” a production of the Connecticut Federal Theatre Project’s Negro Unit. She went on to act in “The Emperor Jones,” “The World We Live In,” “Mississippi Rainbow,” and “One Third of a Nation,” becoming a Federal Theatre favorite. Reed, who worked in the Windsor tobacco fields for 40 years, performed in or directed over 25 theatrical productions in the Greater Hartford area. She often appeared on the “Ranger Station,” a children’s program on Channel 3, and originated the Playtime for Tots program for pre-school children in Bellevue Square, Hartford. She toured the country from 1946-1964 portraying “Aunt Jemima” for the Quaker Oats Company. You can explore her story through the Gwen Reed Collection, archived in the library’s Hartford History Center.

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By bmiller, March 19, 2010 4:14 pm

Hartford Spotlight on Ann Uccello 

Ann Uccello, Hartford mayor 1967-1971. Hartford Times Collection, Hartford History Center, Hartford Public Library. Copyright restrictions apply.

Ann Uccello was the first woman to be mayor of Hartford and the first woman to be elected mayor of a capital city in the U.S. She was a Republican mayor, serving two terms, the first in 1967 and again in 1969. A graduate of Weaver High School in Hartford and St. Joseph College in West Hartford, Uccello was elected to the city council in 1963, where she served as chairman of the council’s Finance and Personnel Committee. During her second term on the council, after the 1965 election, she served as chairman of the Health and Welfare Committee. For her, winning a seat on the council was often portrayed as an “uphill fight.” She ran for office in a city that had about three and a half times as many registered Democrats as Republicans.

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By bmiller, March 12, 2010 5:15 pm

Women’s History Month

SPOTLIGHT – Singer Marian Anderson American Contralto

In 1939, Marian Anderson was barred from singing in Washington, D.C.’s Constitutional Hall, the city’s foremost center owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), because she was a “singer of color.”  The public was outraged, famous musicians protested, and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from DAR shortly thereafter. Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes formally invited Marian Anderson to appear in the open, singing from the Lincoln Memorial before as many people as would care to come, without charge. The event, held on April 9, 1939, drew a crowd of 75,000 (the largest to date ever assembled at the Memorial) and was broadcast to a listening audience of millions.

Pictured here, in the Hartford History Center’s Hartford Times Collection now available through Connecticut Treasures, are Marian Anderson at the governor’s residence in Hartford with (on left) Governor Chester Bowles and blues composer and musician W.C. Handy. Governor Bowles holds a silver punch bowl from the U.S.S. Hartford, a Union Navy ship in the Civil War. (c. 1950. Copyright restrictions apply to the use of this image. For more information contact the Hartford History Center, Hartford Public Library.)

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By bmiller, March 2, 2010 3:11 pm

Women’s History Month

Caroline Maria Hewins (1846-1926)

Women, even when recognized in their own times, are often not included in the history books. National Women’s History Month provides an excellent venue to recognize and celebrate women’s historic achievements as well as an opportunity to honor women within our families and communities.

With this in mind, Hartford History Center will, throughout the month of March, highlight some wonderful women represented in Hartford Public Library’s special collections and archive who have made a difference in our community.

We lead with Caroline Maria Hewins, Hartford’s “First Lady of the Library.” 

Hewins came to Hartford in 1875 to begin a new job as librarian of the Hartford Young Men’s Institute, the predecessor to Hartford Public Library. She held this position for 50 years, leading the institute through its transition from a private subscription association to a thriving public library, and earned, along the way, a national reputation as an imaginative, spirited and dedicated leader, especially well regarded for her library work with children.

Following her death, the Library Journal wrote on November 15, 1926: “Caroline M. Hewins was one of the beloved in the library profession. She made of herself a center from which radiated an immeasurable influence, especially in the great revolution in the library world which, instead of banning the children, made them the first thought of the librarian who could look at the future as well as the present. … Throughout her eighty years she retained her spiritual youth, and even her physical vigor was well sustained. Absolutely unselfish and thoughtless for herself, she was so self-reliant and strong-willed that even in these later years her work was her life. The lamp of life had begun to flicker, but many lamps have been kindled from her light, and the work for children which has spread over the world, will owe to no one more honor than to Caroline M. Hewins.”

Her legacy lives on at Hartford Public Library.

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By bmiller, February 17, 2010 6:12 pm

"Up From Slavery" by Thirman Milner

Author Event and Book Signing with Thirman Milner
Sunday, March 14, 2:00-3:00 p.m.

Join us for a Sunday afternoon author talk with Thirman Milner, civil rights and community activist, state senator and New England’s first elected African American mayor. The Hartford author will discuss his autobiography Up From Slavery and read select passages. Up From Slavery outlines the odds Milner had to overcome to become New England’s first popularly elected African American mayor in November 1981. The book, published by Wine Press, traces his ancestry from slavery to the steps of Hartford City Hall. Up From Slavery will be available for purchase on the day of the author event. A book signing will follow the afternoon author talk.

 CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Hartford History Center presents an afternoon with Anne Farrow, veteran journalist and co-author of the seminal work Complicity, How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery (Random House/Ballantine Books, 2005). Anne  was nominated several times for the Pulitzer Prize, and is now an editor for the Encyclopedia of  Connecticut History Online, a project of the Connecticut Humanities Council, the Office of the State Historian and a consortium of Connecticut libraries and museums.  She was a lead writer for two newspaper investigations into New England slavery, both published in The Hartford Courant. Currently at work on a book about slavery and New England memory, Anne has a master’s degree in English literature. An excerpt from her recent work can be seen in the fall issue of the online history journal Common-Place at www.common-place.org  This program is free and open to the public.

Now Available in the Hartford History Center  – Enjoy a set of 18 distinctive note cards showcasing images archived in the library’s historical Hartford Collection- yours with a $20.00 donation to the Hartford Public Library. Contact the center now to place your order for the holidays!

Treasure Books: Selections from the Caroline M. Hewins Collection of Children’s Literature

Now through May 2010

Tuesday through Saturday, 1:00 – 5:00 p.m.

“Treasure Books: Selections from the Caroline M. Hewins Collection of Children’s Literature,” is an exhibition developed by guest curator Leonard Marcus to showcase children’s picture books from the library’s Caroline M. Hewins Collection. Hewins is considered Hartford’s “First Lady of the Library,” coming to Hartford in 1875 as librarian of the Hartford Young Men’s Institute, the predecessor to Hartford Public Library. She held this position for 50 years, leading the 19th century private subscription association as it grew into a thriving 20th century public library. Along the way, she earned a national reputation as an imaginative, spirited and dedicated leader, especially well regarded for her library work with children. The books exhibited in “Treasure Books” were published in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Marcus is considered the leading historian on American children’s literature and has written many highly acclaimed books about children’s literature and the authors and artists who create them including “Golden Legacy: How Golden Books Won Children’s Hearts”; “Minders of Make-Believe”; “Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon”; “Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom”; and, “The Wand in the Word”.  He has curated exhibitions on children’s books and their illustration at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art; New York Public Library; Vassar College Library; the Boston Athenaeum; and, Enoch Pratt Free Library.

NEIGHBORHOOD DAYS – SOUTHSIDE NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS

Month of October and November

Tuesday-Saturday, 1:00-5:00 p.m.

Select images from the Southside Neighborhood News collection of Hartford’s storied ’70s, ’80s and ‘90s on display. Help us recognize family and friends in this exciting new collection that provides a window into Hartford’s contemporary history.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: FDR, NATIONAL POLICY – LOCAL IMPACT

Saturday, October 24, 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Join us for a conversation with Cynthia M. Koch, director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York and Connecticut State Archivist Mark Jones, project coordinator for the Connecticut Federal Art Project Artists. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal cultural programs marked the U.S. government’s first big, direct investment in cultural development. The largest and most important of the New Deal cultural programs, and the favorite of Eleanor Roosevelt, was the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a massive employment relief program launched in the spring of 1935. Cynthia Koch and Mark Jones will discuss FDR’s national policy and how it played out on the local scene in the context of art and artists in the Hartford area. The conversation will be moderated by Dr. Eugene Leach, creator of the American Studies program at Trinity College.

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By admin, October 26, 2009 11:22 am

Now Online

 

Select images from the Hartford History Center’s Hartford Times collection are now online at Treasures of Connecticut Libraries.

For information on this week’s image, please click here.