About The Caroline M. Hewins Medal

The extraordinary civic example and life of Caroline M. Hewins, the revolutionary librarian who helped create Hartford Public Library and who significantly enlarged the very idea of the public library in Ameirca, deserves a wider audience. Ms. Hewins believed that everyone should have a library card and access to books. The book itself now has many more forms, but what it represents — learning and opportunity — has never been more important.

The Caroline M. Hewins Medal recognizes an individual who embraces the City of Hartford and its people, who breaks the mold and provides service of a revolutionary kind, who stretches the boundaries of a social or cultural institution with a humanistic approach to public service, and who shows strong guardianship of and advocacy for the basic right of equal access to information and opportunity.

Caroline M. Hewins Medal Recipients

2016: Louise Blalock, former chief librarian, Hartford Public Library

2017: Sharon R. O'Meara, director of community investments, Hartford Foundation for Public Giving (awarded posthumously)

2018: Sandra Bender Fromson & Howard Fromson

2019: Tai Soo Kim, architect, TSKP Studios