The Civil War Collection at the Connecticut Historical Society Museum and Library

Many librarians wonder whether there is any real logic to lumping libraries and museums under the same federal agency, the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The Connecticut Historical Society provides a good example why this seems very logical indeed.

When researching a topic such as the American Civil War, the serious researcher would expect to mine many sources. There might be trips to libraries, archives, and museums. The researcher might find relevant printed materials, manuscripts, photographs, broadsides, prints, or even 3-dimensonal items such as flags, portraits, or weaponry. Anyone doing Civil War research with a Connecticut angle would find all these resources in one place at the Connecticut Historical Society (CHS) in Hartford. And when visiting, the researcher would enjoy one access point to this library/archives/museum material. As is becoming a trend in similar institutions, the CHS now provides one point of access for all collections. Historians, genealogists, students, hobbyists, and tourists all have access to the “Museum and Library” collections through the CHS Research Center. This helps give both the researcher and the staff a more holistic view of historical subjects, thereby helping to make all those connections critical for good research.

The CHS “is one of the oldest historical societies in the nation and houses one of the most distinguished museum and library collections in New England. The museum’s collections include more than 242,000 prints and photographs and 38,000 objects, with strengths in 17th and 18th century furniture; costume and textiles; portraits and landscapes; tavern and trade signs; decorative arts; and toys and tools. The library holds more than 125,000 volumes, 1,300 maps, 3,700 broadsides, and three million manuscripts, including one of the nation’s finest genealogical collections.” CHS has exhibition galleries, offers educational programs, public programs and events, and they are lead participants in Connecticut History Online, a cooperative digital collection of over 15,000 images. Currently CHS provides an Internet-accessible OPAC for a portion of the library and archives collections. Museum collections are accessible via an on-site search tool, but this database will be available on the Internet soon also.

CHS’s Civil War collections demonstrate how CHS can provide research material in multiple forms. The print collections include most of the regimental histories for Connecticut, as well as published service records. Genealogists often receive assistance in finding information on ancestors who may have enlisted in one of the Connecticut regiments. Ephemera collections include a “covers” collection. These covers are actually envelopes with political and pro-war slogans. Other manuscripts available include soldier diaries, letters, muster rolls, recruiting broadsides, and some of the papers of the war Governor, William Buckingham. Among the more interesting letters are those between a Union soldier and his future wife at home (in both directions), and the letters of the African-American soldier Joseph Cross. Many of the manuscript collections on the Civil War are searchable on the CHS website. The graphics collections include engravings and lithographs, as well as photographs of groups, individuals, and battlefield shots. CHS has a fine collection of carte de visites organized by regiment and searchable by name. Among the “museum” collections are uniforms, soldier accoutrements, firearms, swords, and a surgeon’s field desk complete with the monthly reports filed by the surgeon. CHS has a jaw-dropping hand-painted, silk regimental flag which was hanging near Lincoln at Ford’s Theater. CHS also has a more mundane and (presumably) jaw-breaking piece of hardtack (a hard biscuit) saved by a soldier when he received it on his last day of service. CHS has what may be the only known surviving banner from the “Wide-Awakes,” an organization of young Republicans who marched frequently during the early days of the Republican Party.

Though historians of the Civil War will find much to study at CHS, it is genealogical research that provides 50 percent of CHS inquiries. CHS has a large collection of both published and unpublished genealogies. There are collections of local histories, published vital records, church records, cemetery inscriptions, city directories, genealogical periodicals, and major genealogical resources on microfiche and microfilm. CHS provides onsite access to Ancestry Library Edition, Heritage Quest Online, and New England Ancestors.

Genealogists and other CHS visitors will find many other treasures at CHS. For example, CHS holds the largest collection of 18th- and 19th-century tavern, hotel, and inn signs to be found anywhere. These signs were featured in a recent “Antiques Roadshow” program on PBS. The signs make for a spectacular display in the Auditorium. As well as the print and manuscript collection of Civil War material, CHS has important Connecticut collections on African American history, early almanacs, early bookbinding, famous historic Connecticut authors, early Children’s literature, newspapers, Connecticut imprints, account books, and early travel accounts.

CHS is only on its second year providing a single access point to its Museum and Library collections. Librarians will be interested in how CHS divided their staff teams on the lines of Collections Development vs. Collections Access rather than Museum vs. Library. Despite the need for cross-training, libraries like CHS are seeing the benefits of this approach with better service to their users.

The Connecticut Historical Society is located on One Elizabeth Street in Hartford. For more information, go to their website at www.chs.org .

An edited version of this article appeared previously in Connecticut Libraries.

Finding and Remembering Depression-Era Art in Connecticut: The W.P.A. Inventory Project at the Connecticut State Library

Hollywood movies often show a band of heroes searching for priceless treasures believed lost, stolen, or mythical. Right now the State Library is on its own quest for treasure, but this time the treasure may be in many different locations. From the early 1930’s to the outbreak of war, the federal government invested substantial funds in back-to-work programs, including work projects in the arts. In Connecticut the feds employed 160 Connecticut artists to create over 5000 pieces of art. About 1700 of these paintings, murals, and sculptures were allocated to public institutions throughout the state. So who were these artists and where did all their artwork go? Could some of these items still be in libraries?

The Connecticut State Library is trying to answer these and other questions regarding the Works Progress Administration’s (WPA) Federal Art Project in Connecticut. This was the first time that the federal government made a concerted effort to invest directly in American artistic culture. FDR’s administration set up Federal Theater, Music, Dance, and Writers Projects, as well as an Art Project. Their intention was to put creative people to work, and in the case of the Art Project, this meant employing painters, sculptors, photographers (to photograph the art work), and carpenters (to build frames). Some of the artists would enjoy great success and others would disappear, along with much of the Art Project artwork.

Mark Jones, State Archivist, is in charge of the W.P.A. Inventory Project. With special Legislative funding, Mark began working with the records of the Federal Art Project now in the State Archives. These records include artist cards that list much of the artwork created by the artists. Though there is some information available on what public institutions received the artwork, not all the art went to institutions and some of the art produced by the project is not accounted for in the records.

Last summer, Mark Jones used the help of a summer intern and art student, Nolan Pelletier, to put all this information into databases with the intention of creating a searchable Internet resource. This resource will include the information on the artist cards as well as digital versions of the black and white photographs taken of the artwork by the Project photographers. Mark and his staff have also done considerable research on the artists employed during this WPA program. Consulting directories, databases, art museums, newspapers, and other resources, Mark is compiling short biographical information on as many artists as he can identify and this added information will make the eventual Internet resource an invaluable tool for art students and historians in Connecticut.

Beatrice Laving Cuming (1903 –1974), for example, studied painting in Paris during the 1920s and spent much of her life traveling to places where she considered the landscape inspiring. Employed for several years by the Art Project, she would go on to paint in Texas and New Mexico, would write a book about travels in North Africa, and would design her own home in New London, Connecticut.

Vito Covelli (1882-1958) was born in Italy and found much success as a landscape painter in New York City. He and his wife, a renowned opera singer, moved to a secluded rural property in Barkhamsted where Vito painted and his wife composed music and wrote poetry. The Covellis called their place a “National Rural Art Museum,” where visitors stopped to see the “hundreds” of paintings in their house.

John Steuart Curry (1897-1946) and James Henry Daugherty (1887-1974) were critically acclaimed and internationally known artists. Curry lived for some time in Westport, painting murals there before leaving the Project in 1936. His last great murals, painted in 1943 at the Kansas state house, would create such controversy for their depiction of the Civil War era “bloody Kansas” that he was not allowed to finish them. Curry died shortly thereafter. Daugherty would enjoy a longer life and spent much more time in Connecticut, living in Westport and Weston. Daugherty is well known for his Depression-era murals, one of which was saved from destruction during a renovation project at the Stamford High School when a passing bicyclist found the mural canvases in the trash.

Unfortunately, other WPA artwork that found itself in the trash probably did not benefit from a similar rescue. The State Library’s Inventory Project seeks to find as much of the Art Project’s artwork as possible. The State Library itself has about 50 items in its collections, including at least one painting recovered recently from a Hartford area school and about 30 that had found their way to State Surplus. But Mark is quick to point out that the State Library is not interested recovering the art for State ownership. The Inventory Project hopes to find and photograph as much of the artwork as possible so that these digital photographs will be available in the State Library’s Internet inventory. Phase two of the Inventory Project will involve trying to locate and photograph the artwork in Connecticut, especially those art pieces that found their way to public institutions.

What public institutions? Generally the Art Project allocated artwork to court houses, state hospitals, sanatoriums, post offices, schools, and libraries. Even if the artwork was not specifically allocated to the library, many of the public institutions which did receive artwork no longer exist or have been moved to new facilities. Some of this artwork may have found its way to the local library. How would you know if the artwork you own is from the Art Project? There may be a label somewhere on the frame (if it hasn’t been replaced) or on the back of the artwork. If so, a call to Mark Jones will help provide verification. Generally the Art Project managers of the 1930’s were looking for art that was pleasing to the eye. Don’t expect to find much of the era’s surrealist art, though some of this art did get commissioned as part of the Project. Artists were more likely to create social realist art, and often painted landscapes, still lifes, and depictions of transportation, sports, or school subjects. At least one artist made the Merritt Parkway the main subject for his paintings.

What makes the WPA Federal Art Project so important in Connecticut? Nothing like it had been done before or since, which makes the Inventory Project so important in understanding Connecticut’s Depression-Era art history. There is more information available on the State Library’s WPA Inventory Project at http://www.cslib.org/archives/wpaartannounce.htm. Or you may contact Mark Jones, State Archivist, at 860-757-6511.

An edited version of this article appeared previously in Connecticut Libraries.

Mystic Seaport Collections Research Center

With America’s long history of maritime commerce and adventure, it is not surprising that a research center dedicated to man’s relationship with the sea and inland waterways would be of interest to researchers around the world. And not surprising either to find this research center at Mystic Seaport, the nations’ premier maritime museum. What is surprising, however, is to find a research center where everything maritime, from manuscripts to fine art, exists together in one location. The Mystic Seaport Collections Research Center is not just a library, or an archive, or a museum, it is all of these things.

Housed in new quarters in a renovated velvet mill, the Center boasts a variety of maritime collections, many available for research and study in the Center’s reading room. Visitors include students, researchers, genealogists, hobbyists, historians, boat owners, ship builders, and many others. Those who cannot visit the Center will find extensive online resources. There are online catalogs of book, manuscript and art collections. Online databases include crew lists, seaman’s protection certificates (like a passport for sailors), and yacht registers. Besides online catalogs and databases, the Center has digitized many of their more popular collections. Center staff have digitized about a half million items and continue digitizing daily. No wonder, then, that the Center attracts so much interest from researchers world-wide.

The Manuscript Collection includes “ships’ logs and journals, ledgers, diaries and documents from the whaling, fishing and shipping industries, and various business and personal papers of yacht clubs and naval architects.” These manuscripts, many dating back to the 18th century, give researchers some of the most valuable and straightforward ways of accessing the experiences of men and women at sea. Ships’ logs give a glimpse of the day-by-day life of sailors . Of interest to genealogists, historians, and model builders, ship registers provide information on the owners, captains, and sea-worthiness of thousands of ships on the seas in 19th century America. Of particular interest recently are the insights the manuscripts give into the ethnicity of sailors, the experience of women at sea, and the early labor activity of sailors. The race, gender, and ethnicity of sailors are listed in many of the ships logs and journals. Students and scholars make good use of this primary research material.

The Book and Periodical Collection specializes in American maritime history. The G.W. Blunt White Library has around 75,000 volumes, including 3,000 rare books and 700 periodical titles. Subjects include “ships (passenger ships, merchant marine, ocean liners, Coast Guard, naval and pleasure), immigration, yachting, voyages, women at sea, crew lists, whaling, exploration, and discovery.” Of particular note is a full run of the periodical The Rudder, a famous yachting and boating magazine which started in the late 19th century.

The Ships Plans Collection includes over 125,000 sheets of plans for ships traveling by wind, steam and gas. There are plans of existing boats and historic boats, merchant vessels and private yachts, rowing boats and naval vessels. Of particular note are the plans, correspondence, and design drawings of L. Francis Herreshoff, a famous ship designer and author. Herreshoff’s ship plans and drawings are of particular interest to boat and ship builders and hobbyists. For the study of ship-building architecture, the ship-building industry, and the sheer artistry of ship-building, the Ships Plans Collection is invaluable.

The Center has many non-print collections of use to maritime students and scholars. The Photography Collection covers “more than150 years of commercial and recreational activity and include onboard, shipyard, and waterfront scenes; portraits of shipmasters and other mariners and Inuit life and culture.” The Film and Video Collection “covers a broad range of subjects, including storm scenes, boating, ocean passages, yachting, various ports and cities, boat building and restoration, lighthouses, whaling, rowing, Gold Cup races, sail making, ice boating and fishing.” The Sound Archives includes oral histories and recorded lectures and events on maritime activity.

As noted earlier, the Center is not just a library or archives, it also includes an Art and Objects Collection. This collection “includes American marine art, ephemera, nautical instruments, ship models, scrimshaw, industrial fishing gear, furniture, whaling implements and myriad tools from the various maritime trades.”
All these collections, from nautical folk art to the log books of the Charles W. Morgan are found under one roof and made available for study by the staff of the Collections Research Center. The staff provide a number of research and copy services.

Before any visit, researchers should look at the extensive resources already available online at http://library.mysticseaport.org . Digital materials can also be found on Connecticut History Online http://www.cthistoryonline.org . The Mystic Seaport Collections Research Center is located at 75 Greenmanville Avenue in Mystic, a stone’s throw from the Seaport Museum.

An edited version of this article appeared previously in Connecticut Libraries.