Welcome to your bi-weekly newsletter from Connecticut Explored with the latest stories, the newest Grating the Nutmeg podcast, programs and exhibitions from our partners to see/watch this month, and more! This issue includes archaeology on the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation and a game-changing World War I project!
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Oliver Wolcott Library’s Premiere Holiday Auction Begins 11/26/2022
Our online auction offers fabulous local experiences and exclusive items all available for online bidding. Register now!
Link: https://owlauction2022.ggo.bid/bidding/package-browse
Site Lines: Continuity and Change on the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation
Dr. Kevin McBride, an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at UConn, has worked as an archeologist on the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation. The reservation has remained a vital homeland for the members of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, despite the effects of colonization and settlement over three centuries. When the colonial government first established the reservation in 1666, it included coastal, estuarine, woodland, and wetland habitats, allowing the people to retain a traditional mixed economy of maize horticulture, hunting, gathering, and fishing.
Discoveries at the Monhantic Fort include a wide range of Indigenous and European artifacts and food remains that tell us a great deal about the impact of European settlers on Pequot lifeways in this period. In this article, McBride reviews the changes that took place, from the increase in the settler population to the adoption of Christianity by many of the Pequot people in the mid-eighteenth century.
Artifacts from c. 1760 – 1775 unearthed on the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation. Top: English slipware. Second row (l to r): English scratch blue salt glazed stoneware plate, English hand-painted salt glazed stoneware plate, earthenware bowl. Third row: English Kaolin pipes. Fourth row: (l to r) iron jaw harp, iron door hardware. Courtesy the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center
Connecticut Explored received support for this publication from the State Historic Preservation Office of the Department of Economic and Community Development with funds from the Community Investment Act of the State of Connecticut.
Game Changer
Connecticut in World War I
Connecticut and French students at the World War I Memorial, Seichprey, France, 2019. photo: Erik Johnson
Connecticut in World War I is an ongoing commemoration of the state’s role in World War I at the Connecticut State Library (CSL). The project began at the start of the war’s centennial in 2014 and has featured a Twitter campaign using archival material from The Hartford Courant, public programs and lectures, art exhibitions, and an oral history project with the Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) journalism department.
Three programs in particular demonstrate how Connecticut in WWI put our state at the forefront of the nation’s commemorative efforts. “Remembering World War I: Sharing History/Preserving Memories,” an award-winning community archiving program, held 46 events in towns across the state in which family-held WWI collections and stories were recorded and digitized. CSL also hosted a red-carpet world premiere of the animated feature film Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero in New Haven.
CSL’s award-winning “Digging Into History” brought 15 Connecticut high school students to Seicheprey, France in 2019 for a life-changing experiential education program. Working alongside 16 French students, the group cleared and restored trenches occupied by Connecticut soldiers during the first German offensive against U.S. troops. Listen to the podcast to learn more about this exciting project!
153. Saving Connecticut’s World War 1 History-Here and in France (CTE Game Changers Series)
This podcast is part of our “20 for 20: Innovation in Connecticut History” series, and we’d like your feedback. Take our 5-minute survey and get a free copy of Connecticut Explored magazine. You’ll find the survey link below. Thank you!
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CTWW1
Christine Pittsley, Special Projects Director for the Connecticut State Library and Katy Hitson, a Connecticut student who participated in the trench restoration in France when she was in high school discuss the Digging Into History trench restoration project and the Remembering World War One Digitization program.
This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan of High Wattage Media.
Tuesday November 29, 2022 Giving Tuesday celebrates its 10th anniversary!
Click here to make a donation to The Fund for Excellence in Publishing.
Programs and Exhibitions to Enjoy This Month
Fired Up: Glass Today, major exhibition of contemporary glass, is on view at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art September 16, 2022 to February 5, 2023. The show features work created out of the artists’ desire to connect with their material and engage greater conversations surrounding community. Visitors will discover more than 50 glassmakers who are pushing boundaries, forging new paths, and inspiring people in support of this art. The resulting works are exceptional not only for their sculptural beauty but also for their ability to make bold statements about our shared realities—both past and present. Beyond the exhibition, experience the magic of glass firsthand through a lineup of related programs and events, including live glass-blowing demonstrations at the museum. For more information visit thewadsworth.org.
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, thewadsworth.org
Across the state more than 160 museums, homes, churches, cemeteries, and monuments illuminate the roles that Connecticans played in working toward freedom, equality, and citizenship for Black, African American, and Indigenous people. The Connecticut Freedom Trail laces these sites together, allowing travelers to trace a path from ancient burying grounds to the homes of Black leaders, archaeological sites, churches, whaling vessels, and much more. The Connecticut Freedom Trail, a program in residence at Connecticut’s Old State House, offers training and support to these historic sites and brings private homeowners into the story by revealing the significant contributions made by former residents and providing information about state tax credits to restore and preserve these vital links to the past. For more information about how the CT Freedom Trail brings hidden history to light visit ctfreedomtrail.org.
Connecticut Democracy Center at Connecticut’s Old State House, CTOldStateHouse.org
The Lyman Allyn Art Museum’s new exhibition, Chromatopia: Stories of Color in Art, which opens to the public Saturday, Nov. 19, explores the surprisingly rich history of pigments and dyes and their impact on art and culture. The story of color, and the search for ever more vibrant pigments, is a fascinating one, tying into biology and human evolution, alchemy, philosophy, chemistry, exploration and colonial exploitation, language and cultural meaning-making and artistic expression.
625 Williams Street • New London, CT 06320
860.443.2545 • www.lymanallyn.org
Editor’s Picks
New Discoveries at Battle Site Essex
https://www.ctexplored.org/new-discoveries-at-battle-site-essex/
“Remembering World War I,” Spring 2017
https://www.ctexplored.org/sample-story-remembering-world-war-i/
“Stubby’s Story: Letting Slip the Dogs of War,” Spring 2017
https://www.ctexplored.org/stubbys-story-letting-slip-the-dogs-of-war/
“The Cave-Dweller’s Life,” Winter 2020-2021
https://www.ctexplored.org/world-war-i-the-cave-dwellers-life/
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