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!
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Spring 2022 / Preserving Historic Craftsmanship
Spring is here and we’re celebrating craftsmanship in historic preservation with support from the State Historic Preservation Office with funds from the Community Investment Act of the State of Connecticut.
Bridgeport’s Monumental Bronze Company
Carolyn Ivanoff is a super-fan of “zinkies”—monuments cast of a special metal by the one-and-only Monumental Bronze Company of Bridgeport. She loves them so much that, she writes in her story in the Spring 2022 issue, “I would dearly love [one], a unique artifact from the city of my birth that I could have cast and assembled to my taste to mark the last place on earth for me.”
Unfortunately, the Monumental Bronze Company went out of business in 1939, but you can find examples across Connecticut, Ivanoff assures us. The company got its start during the post-Civil War “great age of American monumentation. … During this period the national demand for personal and public monuments seemed endless,” Ivanoff writes.
Monumental Bronze Company, founded in 1874, capitalized on this phenomenon with a unique product that was affordable, highly customizable, and able to be ordered from and shipped to anywhere in the U.S. The company cast its products from “White Bronze,” a marketing spin on zinc alloyed with tin that was then sand-blasted and lacquered to be, the company promised, “as enduring as the pyramids.”
Ivanoff reports that the most prominent example in the state is the 35-foot-tall Stratford Civil War monument in the city’s Academy Hill Park. Was Monumental Bronze Company’s “White Bronze” actually as enduring as the pyramids though? Find out more about this fascinating company in the Spring 2022 issue.
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The Olmsteds Design a Park for Bridgeport
“At the northern end of Bridgeport,” Phil Barlow writes in his story in the Spring issue, “is a beautiful park that today reads as a well-preserved piece of unspoiled nature. But it took tens of thousands of labor hours, wheelbarrows of money, and remarkable creative effort to design and build Beardsley Park.”
The mover of that labor, money, and, ultimately, wheelbarrows full of dirt was landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted, whose birth 200 years ago this April is being celebrated across the nation this year. Olmsted, by then, was in partnership with his nephew John C. Olmsted. The design they submitted to the city in 1884 was for, Frederick Olmsted wrote, “a simple, rural park.” Barlow writes, “It transformed the hilly, forested land to a park by carefully sequencing a visitor’s experience (which at the time was generally carriage driving, strolling, and picnicking).” Views were enhanced; nothing was left to chance.
Read the entire story with your print subscription. (Not currently a subscriber? Visit CTExplored.org/Shop.) Now through May 31, get 6 issues for the price of 4 (one year) or 10 issue for the price of 8 (two years): Use COUPON CODE InboxS22 at check out.
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The Latest from Grating the Nutmeg
139. Architect Donn Barber Designs Hartford’s Early Skycrapers
Assistant Publisher Mary Donohue, an architectural historian and author of the Spring 2022 issue’s “Hartford Gets its First Skyscrapers,” and podcast engineer Patrick O’Sullivan explore the Hartford work of early 20th century architect Donn Barber, especially his magnificent Connecticut State Library building and two of the city’s early skyscrapers. Donohue’s guest, Connecticut State Librarian Emeritus Ken Wiggin, explains how Barber got the plum commission to design the Connecticut State Library. Barber, a New York City architect, designed Hartford’s first skyscraper, the Hartford National Bank in 1911, and the Travelers Tower in 1919, that reigned as the tallest in New England for decades.
Programs and Exhibitions to Enjoy This Month
Spring Conference April 23
The Association for the Study of Connecticut is sponsoring a series of webinars and a spring conference on April 23 about “Teaching History in Difficult Times.” Since 1970 ASCH has promoted the study of the history of Connecticut via meetings and conferences. In 1974 it began publishing a twice-yearly journal, now called Connecticut History Review. Visit Asch-cthistory.org for more information.
Award Ceremony May 4
Join Preservation Connecticut for its 2022 Connecticut Preservation Awards on Wednesday, May 4! Preservation CT will celebrate an array of outstanding projects and the preservationists who have endured the hardships of a multi-year pandemic and still succeeded in finding creative and innovative ways to reuse and revitalize Connecticut’s precious historic resources. This year’s celebration is especially important as it is hoped it will be in person for the first time in two years. Preservation CT hopes to see you there!
Register at preservationct.org/events
Tribe, Parish, Town On View
In Siwanog Tribe, English Parish, American Town, the early history of Wilton is traced through a selection of rarely seen objects from the Wilton Historical Society’s permanent collection. Included in the exhibition are Ponus tribe beaded moccasins and a pre-1800s indigenous bead necklace, a sumptuous crimson silk waistcoat c. 1760, a pair of dainty lady’s wedding shoes, c. 1742, and two marvelously preserved Yale University diplomas, one from 1761 and one from 1764, both awarded to David Lambert II.
Wilton Historical Society, wiltonhistorical.org
April 30 Reopening
Litchfield Historical Society museums re-opens for the season on April 30! Updated for the new year, the exhibition Antiquarian to Accredited invites visitors to learn more about the society and gain an insider’s perspective on how a museum collects, interprets, and shares community history. Also reopening is the ever-popular Tapping Reeve House and Litchfield Law School, the nation’s first law school. Graduates of these schools range from famous to infamous, including vice presidents Aaron Burr and John C. Calhoun and more than 100 federal lawmakers and judges. Admission is FREE!
Litchfield Historical Society; Tapping Reeve House and Litchfield Law School, litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org
Major Roof Project
In 2022 Slater Memorial Museum of Norwich Free Academy, dedicated in 1886, is embarking on a restoration of its original 135-year-old roof. This is the first project of its kind to be performed on the museum building and will encompass restoration of the entire roofing system. Because of the nature of the project, the museum is closed to the public and aims to reopen toward the end of 2022. Meanwhile the staff will be hard at work connecting with students and the public through digital means. Visit slatermuseum.org to learn more and stay updated throughout the restoration!
Slater Memorial Museum, slatermuseum.org
Editors’ Picks
Stories we love from back issues to read now.
“Frederick Law Olmsted in Connecticut,” Spring 2018
“Civil War: Memorials to a Nation Preserved,” Spring 2011
“Connecticut State Library: George Godard Gets His Building,” Fall 2010
“P.T. Barnum Builds a City,” Winter 2021-2022
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