Western Connecticut State University Archives and Special Collections
Documenting the history of WestConn and its surrounding area | Intra veritatem invenire | Established 1977
Harper's Weekly, "The Danbury Disaster" 1869, Danbury Miscellanea, MS 038
Connecticut troops in the 10th Connecticut Infantry and 1st Connecticut Cavalry were among the troops that were present for Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s defeat and surrender at Appomattox, VA on April 9, 1865. Among them was Charles H. Jennings of Co. H, 1st CT Cavalry from Danbury, CT. (Find-a-grave listing)
The Military and Civil History of Connecticut during the War of 1861-65
Read about Library Systems Specialist Stacy Haponik’s research on this fascinating Danbury figure.
https://archives.library.wcsu.edu/omeka-s/s/familydrama/page/overview
Ukraine is a country. Here is a presentation by a Ukrainian-American on the history of the country for the Greater Danbury Intercultural Association in the late 1970s-early 1980s.
Belle da Costa Greene, the first director of the Morgan Library, was a trailblazing female Black special collections librarian whose power in the field, then male-dominated, was extraordinary, and in a world where the only way for that to be possible was by pretending to not be Black.
When the 13 English colonies in America fought and won their independence and formed the United States, Connecticut had at least 820 Black soldiers in its ranks – roughly 20% of the Black population of Connecticut (~4300).
Enslavement of Black persons was legal in Connecticut, yet the same percentage of Black persons filled the State’s ranks in the Revolution as White persons.
The National Battlefield trust wrote in 2021:
“The main military force, which coalesced under General George Washington as the Continental Army, was not an integrated army until 1776. In November of 1775, Washington barred the enlistment of free Blacks and slaves. Within two months, however, Washington reversed this decision, and despite many attempts to block Blacks from serving their country, hundreds of Blacks enlisted nonetheless. Many Blacks who fought and were enslaved fought for their freedom and independence as a person of color. After the war, many Blacks gave their pensions and enlistment bounties to their former masters as a payment for their freedom. Cuffee Wells is just one example. Wells was a surgeon in the Continental Army and after his service in the Revolution, he paid his enlistment bounty to his former master and lived the rest of his life as a free man in Lebanon, Connecticut.”
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/george-washingtons-integrated-army
Many of the Federal resources that were commonly available are no longer viewable online, and permanent URLs in library records may not resolve.
The Internet Archive has copies of many Government documents, sites, and data sets, but they do not have all the public data that had been previously freely available. Visit: https://web.archive.org/ (Internet Archive) if you are looking for a particular resource. The whitehouse.gov site as it appeared during the previous administration has been archived. You can find it here: https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/
In 1977, 
Doris Ann Rourke (nee Hagelin) published the first inventory of archival materials at WestConn – the first step in formalizing the archival operation in the library.
Doris was born in Touhy, Nebraska in 1917 and was a graduate of the University of Nebraska. During World War II, in 1943, she married Private Edward Rourke of Beacon Falls, CT. She worked as a teacher much of her career before coming to WestConn in 1970 as a librarian.
She received her Master’s degree in library science from Southern while at WestConn where she worked until 1982. Doris passed away in California in the same year that WestConn celebrated its centennial, 2003.
Prior to Doris Rourke, Marie A. Green, whose title was “Head of Technical Processing,” listed “Archivist” as a responsibility, but the facility at that time was less of a functioning archive and more of an area in the library. They called it the Connecticut Room in the “new” Haas Library in 1970 and was located on the third floor. There is still a Connecticut Room in the basement of the Haas Library.
WestConn was founded in 1903 and its first graduating class was in 1906. From its founding, WestConn had a library and its first librarian was a graduate of Smith College in Amherst, MA, who held the position for more than eight years.
The original library in Old Main now is home to the Department of Admissions, but for sixty years it was the college’s only library.
Ella Mead Brush from the class of 1906 picture next to Katherine Butler: (https://archives.library.wcsu.edu/omeka/items/show/2091)
Ella from her Smith College yearbook…
https://archive.org/details/class1904smit/page/n23/mode/2up?q=brush
Find other residue of the old Web at https://web.archive.org/
In 1863, as the Civil War was about to enter its final full year, the Hartford Courant wrote on Thanksgiving day which in 1863 occurred today. It might give some insight on how the holiday was perceived at that time. See the WCSU Library’s databases to see more from the Hartford Courant. https://libguides.wcsu.edu/az/databases?a=h