Author: admin

Apologies…

We switched to a new server recently and we didn’t notice that our request buttons on our finding aids and our ASpace interface were sending requests into the void for the past couple weeks.

It’s fixed now, if you requested something recently and haven’t heard from us, this is probably why.

Thanks to the intrepid Stacy Haponik for tracking down the issue!

New Archives Exhibits! Many of the doctors in 1890s Danbury were women… and Menus and Cookbooks.

By 1894, just 45 years after Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, Danbury was home to not one, but at least seven women physicians/dentists.   Find out about some of these trailblazing women in our online exhibit.

And…

In the Haas Library atrium, see our menu and cookbook exhibit or visit it virtually at: https://archives.library.wcsu.edu/omeka/exhibits/show/menus-exhibit

The life, times, and sounds of the Civil War in the camp of the 23rd Connecticut

The 23rd Connecticut Infantry Regiment was organized at Hartford, Connecticut, on November 14, 1862 and had in its ranks many men from Fairfield County.  One of those men was Joseph Bishop of Danbury.  The regiment was attached the defenses of New Orleans and District of La Fourche, Department of the Gulf under General Nathaniel Banks. The regiment lost a total of 59 men during during the war, 46 of those died of disease, including Bishop.

Thanks to a gift from WCSU Alum Carol Lieto, Bishops letters are now housed at the WCSU Archives.  Among his letters is also his music notebook.  Thanks to Ann Victor (a former member of our staff), one can now hear what the 23rd’s band was playing while in camp in far away Louisiana.

https://archives.library.wcsu.edu/omeka/items/show/6766

Ring a Hunter’s Peal! Identifying and saving a 110+ year-old painting by a Connecticut artist.

The title comes from Shakespear’s somewhat overlooked, Titus Andronicus which we thought was fitting for an even more overlooked piece of art.

Read the story of how an old loose canvas painting was identified, the story of the artist, and how the work was ultimately rescued.  This painting was also leveraged as a teaching opportunity for one of the WCSU Archives’ student assistants, Ava Westervelt, when the pandemic made leveraging anything a challenge.

Thanks to Associate Dean of Libraries at WestConn, Veronica Kenausis, for facilitating this work.   Thanks to Ava and Assistant Archivist Stacy Haponik for their research and work on this online exhibit.

https://archives.library.wcsu.edu/relatedObjects/ZoomifyDemo/hunter.html