Calendar of Events

FEATURING: Dr. Fiona Vernal, UConn History Department For three generations, the Saunders family operated a successful and innovative tailor business in the city of Hartford, eventually establishing a reputation as Black merchant tailors with deep ties in Hartford’s Black and white communities. Their network stretched from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York to Barbados and France. […]

FEATURING Elena Rosario, PhD Candidate, University of Michigan In the 1960s, protests, demonstrations, and rebellions were widespread across the United States, including in many Connecticut cities. This lecture will focus on a series of late-sixties civil disorders organized by Hartford residents of color from 1967 to 1969. It will also highlight the causes, aftermath, and […]

*Tour will start at Center Church (675 Main St.) Tracing the Footsteps of Hartford’s First Black Church will begin at Center Church at 10 am with a presentation inside the church by members of the church’s history team. This will allow participants to learn about the genesis of the Talcott Street Church congregation in the […]

Featuring poets Bessy Reyna and Kate Rushin The Mount Holyoke Club of Hartford and Connecticut’s Old State House are pleased to present a dramatic reading of Bessy Reyna’s poem Freedom Journeys in Four Voices. Bessy’s poem tells the story of Nancy Jackson, the young slave woman granted her freedom in 1837 by the Supreme Court […]

FEATURING Channon Miller, Assistant Professor of American Studies and History, Trinity College As much as water protects, nourishes, and sustains Black children’s lives, it also restrains, suffocates, and degrades them. The residents of Hartford’s Charter Oak Terrace confronted a water-based ecological catastrophe in the 1960s. A flooding river—channeled by municipal neglect, class inequality, and racial […]

FEATURING Dr. Christina Bleyer, Watkinson Library, Trinity College The Watkinson Library at Trinity College has partnered with the Lloyd Best Institute of the Caribbean to digitize the Lloyd Best Archive. Using our project as an example, this presentation explores post-custodial archiving as a transformative approach to collecting, preserving, and providing access to archival materials, contrasting it […]

Learn about the history of “body snatching” in the 19th century. Physicians teaching anatomy in New England medical schools expected students to have hands-on experience with cadavers. Yet the only legal access allowed were the bodies of convicted murders. This restriction led to a spike in demand. Doctors and their students turned to the illegal […]

It’s time for a celebration and some sweet competition! Join Connecticut’s Old State House on November 2 for the third annual Election Cake Bake Off.  Historically, Election Day in Connecticut combined voting with parties, libations, parades, and cake! Stores sold special Election Cake ingredients to women who transformed them into spice cakes for crowds gathered […]