Hidden Gems in the UConn Archives

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Jonathan Trinque, Research Services Coordinator

The UConn Library’s Archives & Special Collections holds over 1000 archival collections. Some of these collections are well known and are used all the time for research, while others may not have been accessed since they arrived at the archives. Because of this, I thought it would be fun to spotlight some collections that I have come across that seem interesting that researchers have not used much or simply do not know exist.

Here are some of the collections I found while perusing our online finding aids and physical collections:

University of Connecticut Agricultural Economics Department Records

Based on the collection’s title I did not expect it to be as interesting as it turned out to be. I assumed that this collection would only be administrative records and economic data, but I was completely wrong.

Women's Land Army trainees, 1944.

This collection contains over 80 linear feet worth of newspaper clippings, correspondence, pamphlets, brochures, photographs, and other print materials that document the evolution of the agricultural sector on a local and national level over the course of more than a century! It covers the intersection of agriculture and massive historical events such as World War II and the labor shortage created as a result of the Selective Service draft and how the State of Connecticut and the University of Connecticut worked together to create the Emergency Farm Labor Department in response to this crisis.

The Emergency Farm Labor Department established the Woman’s Land Army as well as nine farm labor camps for housing and training new agricultural workers. These farm laborers included urban youth and women, soldiers, white collar professionals, displaced Japanese Americans, returning war veterans, workers from other states, migrant workers from Mexico and Jamaica, and even German prisoners-of-war.

This collection also includes correspondence documenting UConn’s Agricultural Department’s growing responsibility as part of the Emergency Farm Labor Committee and their work with the United Stated Department of Agriculture.

There is so much more to explore in this collection. I highly recommend reading through the collection’s finding aid and if anything piques your interest, you can always visit our reading room to see the collection in person.

Margaret Waring Buck Papers

When I came across this small collection, I knew I had to shine some light on it as it covers many of my interests, children’s literature, illustration, and natural history. This collection contains materials relating to Margaret Waring Buck’s self-illustrated books that often detail the lives of animals in the wild through black-and-white drawings of the flora and fauna of the outdoors. These books are often geared towards young naturalists who are just starting their dive into ecology and natural history.

I think it is important to note Margaret Waring Buck’s interest in physiognomy, also known as face reading and anthroposcopy, a pseudoscience now considered to be a form phrenology. I feel analyzing her work through this lens could yield interesting discoveries regarding the various influences on her work.

In this collection you will find many different types of materials from Margaret Waring Buck’s personal papers, correspondence, and photographs from the early history of photography, as well as original notes and sketches. I highly recommend reading through this collection’s finding aid and inventory and visiting our reading room if anything in the finding aid catches your eye.

Charles Pease Papers

Charles Pease was a Connecticut-born businessman who worked as a printer and editor of the Connecticut Western News in Canaan Connecticut. Pease had a love for beekeeping that turned into a small but profitable side hustle.

This tiny collection (only 2 linear feet) is largely comprised of his own handwritten journals documenting his beekeeping activities (cutely named Pease’s Beeses) from 1919 through 1949. Pease also documented his observations of birds, flowers, and the natural world in his hometown of Canaan, Connecticut.

We also have another collection, the Hewitt Bee Collection, that complements Pease’s and is comprised of over 300 books and 40 different periodical titles on beekeeping and bee culture.

If you are an avid beekeeper, looking to start your own honey-selling business, or simply interested in Pease’s activities as a naturalist, I recommend experiencing these collections in person by visiting our reading room.

Related Resources

Bees and Beekeeping – UConn Library

The Connecticut honey bee. – UConn Library

Archives & Special Collections in the Connecticut Digital Archives

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The Connecticut Digital Archive is a collaborative member organization that supports digital preservation and access for all Connecticut’s people. Established in 2013, the CTDA has become the digital repository for multiple cultural heritage institutions across the state, including Archives & Special Collections (ASC). 

As one of the inaugural members of the CTDA, the ASC digital collections have grown and expanded over the years. The original seven categories have expanded to ten but the addition of thousands more resources has pushed the limits of these categories.

In the intervening years, ASC has also enhanced access to our collection finding aids and the ability to create direct links between the finding aids and the digitized collection materials has expanded discoverability, access, and availability of materials to researchers across Connecticut and beyond.

With the historic upgrade of the CTDA undertaken in 2022-2023 and expanded capabilities, ASC will also be revamping its space and collection presentation in the CTDA. All the content currently available digitally will retain their URLs (handles) but the categories in which they “live” will be expanded to mirror the collection areas under which our finding aids are categorized (https://archivessearch.lib.uconn.edu/classifications ).

We believe this restructuring will make it easier to identify and locate our digital and digitized collections and ask for your patience as this migration unfolds in the New Year.

If you have any questions or have difficulty locating our digital content during or after this transition, please contact us at archives@uconn.edu for assistance.

The New Haven Railroad during World War II: Mexican Braceros Come to the Rescue

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On January 3, 1944, 300 men from Mexico arrived in Connecticut after a journey of 3700 miles which started six days earlier in Mexico City. They were hired as Braceros, or manual labor, to work on the New Haven Railroad for a term of six months through a diplomatic collaboration between the United States and Mexico which provided needed workers for the nation’s railroads during World War II. 

Bracero workers wave at a New Haven Railroad engineer in the cab of a locomotive, 1944

The Bracero program had its origins as far back as the 1880s, when Mexican workers were recruited in building the vast network of railroads in the United States. Although later better known as a program for agricultural workers, the Bracero program was an important means to alleviate the shortage of American workers in the railroad industry. 

America’s railroads had a crucial role to play during World War II, transporting war materiel from industries that switched production to provide arms, ammunition, and other goods, to transporting soldiers to training camps and points of embarkation. Shipping slowed due to the threat of German submarines off of the U.S. east coast, thus the demand for moving oil and coal fell on the railroads. Civilian passenger service was up due to the rationing of gas for private automobiles. Just at the time the railroads needed more employees to handle this surge in service, they were left short-handed when many of their workers left for the armed forces. 

The New Haven Railroad, which provided passenger and freight service throughout southern New England, noted in their 1944 annual report that as of May 1944 over 5500 of their workers left for the armed services; that number rose to 7200 by the war’s end. Although the railroad was able to hire women to make up some of the lost workers, they relied on the Bracero program for the unskilled labor they needed to clean ash pits and fires, load coal, shovel sand, remove snow from tracks, and many other manual labor jobs. 

Beginning in Spring 1943 the Bracero program recruited over 100,000 Mexican men to work for thirty railroads throughout the United States. While most of the men were recruited for railroads in the Midwest, South and West, over the two-and-a-half-year period of the program the New Haven Railroad received approximately 1000 workers. 

The Mexican men, with an average age of 28, were dispersed among several locations in the New Haven Railroad area; in Connecticut they worked at engine houses and railyards including Cedar Hill in New Haven, East Greenwich and Guilford. The contracts drawn up between the U.S. and Mexican governments stipulated that the men would receive the same rate of pay as American workers and work a ten-hour day, six days a week.  

In an article that ran in the February 1944 issue of the railroad’s employee magazine, Along the Line, it was noted that the men were given warm clothing suitable for hard industrial work in cold climates. They were housed in a dormitory in North Haven and chefs were brought from Mexico to accommodate the men’s eating preferences. Priests were brought in for Sunday services. It was also noted that most of the men sent their pay back to their families in Mexico. 

The men were given a warm welcome by the railroad, with the acknowledgement in Along the Line that “…it takes plenty of courage voluntarily to break off home ties, to leave families three thousand miles away, in an endeavor to improve their living conditions. It was the same spirit which in earlier years guided immigrants to America and resulted in the building of our great nation. We salute our Mexican friends, as fellow employees, thank them for their cooperation in coming, and express the hope that they will enjoy their stay with us. Bien Venido, Amigos!” 

By the end of the war, with the return of almost 90% of the New Haven Railroad’s workforce from the armed forces, the contracts for the Mexican Braceros expired and the men returned home.

Please Reduce Racism at UConn: The December 3, 1987 Incident

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The exhibit is available at Homer Babbidge Library Plaza Level, from April 2 until May 5, 2024.

An exhibit created by Edward Junhao Lim, the Business & Entrepreneurship Librarian of the UConn Library, and a member of the Association for Asian American Faculty and Staff (A3FS).

Target Practice was a comic strip published in the Daily Campus illustrated by Chris Sienko ’88 (SFA). This bigotry – depicting Asian teaching assistants as illiterate and stupid because of their accent or English language ability – reflected the sentiment in many American university campuses in the 1980s-1990s. This was published in the October 7, 1987, issue, p. 13.
The Target Practice comic strip on Asian teaching assistants sparked off a series of letters to the editor published in the October 12 & 14, 1987 issues of the Daily Campus. The Vice President of the UConn Korean Club defending Asian T.A.s, two letters suggesting that Asian T.A.s are poor in communicating in English, and even the comic artist (Sienko) defending and denying its racist intent.

December 3, 1987, was a significant marker for the Asian American movement at the University of Connecticut. Eight Asian American students boarded a bus at Belden Hall to attend an off-campus semi-formal dance at the Italian American Club in Tolland. Belden and Watson Hall sponsored the semi-formal.

The written statement to the UConn Department of Police about the bus incident by Feona Lee ’87 (CLAS, BUS) – one of the eight victims – dated December 12, 1987. She describes how the perpetrators – a group of white, drunken students, some of whom were chewing tobacco – spat on her and her friends and making racist remarks.

During the 45-minute bus ride, they were spat upon and subjected to racial slurs and physical intimidation from a group of UConn football players. Even at the dance hall, one of them continued harassing the group, including indecent exposure. The victims asked one of the Resident Advisors for help and permission to leave but were denied and asked to stay away from the troublemakers. The female victims hid in a closet until the threat of violence had seemed to pass.

This photograph published on the May 16, 1988 issue of the Hartford Advocate featured two of the eight victims of the December 3, 1987 bus incident: Marta Ho (left) and Ronald Cheung ’89 (CLAS, BUS) (center). Accompanying them is Maria Ho ’88 (CLAS) (right), sister of Marta. Both sisters played an important role in the founding of the UConn Asian American Association student group in January 1988, formed as a response to the bus incident.

The inability of both local law enforcement and university officials to address and remedy the situation led to eighteen months of struggle, protest, and examination. No one seemed willing to help at the beginning: the UConn affirmative action office could not interfere because it did not involve faculty and students; the UConn campus police claimed no responsibility since it happened off campus, and three other local police departments (Vernon, Stafford Springs, and Tolland) claimed to have no jurisdiction since the incident started on campus.

Paul Bock was the Professor Emeritus of Hydrology and Water Resources at the University of Connecticut. He pitched a tent on the Student Union lawn at Storrs campus and conducted a hunger strike to call attention to their demands. He obtained seven hundred signatures on a petition to bring about an investigation of the incident. He chose the window between the end of the summer session and the beginning of the fall session in August 1988 to avoid disrupting classes. This photograph by Rick Hartford was published in the Hartford Courant as an update a decade after the bus incident on May 17, 1998.

The perseverance of the victims eventually led to the identification and prosecution of only two from a group of attackers. One was suspended for one year. The other was barred from living on campus but continued to play for the UConn football team until his graduation.

This exhibit seeks to raise awareness about the incident on December 3, 1987, against Asian Americans at the UConn. This incident was a catalyst for change at UConn, leading to the establishment of the Asian American Cultural Center (AsACC), which provides resources to enhance the University’s diversity commitment through its recruitment and retention efforts, teaching, service, and outreach to the Asian American community on campus.

Through personal narratives and historical documents, the exhibition will explore this event’s origins and immediate consequences on the Asian, Asian American and broader campus communities. The day after the incident, Homer Babbidge Library was where Marta Ho told her sister Maria Ho what had happened. Maria insisted on reporting the incident to the police.

Archives Are for Everyone – Join Us! Open House March 28

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Students encountering materials from the Alternative Press Collection in the John P. McDonald Reading Room, image by Zoey England.

Come visit – a lot is new!

On Thursday, March 28, 2024, from 3-5 pm, Archives & Special Collections will host an open house to welcome our community into our newly-renovated John P. McDonald Reading Room. More information about how to find us is available on our website. 

We have recently updated our reading room to enhance patron services, instruction, and exhibition for our unique and diverse collection. This open house will feature curated materials on display and staff archivists to engage with about the work we do.

Learn about the 1974 Black student sit-in

In conjunction, the archives will be opening a new exhibition in the Schimmelpfeng gallery to mark the 50th Anniversary of the 1974 Black student sit-in at Wilbur Cross Library. During the sit-in, 370 students occupied the library at varying times across three days. The sit-in was the culminating event during a semester-long campaign of student organizing to demand representation and resources for students of color at the University of Connecticut. 

Through curated documents this exhibition will feature the perspectives of the student organizers, the Afro-American Cultural Center, the University and its administration to remember this campus-wide call to action which resonates to our present day.  This 50th anniversary is also an opportunity to highlight approaches to student activism and the centrality of the library as an institutional setting both for democracy and also one vulnerable to upholding systems of oppression. 

Talk with an archivist

Have a question about your research interests? Want to learn more about Zine making?  All are welcome to explore the archives and hear from archivists about how we can connect you to your history!

We hope you join us

This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served. If you have further questions or accommodation requests, we are eager to have you contact us archives@uconn.edu

Archives Exhibition Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Black Student Sit-In at Wilbur Cross Library in 1974

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Anthropology Protest, Nutmeg 1974

Please Respond Personally: Commemorating the 1974 Black Student Sit-In 

March 11th – December 13th, 2024, Schimmelpfeng Gallery, Monday – Friday, 9-4pm 

Dodd Center for Human Rights, University of Connecticut 

Exhibit Opening Event: March 28th, 3-5pm @ Archives & Special Collections, Dodd Center

Opening to the public Monday, March 11th, 2024, the UConn Library’s Archives & Special Collections will mount a 50th Anniversary Exhibition commemorating the direct action taken by Black and Brown students on the Storrs campus to challenge structural racism in higher education by sitting in at the Wilbur Cross Library on April 22nd 1974.  This historic event of activism, where roughly 370 students occupied the library at varying times across 3 days, was the culminating event during a semester long campaign of student organizing to demand representation and resources for students of color at the University of Connecticut.  Through curated documents this exhibition will feature the perspectives of the student organizers, the Afro-American Cultural Center, the University and its administration to portray this campus-wide call to action which resonates to our present day.  This 50th anniversary is also an opportunity to highlight approaches to student activism and the centrality of the library as an institutional setting both for democracy and also one vulnerable to upholding systems of oppression. 

This exhibition draws from the experiences of alumni Rodney Bass (’75BA/’76MA) who read the demands during the sit-in and was co-chair of the Organization of African American Students (OAAS). The archives podcast d’Archive produced an interview with Rodney about Black student organizing in the mid-1970s on the Storrs campus which is revealing in understanding their approach to making demands upon the university for their representation in the student body.

There’s Something About an Aqua Velva Man: the J.B. Williams Company, Connecticut’s Maker of Men’s Toiletries

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An exhibit of historical records and items manufactured by the J.B. Williams Company, shown on the Plaza Level of Homer Babbidge Library through March 2024.

The exhibit shows photographs, advertisements, and historical documents from the J.B. Williams Company Records, but includes a special component — almost 80 collectible items manufactured by the company.

All of the collectibles shown in this display are from the collection of Boyd and Melissa Williams, residents of Franklin, Tennessee.

Melissa and Boyd Williams, 2023

About eight years ago Mr. and Mrs. Williams were in an antique store and found a J.B. Williams Company shaving soap box. Knowing nothing about the company, with no connection to Connecticut, they purchased the box on the basis that the company’s name was theirs as well. After that, they perused antique shops and Ebay for other company items and slowly amassed their collection of about 150 items, which they display in a vacation cabin they own.

The focus of the collection is solely on items that indicate that they were produced in Glastonbury, 1960 and earlier.

In June 2023 Mr. Williams contacted the UConn Archives asking for information from the J.B. Williams Company Records about their products, to supplement his knowledge of the company. When the archives staff learned about the Williams’ extraordinary collectible collection, the couple generously agreed to loan the items for this display.

About the J.B. Williams Company:

James Baker Williams was born in Lebanon, Connecticut, in 1818 and worked at a general store in Manchester beginning at the age of 16. When he was 22 he began to experiment with soaps to determine which were best for shaving, and developed Williams’ Genuine Yankee Soap, the first manufactured soap for use in shaving mugs.

In 1847 Williams opened his soap company on Williams Street in Glastonbury, where he continued to manufacture shaving soap and other products.

By the early 1900s the company was known throughout the world for its line of shaving creams, talcum powder, toilet soaps, and, later, for Aqua Velva, Lectric Shave, and Skol. After 1950 the company, in mergers with other businesses, became known for producing Conti Castile Soap, Kreml Hair Tonic, and Kreml Shampoo.

In 1957 a New York based conglomerate, Pharmaceuticals, Inc., acquired the J.B. Williams Company and moved the headquarters to New Jersey. In 1971 the company was sold to Nabisco.

The plant in Glastonbury was taken over by former Williams Company employees and became Glastonbury Toiletries, producing shaving soaps, bathroom soaps, aerosol shaving creams, body lotions and shampoos. This company closed in 1977. The original 1847 factory was converted to condominiums and, in 1983, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The company records were donated to the UConn Archives in 1967.

In Memoriam: Norman Finkelstein

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Norman Finkelstein

The UConn Archives is sorry to hear about the death of one of our donors, Norman H. Finkelstein, on January 5, 2024. He was an author of over 20 non-fiction books for young readers, a retired school librarian for the Brookline (Massachusetts) Public Schools and teacher of history for the Prozdor Department of Hebrew College. Among his writing honors are two National Jewish Book Awards, the Golden Kite Honor Book Award for Nonfiction and a “highly recommended” award from the Boston Author’s Club.

In an interview with Contemporary Authors published in 2011 Finkelstein remarked, “Readers often want to know what keeps me going as a writer. When I asked the late CBS correspondent Charles Kuralt to share a memory of Edward R. Murrow, about whom I was writing a biography, Kuralt responded: ‘Beginners need confidence; of course, I never had the nerve to ask Murrow for advice directly, but if I had, I believe he would have said, “Become good at what you do, and everything else will take care of itself.”‘ I couldn’t have said it better myself. I would, however, add two more words, persistence and patience.” (Source: “Norman H. Finkelstein.” Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors, Gale, 2011. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.http://gale.com/apps/doc/H1000112338/GLS?u=22516&sid=bookmark-GLS&xid=2702ce1e. Accessed 9 Jan. 2024.)

Norman Finkelstein’s work as an author is preserved at the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection, Archives and Special Collections, University of Connecticut. https://archivessearch.lib.uconn.edu/repositories/2/resources/374

Introducing Aeon: A New Online Request System for Archives & Special Collections 

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We’re excited to announce that a new researcher registration and request system is now available in Archives and Special Collections!  

If you’ve done research in the Archives previously, you’ll be familiar with our online booking form through a platform called Springshare, as well as our separate reproduction request form. We are introducing a new system, Aeon (created and supported by Atlas Systems), which will be taking the place of these online forms, so you’ll be able to do everything research-related through one online platform, including: 

  • Registering as a researcher (a one-time process) 
  • Making appointments 
  • Making requests for materials for both in-person visits and reproductions. 
  • Viewing your request history so you have full citation information for all the materials you’ve consulted 
  • Viewing the status of your reproduction requests and downloading reproductions you’ve requested 

If you are a UConn affiliate (student, staff, or faculty), you’ll be able to use NetID single sign on to create and sign into your Aeon account. If you are a researcher who has created an Aeon account previously at another institution, you won’t need to make a new account, and can use your pre-existing account. All other researchers will create a new account.  

When using the “book an appointment” or “request reproductions” buttons from the Archives and Special Collections homepage, you’ll now be directed to sign into your Aeon account or create a new account if you don’t yet have one. 

ASC staff have prepared a guide for patrons to help you register for and navigate your new Aeon account. For more information or for help setting up your account, please email us at archives@uconn.edu.  

In Memoriam: Laurie S. Wiseberg

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Laurie Sheila Wiseberg, of Montreal but also of the world, passed away on October 11th, 2023, at the age of 81. Dr. Laurie S. Wiseberg was known as a human rights educator, defender, and advocate.

In 1971, Laurie and Harry began a 17-year collaboration on human rights. They created a documentation center and international network of NGOs called the Human Rights Internet (HRI). Laurie was HRI’s Executive Director from 1976 until 2000.

In 2000, Laurie left HRI and joined the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) as NGO Liaison Officer for the World Conference Against Racism (Durban, South Africa, 2001). In March 2002, she took up the position of Head of the sub-office for OHCHR in Podgorica, Montenegro; and subsequently, as acting Head of Office in Belgrade, for Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo.

In April 2006 she joined a new UN inter-agency program, ProCap (Protection Capacity), intended to strengthen the capacity of UN agencies to deliver human rights protection in emergency situations. In the role of human rights advisor, Laurie worked in over 20 countries, until COVID forced her very reluctant retirement in 2018. These locations included: Kashmir, Pakistan; Darfur, Sudan; Juba, Southern Sudan; Amman, Jordan; Kathmandu, Nepal; Kabul, Afghanistan; Dili, Timor-Leste; Kotido, Uganda; Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Lilongwe, Malawi; Mindanao, Philippines; Libya; Northern Iraq; Southern Turkey; the Solomon Islands; and Nigeria.

Laurie and Harry’s work for HRI has been preserved since 2004 as the Laurie S. Wiseberg and Harry Scoble Human Rights Internet Collection at the University of Connecticut Archives & Special Collections to advance human rights research, educate students, and maintain this important and relevant history of the past century.

Laurie’s final works include an unpublished memoir: A Girl from St Urbain Street – Part 1: Fleeing the Nest, and a cookbook 25 years in the making: Food from the Field: Laurie’s Cookbook, A Modest Contribution to the Struggle Against Racism.

Forgotten, Neglected and in Ruins: Abandoned Industrial Spaces in Connecticut

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Sometimes it is hard to recall that the Connecticut of not too long ago was an industrial powerhouse. From the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s the state was a major producer of brass, tools, textiles, clocks and household goods that were valued throughout the nation, and the world. While Connecticut today is still an industrial engine, we remember a time when large factories teemed with workers and railroad lines traveled into almost every town and city in the state.

There is a mix of emotions when we view images of abandoned factories and railroad stations. There is a nostalgia for the past, one that we know through old photographs or movies, a time we somehow imagine was simpler. Or there is a curiosity in the creepy side of the structures, covered in vines, roofs sagging, broken windows, old equipment splayed about the factory floor, and, if we’re lucky, perhaps a spray of graffiti on the walls.

Now available in the Richard Schimmelpfeng Gallery in the Dodd Center for Human Rights is an exhibit that shows photographs from the Railroad History Collections and the Connecticut Historic Preservation Collection, both held in the UConn Archives.

The foundational collection for the Railroad History Archives are the corporate records of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, better known as the New Haven Railroad, which was established in 1872 from the merger of smaller lines throughout Connecticut, Rhode Island, southern Massachusetts and eastern New York, and spanned from Grand Central Terminal in New York City to Boston. Other collections, from photographers, collectors and historians, supplement the corporate records and provide resources that illustrate the impact of the railroad on the industry and culture of the region until it was absorbed into Penn Central in 1969.

While the railroad collections provide documentation on the entire New Haven Railroad region, for purposes of this exhibit we have focused exclusively on Connecticut sources.

The Connecticut Historic Preservation Collection (CHPC) is comprised of architectural and archaeological surveys, maps and documentation studies of historic buildings and sites in the state. They are provided to the UConn Archives by the State Historic Preservation Office. The CHPC materials you see in the exhibit are almost solely those in the documentation studies series, which were created by professional industrial historians to document historical properties that were planned for demolition or renovation.

The exhibit is available Mondays through Fridays, 8:00a.m. to 4:30p.m., until October 13.

Several historians have graciously aided us with this exhibit, by either providing their advice or expertise of railroad properties, or by allowing the use of photographs they have taken of abandoned sites.

Robert Joseph Belletzkie has done extensive research into the history of Connecticut railroad stations. He created and maintains a website – Tyler City Station, at http://www.tylercitystation.info/ — that details the history of virtually every station and depot in Connecticut.

Matthew Chase is dedicated to a project to document the deterioration of the Cedar Hill Rail Yard, located in New Haven. His Facebook page, Friends of Cedar Hill Yard, has hundreds of photographs of the yard, both historical and in its deteriorating condition in the present day.

Richard A. Fleischer is a historian, writer and photographer with a broad and deep knowledge of the history of New England’s railroads.

J.W. Swanberg is a former railroad employee, photographer and historian of the New Haven Railroad, with a lifetime of knowledge about railroads in Connecticut, the region and the world. He is the author of the seminal history of the New Haven Railroad’s locomotive fleet, New Haven Power, and has written extensively on topics related to railroads in the region.

RE:Reference Exhibit

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May 19 – August 11, 2023
Archives & Special Collections
Dodd Center for Human Rights
Curated by Graham Stinnett, Archivist


On display is the creative work of David Sandlin (b.1956), comics artist and printmaker. His multi-volume Guggenheim Fellowship project, 76 Manifestations of American Destiny, charts a dreamlike interstellar course from the Big Bang to the present historical moment. Volume 1 of this series depicts iconic references which continuously appear throughout each volume as specters of a disembodied past. In Sandlin’s work, America’s presidents, military icons, and cultural trademarks wreak havoc on the psyche of the family (the artist’s own) caught between cultural performance and the dead weight of its umbilical living past.

Additionally on display are monographs and artist’s books drawn from Archives & Special Collections which illustrate the source material for an artists’ interpretation and the proliferation of ideas through varying degrees of enculturation in print. Featured are early printed pamphlets of President George Washington’s farewell address from 1796 (a character featured prominently in Sandlin’s 76 series), as well as other art forms like poetic interpretations of the Declaration of Independence, and children’s books relating to the science of the Big Bang, the founding fathers, and histories of the Western frontier and the myth-making they engendered. Featured across from Sandlin’s work is the Artists’ Book author Mike Taylor (b.1976) who similarly explores the current state of politics in America through the historical record of presidential speeches, congressional documents, and their foretelling of a dystopian future.

Starting in 2021, Archives & Special Collection’s acquired 76 Manifestations of American Destiny Volumes 1-4 and will add the final volumes to the collection as they are completed.