For the past two days the Litchfield Historical Society has been pleased to host the second year graduate students from the Winterthur Program in American Culture.

The Winterthur Graduate Degree Program in American Material Culture is associated with the University of Delaware and the Winterthur Museum & Country Estate in Winterthur, DE.    The program “provides a multidisciplinary approach to the study of American material life with special emphasis on decorative arts and household furnishings.” (www.winterthur.org)

Eight students visited Litchfield with Brock Jobe, Professor of American Decorative Arts, and Greg Landrey, Director of Library, Collections Management and Academic Programs accompanying the students as faculty supervisors.

On Monday the students toured the Litchfield History Museum, Tapping Reeve House & Litchfield Law School and the Pamela Cunningham Copeland Curatorial Center.  Staff members Cathy Fields, Julie Frey and Linda Hocking explained the inner workings of the Historical Society and brought out some highlights from the Society’s textile and archival collections.

(Rachel, on left, with students on Litchfield Green)

Tuesday morning the students rejoined the staff in Litchfield and were conducted on a walking tour of the Litchfield Green and North Street by architectural historian Rachel Carley.  The students toured the Green, Congregational Church and the Benjamin Tallmadge house as well as viewing the exteriors of several other properties along North Street.

(Students touring Congregational Church)

After eating lunch, the students departed Litchfield to continue their week long field trip of New England’s museums and antique shops.

Library Catalog Screenshot

Some of you may remember that the Historical Society received a generous donation to enable standard library of congress cataloging for the book collection in the Helga J. Ingraham Memorial Library.  It may seem like it’s taken a long time, but staff, interns, and volunteers have been plugging away at the project, and we are thrilled that we can finally show you some results.  The catalog records for our books are being added to reQuest, the CT state library catalog.  If you search the entire state for something we have, our library will appear in the results.  If you want to limit your search to the catalog of the Helga J. Ingraham Memorial Library you can use this link.  Currently you’ll find parts of our reference collection.  In the near future the reference collection will be complete and our rare publications will be added.

Please remember that this catalog is for published works.  If you wish to search our manuscript collections, we’re adding more finding aids regularly to our online database, Archon.  Other materials are still described in our on site card catalog.  Keep checking both reQuest and Archon for more additions.

Each summer the Historical Society welcomes interns to the museum.  The number of interns has varied from year to year.  At times we may only have one or two or as in the summer of 2007 we had nine in one summer!  Needless to say that summer there was always a jockeying for work space and the lunch table was extremely crowded.

This year we have three interns.  Sharon will be working with the Curator of Collections Juile Frey, Katie will be working with Education Coordinator Linda Loveday, and Rita will be working with Curator of Library & Archives Linda Hocking.

Sharon has already started and has been busy assisting Julie in an inventory of the art storage racks at the Curatorial Storage Center and inventorying the collection of textileworking equipment.   She and Julie will spend a majority of the summer moving collections from the third floor storage room in the Litchfield History Museum to the second floor of the Curatorial Storage Center.   Sharon will also be working on the Litchfield Female Academy/Litchfield Law School database, completing some preliminary research and entering the Law School list into an excel document.

Katie will start work next week and Linda Loveday plans to have her work on developing educational programs geared to Cub Scout and Boy Scout troops.  The Litchfield Historical Society has a strong relationship with area Girl Scout troops and is working to develop a similar programs with the Boy Scouts.

Rita began her project a few weeks ago.  She will assist in completing the project to catalog  library books.  The cataloging is being completed off site, and the catalogers are in need of images of selections from the rare books in order to assign call numbers.  Rita will take digital photos and transmit them to the cataloging company.  Very soon some of the records they have created will be available via the state library catalog.  Rita will also work on data entry for the Litchfield Law School student list.

All three will be receiving college credit for their work at the Historical Society as well as learning many of the practical skills and everyday tasks required to work in a museum.

We welcome them and hope they have a fun and educational summer!

Charlotte Monroe Wiggin

Charlotte Wiggin

Those of you who remember when the Society’s research library was on the top floor may recall this brass plaque on the wall at the stair landing:

 Charlotte Monroe Wiggin
1886-1974
Curator for 18 years
Without her dedication and interest in collecting objects and papers of historical value
this museum would not have grown to its present stature

 Miss Wiggin, as she was known to all, was the society’s curator from 1949 through her retirement in 1967.  And during those years the museum and library truly were “Miss Wiggin’s Attic.”  The early years of the twentieth century were a time of tremendous growth for the Society.  These were the years that Society’s earliest supporters, most notably Emily Noyes Vanderpoel and Mary Perkins Quincy tirelessly collected objects and papers for the museum and library.  Miss Wiggin took on the task of more formally organizing and cataloguing this vast collection. Her efforts laid the groundwork for the work we do today.

Miss Wiggin lived a rich and colorful life before she returned to Litchfield and the Historical Society.  She graduated from Smith College in 1908, taught school in New York City and later became the headmistress of schools in Pittsburgh and Washington DC.  She served with the Red Cross working with orphans in Serbia , traveled throughout Europe and operated a children’s summer camp in France for many years.

The picture shown here is our only known image of Miss Wiggin.  We hope any of you who remember Miss Wiggin will share your memories – and photographs – with us.  Just click on comment to add your thoughts.

And check back often to find out what is new in “Miss Wiggins Attic”