The Connecticut Museum of History and Culture is the seventh oldest historical society in America, and this year it celebrates its 200th anniversary.
The institution is older than the Smithsonian.
It was founded in 1825 to create a public repository and to “not let the stories of the American Revolution become extinguished.”
Over the years, the museum has collected more than four million objects from Connecticut’s history, including paintings, manuscripts, diaries, letters, ledger books, architectural drawings, posters, swords, musical instruments, maps and more.
“This is not merely a birthday, but a celebration of the collective work that has come before us and those that will follow us in preserving and sharing the state's history,” Executive Director and CEO Robert Kret said.“It's a little-known fact that there are 21,588 history organizations in the United States. That's the number that's greater than public libraries and even exceeds the number of Starbucks that are on every corner in America. So, in other words, Americans love history as much, if not more, than a good book and a daily cup of coffee. People feel that history is crucial to strengthening their communities as well as serving the public good.”
Just for the opening day, a few special objects from the collection have been pulled out and made visible to the public. Among these is one of the five flags that decorated the presidential box of Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., the night of President Lincoln’s assassination. The flag was added to the collection in 1922, but it’s been kept in storage under covers to prevent it from deterioration.
“The objects that were selected here are things that have some of the most national importance, but also local importance,” chief curator Andrea Repacz said. “The Lincoln flag is one of our very big iconic objects. Everyone has a connection to Lincoln. Everyone recognizes the flag. Everyone knows the story of his assassination.”
She said there's an inexhaustible amount of stories you can tell or things you can learn about Connecticut's history from those 200 years of collecting. “I think it's really important that we've been here for 200 years because we were collecting at the very beginning. And so because of that, we've been able to save and preserve some really important things that might not have been saved otherwise.”
Anyone can wander through the collections and learn more about history. “I think it's really important the way we provide the information, too, because through our exhibitions, it's very accessible, and people of all ages can come in and learn about history,” Repacz said. “And then for the people who are really committed and want to know more, they can come into our research center and really delve deeply into any topic.”
“The amazing thing about history is that the facts don't change, the past doesn't change, but we do,” state historian Andy Horowitz said. "So we can always be asking new questions about these old stories.”
Horowitz said historians are not just interested in old stuff. They’re interested in how things have changed in the past, how things change in the present and how change is possible in the future. “History is not just the study of the past,” he said. “It's also the story of how things come to pass. And so what historians do, what history museums and institutions like this one do, is try to understand the process by which we transform the past into the future. That's the kind of change we're interested in.”
Speaking of the future, the celebrations at the Connecticut Museum of History and Culture for its 200th anniversary will go on all year long. Many events are scheduled each month, and a special exhibition on the evolution of the Historical Society turning into the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History will be opening in May.
