Re: the Boys & Girls Clubs of Hartford, people of color in the Ancient Burying Ground, and Sol LeWitt

Cover of Connecticut Explored, Fall 2019 issue

The Fall 2019 issue of Connecticut Explored magazine includes an article from me on the history of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Hartford, which was a launch pad for the national B&G Clubs movement. You’ll need a subscription to read it … so subscribe!

Other Hartford-related articles in the issue include:

  • “Unburying Hartford’s Native and African-American Histories,” Katherine A. Hermes’ overview of the effort to tell the stories of an estimated 300-plus people of color who are buried in the Ancient Burying Ground, the city’s earliest extent graveyard. (It also the subject of an episode of “Grating the Nutmeg,” the podcast associated with Connecticut Explored. You can listen here: https://gratingthenutmeg.libsyn.com/.)
  • “The LeWitts Raise a World-Class Artist,” an adaptation of Larry Bloom’s new biography, “Sol LeWitt: A Life of Ideas.” LeWitt, who became one of the most important artists of the 20th Century though his pioneering work in minimalism and conceptualism, spent the first six years of his life in Hartford. He and his parents lived in a spacious house on the north end of Main Street, not far from the hospital that his father, a surgeon, co-founded: Mount Sinai. But when Sol’s father died of a heart attack in 1934, amid financial troubles brought on by the Great Depression, the boy and his mother moved to an apartment in New Britain.  LeWitt’s connection to Hartford didn’t end there, however. He took art classes at the Wadsworth Atheneum, which would later display his work, though the LeWitt-Hartford relationship was usually, the Hartford Courant notes, contentious.  

CHS director moving on

The Hartford Business Journal reports that Jody Blankenship, CEO of the Connecticut Historical Society since September 2013, will leave in January to become president and CEO of the Indiana Historical Society. The CHS board of trustees will conduct a national search for his replacement, according to the Journal.

Established in 1825, CHS is the state’s official historical society and one of the oldest in the nation. Its headquarters at 1 Elizabeth Street in Hartford includes a museum, library, and the Edgar F. Waterman Research Center–all open to the public and funded by private contributions. The CHS collection includes more than 4 million manuscripts, graphics, books, artifacts, and other historical materials. It is a Smithsonian affiliate.