Gunn Historical Museum

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Gunn Historical Museum 5 Wykeham Road P.O. Box 1273 Washington, CT 06793 Telephone: 860-868-7756 gunnmuseum@sbcglobal.net

Museum Hours: Thursday - Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Sundays 12:00 noon to 4:00 p.m. Other times by appointment. Staff: Stephen Bartkus, Curator Sarah Griswold, Curatorial Assistant

No admission charge; donations welcome. Find out how to get here.

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Current Exhibits & Programs

Jerome Titus |  Washington Club |  Scrapbook Exhibit |  Community Scrapbook |  September: Scrapbook Conservation Workshop |  October: Digital Scrapbooking for Facebook | 

Jerome Titus: The Story of a Civil War Soldier from Washington
June 2009 through Winter 2010

Michael Croft's 8th grade Social Studies classes at Shepaug Valley Middle School have transcribed part of the 1864 diary of Jerome Titus, a musician in the Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery, from the collection of the Gunn Museum for their annual local history project this year. This award-winning local history project is an annual collaboration of the Gunn Memorial Museum, the Gunnery and Shepaug Valley Middle School. The students' work is being shared with the public in a book that they have published and through an exhibit that they have created at the Gunn Memorial Museum. Come to the museum and learn about the the first phase of this year's exciting project.

Washington Club: A Century in the Community
June 2009 through Winter 2010

The Washington Club has been a fixture in town since 1903, hosting community theater performances in Club Hall, as well as offering a 9-hole golf course, tennis and Holt Beach on Lake Waramaug. Join us as we look back at the history of the Washington Club with wonderful pictures and artifacts from the collections of club members and the Gunn Memorial Museum.

The Keepers of History: Scrapbooks and Albums
April 26, 2009 - October 31, 2009

Explore life over the past two centuries through the prism of wonderful scrapbooks from local residents and our collection. Scrapbooks are a quintessential shared American art form, beautifully presented time capsules of bygone people, places and times. Come view pasted fragments of memory from past generations in this wonderful visual history of Washington. The innovative exhibit provides an opportunity for guests to 'walk into' a book through the use of unique paint colors, large-scale reproductions of pages and vignettes that create a sense of time and place. Chris Zaima has created a beautiful old fashion mural of Washington on our walls as a backdrop for this exhibit. Period clothing and historic artifacts from our collection complete the experience.

Many of the scrapbooks featured in Jessica Helfand's new book, Scrapbooks: An American History, will be on display in this exhibit. Fabulous, rarely seen scrapbooks from the collection of the Gunn Museum that will be shown include:

the albums of Helen Wersebe, Marjorie Boyd and Anna DePeyster, from their days as students at the Wykeham Rise girl's school in Washington;

the founder of Wykeham Rise, Miss Davies's, own scrapbook;

the founder of the Mayflower, Harry Van Sinderen's Yale scrapbook;

artist and former curator Alice Peck Snow's Smith College Scrapbook;

Evelyn Holt Lowry's NY Opera and Theatre scrapbook;

one of Washington's original summer residents and a publisher R.S. Barnes's scrapbook of Brooklyn dinner invitations and menus;

the Barnes Family scrapbook of Washington Concerts and Plays 1887-1906;

Wilhelmina Knowles's scrapbook of pressed Washington flowers and ferns;

wonderful scrapbooks of chromolithographs from the Morehouse and Sackett Families;

Estella West's scrapbook of The Judea Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution;

Home study scrapbooks for domestic instruction for sewing, lace, thimbles, birds, paper dolls, scrapbook houses, paper cutting and folding from Clara Richmond, Emily Hunt and Esther Peck;

the scrapbook of the Dramalites;

The Washington Lions Club's scrapbook of the Washington Fair;

The Washington Girl Scout's Scrapbook;

Victorian Death Scrapbooks;

and numerous Town History Scrapbooks chronicling every event in the town of Washington from 1900-1960, from WWI to WWII to the Flood.

Modern digital scrapbooks of Kristin White, Emily Anderson, and others are also included to show the evolution of this hobby, from a parlor activity of the 19th century to the worldwide phenomenon that it has become today.

A grant from The Community Foundation of Northwest Connecticut, in collaboration with the Connecticut Humanities Council, made this exhibit and associated programs possible.

Become Part of Washington's History in our Community Scrapbook

The Gunn Memorial Library and Museum will be creating a community scrapbook throughout the duration of the exhibition, The Keepers of History: Scrapbooks and Albums. Washington residents, businesses and organizations are encouraged to pick up a blank scrapbook page, fill it with their memories, photographs and objects and then return it to the museum by the end of the exhibition on October 31, 2009. The completed book will be put on display and will then become part of the Museum's permanent collection. The community scrapbook will give future generations a glimpse of what life was like in Washington in the year 2009. Take advantage of this opportunity to document your life and become a permanent part of Washington's history! This program is free and open to the public. Call 860-868-7756 for more information.

Coming in September...

Deb Werner, a national expert from the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Massachusetts, will conduct a half day scrapbook preservation workshop at the Gunn Memorial Library and Museum in September. Scrapbooks and albums present some of the most complex conservation and reformatting challenges. Composed on varying materials, adhered with problematic glues and tapes to often acidic pages, scrapbooks frequently need to be reformatted in order to preserve the intellectual information contained within. This workshop is free and open to the public as well as library and museum professionals interested in preservation options for scrapbooks. Participants will be encouraged to bring scrapbooks for hands-on examination and discussion.

Coming in October...

The Gunn Memorial Library and Museum will host a program titled Digital Scrapbooking: An Introduction to Facebook. While traditional scrapbooking remains a hit, the surge in popularity of social networking sites can be considered a virtual form of scrapbooking where individuals document their daily lives by posting pictures and comments for their friends to see. Emphasis will be placed on the evolution of memory keeping — from the "old" to the "new" and establishing virtual connections with friends and family. A local web specialist will offer an introduction to the popular website. Participants will have the opportunity to work with our specialist on one of the library's computers and create their own Facebook page. Bring a few photos with you and a laptop if you own one. Seating is limited; please call 860-868-7756 to register for this free program.

Gift Shop

Give the spirit of historic Washington!

100 Years Ago: GML in 1908 Limited edition reproductions of an original postcard of the Gunn Memorial Library are on sale for $2 each at the library and museum in celebration of the Centennial of the Library.

		Vintage scenes of Washington; 50¢ per postcard. Click on images to enlarge.

Rossiter: Country Houses of Washington, Connecticut, 2006 by Stephen Ketterer, Photographs by Miki Duisterhof, $75. All proceeeds from the sale of this book benefit the Gunn Memorial Library and Museum. Copies are available at the library's main circulation desk (860-868-7586) and at the Hickory Stick Bookshop (860-868-0525).

Return to Arcadia: Ehrick Rossiter's Washington, The Architect, His Clients and Their Houses, 1999 edition by Alison Gilchrist, $15

Washington, Pride of Place postcards of a watercolor by Wendell Minor, $1 each. 1854 Map of Washington with key to illustrated buildings, 35" x 40 1/2" unframed, $20 Botanical Tapestry: An Herb Booklet, 1979 by Barrie Kavasch, $1 Frozen in Time, 1998 by Hope McLeod. Cassette Tape: $10, CD: $16. Washington native Hope McLeod's latest CD features the song "Goin' Back Home" about visiting Washington and the Shepaug River. "Goin' back home to lay beneath a maple tree and to rest my weary bones on the banks of a quiet stream, Goin' back home so I can bathe in those memories of lazy days by the Shepaug River when my time was oh so free."

All items are available at the Museum and Library, and can be mailed to those who live out of the area for an additional fee. For more information, call 860-868-7756.

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