Upcoming Programs and Registration
Below you will find details about the Museum’s programs. For information about upcoming events at both the Museum and Library, check out the event calendar.
If you have any further questions about our programs, please contact us at museum@gunnlibrary.org or 860-868-7756. Library staff is also available in person and over the phone at 860-868-7586 for help.
For assistance with Zoom, we recommend you watch these tutorials here. The Gunn Memorial Library also has a page that lists helpful links.
“Trouble in the Land of Steady Habits: How We Got to the Constitution of 1818”
Monday, March 20th, 2023 at 6:30 pm on Zoom.
Registration for the meeting is requested. Please register here.
The Hartford Convention or Leap No Leap, 1814. By William Charles. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Program Description:
Connecticut in 1818 was in many ways eerily similar to Connecticut in our present time: a troubled state, seeking a new direction. This lecture lecture highlights the perfect storm of crises – environmental, economic, demographic, religious, and political – which converged in the middle of the eighteen-teens (1810s) to force the state to rethink the ways it had been conducting its affairs for the previous two centuries. The comprehensive nature of these problems, and the accidental events that ultimately produced Connecticut’s constitutional transformation, offer essential insights for our equally-challenging time. Registration is required to attend this free virtual program.
About the Lecturer:
Walter Woodward is Connecticut State Historian emeritus. He served as the State Historian of Connecticut and a member of the History Department at the University of Connecticut from 2004 to 2022. Dr. Woodward is a scholar of early American and Atlantic World history, with an emphasis on Connecticut and New England. His research interests cover a variety of subjects, including witchcraft, alchemy and the history of science, the use of music in early America and environmental history. Woodward is the author of five books, the most recent of which is Creating Connecticut: Critical Moments That Shaped a Great State . His book Prospero’s America: John Winthrop, Jr., Alchemy and the Creation of New England Culture, 1606-1676 won the Homer Babbidge Prize from the Association for the Study of Connecticut History, and was a Choice magazine Outstanding academic title. He continues to research, write and share his love for the history of Connecticut through the Today in Connecticut History program on CT Public Radio and the Grating the Nutmeg podcast he produces in collaboration with Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut History.
Registration for the meeting is requested. Please register here.
Edward Williams Clay, State House, Hartford, Connecticut,1834. Courtesy of the Connecticut Historical Society.