These projects highlight our diverse collections and community outreach efforts. They include costume and textiles from our Art and Artifact Collection, images from our Graphics Collection, and Civil War artifacts from our Library and Art and Artifact Collections. Oral histories from Hartford’s Puerto Rican community, Nuestras Historias, will be available soon.

	Early American Tavern & Inn Signs Painted onto wooden signboards and hung outdoors, high above the heads of passers-by, tavern and inn signs served the primary function of outdoor advertising, helping people locate the places and services they needed
	Costumes & Textiles Four themes have been chosen to highlight several of the earliest pieces in the collection, dating from about 1730 to the mid-1830s.
	Connecticut in 1836 For his Historical Collections of Connecticut, published in 1836, John Warner Barber traveled widely throughout the state, making sketches of characteristic buildings and views and obtaining information from local sources.
	Hartford in the 1850s Joseph Ropes was undoubtedly the best topographical draughtsman active in Hartford from 1851 to 1865. His drawings, prints and paintings convey a vivid sense of the appearance of the small but bustling city.
	Augustus Washington: Black Daguerreotypist Washington operated a successful portrait studio in Hartford from the early 1840s through the early 1850s, photographing prominent citizens.
	Connecticut’s Currier & Ives: Lithographs by the Kellogg Brothers The lithographic firm founded by Daniel Wright Kellogg about 1830 dominated printmaking in Hartford well into the 20th century. The colorful prints issued by Kellogg, his brothers and their partners offer a cross-section of Victorian taste.
	Connecticut in the Jazz Age Images by the commercial photographer William G. Dudley reflect the daily life of Hartford and the surrounding area during the 1910s and 1920s.
	Hartford Heroes: Hartford’s Fire Department The early history of the Hartford Fire Department, from its beginnings through the 1950s, is documented in a large collection of photographs, many of them donated by Horace B. Clark.