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Exhibits
Current
New Life for Connecticut Trees: Furniture by
City Bench
November 1, 2011 - March 17, 2012
The furniture and household objects in this exhibition are made from Connecticut trees once destined for landfills. City Bench, the creation of Ted Esselstyn and Zeb Esselstyn of Higganum, reclaims trees from small towns and big cities to create beautiful objects with meaning, and each piece is displayed with the tree's family history, including its birthplace, significance, and life story. New Life for Connecticut Trees is an exhibition about woodworking, the urban tree canopy, and a history of our trees.
Lost Landscapes: Great Trees from Connecticut's Past
November 1, 2011 - March 17, 2012
This companion exhibition to New Life for Connecticut Trees: Furniture by City Bench features photographs of some of Connecticut's most noble trees, most of which are no longer standing, from the collection of the Connecticut Historical Society.
CHEERS!
October 3, 2011 - March 31, 2012
This small hallway exhibit highlights cocktail-related items from the Connecticut Historical Society's collection. On view are Art Deco era cocktail shakers and alcohol bottles from the 1800s and 1900s. One large bottle is believed to be from the Prohibition years and is still filled with hooch! This display was inspired by Ken Burns's recent documentary Prohibition (premiered October, 2011) and CPTV's upcoming documentary on Prohibition in Connecticut (expected to air March, 2012), which will feature items from the CHS collection.
Ongoing
Making Connecticut
Don't miss this exhibit 400+ years in the making! Colorful, interactive, and filled with more than 500 historic objects, images, and documents, Making Connecticut is the story of all the people of Connecticut, from the 1500s through today. Themes of daily life, clothing, transportation, sports and leisure, work, and social change run throughout the exhibit. Hands-on activities for kids (and adults!) include working a World War II assembly line, hand stenciling designs for a 19th-century chair, sewing a Native American moccasin, replacing bobbins in a textile mill, and cooking a meal and setting the table in both a colonial and a 1980s kitchen. Come be surprised, inspired, and amused as you explore our state's past and your own place in "Making Connecticut."
Inn & Tavern Signs
Between 1750 and 1850, there were more than 50,000 inn and tavern signs produced by American painters, creating a distinct visual language and offering a glimpse into tavern life, travel, and patriotic ideals in early America. Only a fraction of these signs survive. The Connecticut Historical Society's collection numbering more than 60 signs is by far the largest and most spectacular in the country. Learn more about the sign for Carter's Inn in the Collection Highlights gallery. A book about our inn and tavern sign collection is also available on-site and online through our museum store.
WaterWorks: Sounds, Noises, Images and Music from the Park River Watershed
Join us for an exciting collaborative project between the Connecticut Historical Society and students and faculty from the Hartt and Hartford Art Schools of the University of Hartford in the new micro-gallery at CHS. The micro-gallery is a reclaimed telephone booth converted into a space for personal encounter with sound and video image. In this first series of installations, the particular focus will be on the North Branch of the Park River. The sufficient supply, quality and awareness of our waterways are global concerns. The micro-gallery installations invite consideration of these issues both personally and locally, initiated through the media of sound and image within a broad historical context.