American Illustration • • About This Exhibit

In 1995, the Connecticut General Assembly authorized the development of the Freedom Trail to recognize and honor the history of enslaved African-Americans. Slavery existed in America from the earliest colonial settlements until it was abolished by the passing of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which was ratified in Connecticut on May 4, 1865.

The Underground Railroad emerged in response to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1703, which allowed for the capture and return of runaway slaves. This illustration was inspired by the escaped slaves of the Underground Railroad and the New Milford Quakers who assisted them. Although the artist’s setting and story is fictitious, it was based on actual events that occurred in her hometown. Nancy White Cassidy noted, "as part of my research, I participated in the Underground Railroad Walking Tour, which includes the Charles A. Sabin House on Lanesville Road and the Augustine A. Thayer House and the Elisha Bostwick House located on Grove Street, which served as sanctuaries for these brave people." The Connecticut Freedom Trail (www.ctfreedomtrail.com) lists the sites around the state that participated in the anti-slavery movement.

Appearing on the cover of Yankee Magazine, Sugar Time celebrates maple syrup production in New England and the agricultural programs at Flanders Nature Center, Woodbury, Connecticut. Brian Allen, curator of American paintings at the Sterling and Clark Art Institute remarked, “maple sugar is a symbol of Yankee independence. This activity, called sugaring, signaled the end of winter with bonfires [and] music … and marked the community’s spirit of egalitarian union.”

Maple syrup features in the Iroquois Indian legend about Chief Woksis who left a pail of water for his wife beneath a maple tree before his daily hunt for food. Frustrated after several unsuccessful outings, he threw his tomahawk into the maple tree, pulling it out before setting out again. He returned that evening with a large deer, which his wife dressed and cooked. Remarking on the meat’s sweetness, the Chief realized that the bucket contained the maple syrup liquid that had trickled from the tree.

Salisbury, Connecticut, incorporated in 1741, is located in the northwest corner of the state and includes the villages of Lakeville, Amesville, Lime Rock, and Taconic. Ethan Allen briefly operated an iron forge here before moving to Vermont to lead the Green Mountain Boys in a rebellion against New York over the disputed New Hampshire land grants. Allen and Benedict Arnold led the raid to capture Fort Ticonderoga in 1775, which was crucial to the colonies’ victory in the American Revolution. Allen was captured by the British during an attack on Montreal later that year and tried in England as a traitor and held as a prisoner of war. The British released him in 1778 and he resumed his political activities in Vermont.

Another highlight in Connecticut’s history was Zadoc Benedict’s hat factory, which opened in Danbury in 1780. The factory produced 18 fur hats of rabbit and beaver skins weekly, earning the town the title of hat capital of the world. The founder, Zadoc Benedict, was reputed to be insane, prompting the term, “mad as a hatter.” By 1800, Danbury was the hat manufacturing center in the United States, continuing Connecticut’s pattern of establishing factories in small villages rather than large industrial cities. By 1887, the town's 30 factories were turning out five million hats a year, and Hat City became its nickname. Danbury continued to be a national center for the production of hats until the beginning of the twentieth century when the industry declined.

Another area of industry where Connecticut excelled was in bicycle manufacturing, and its spin-off, the earliest automobile manufacturing. Albert Pope of Hartford saw a bicycle in Philadelphia in 1876 and was immediately enthralled with the concept of an "ever-saddled horse that eats nothing and requires no care." He subsequently began the first bicycle manufacturing in America, Columbia Bicycles and set about marketing the vehicle, setting up a system of distributorships with fixed prices, hiring doctors to tout cycling as healthy exercise, and founding cycling magazines. The Pope Manufacturing Company was the forerunner of present day automobile corporations.

Curtis H. Veeder (1862-1943), a draftsman at the Hartford Cycle Company, perfected compound differential gearing, facilitating the invention of the cyclometer that recorded the miles traveled on a bicycle. In 1895, he founded the Veeder Manufacturing Company and produced speedometers for automobiles. He expanded his business and partnered with the Charles Root Company to manufacture counters for machine-guns, jukeboxes, vending machines, and taxi meters as well as ammunition counters, walkie-talkies, high speed radar counters, and other specialized equipment. Their slogan, “Veeder-Root counters count everything on earth,” proved to be true!

Noah Webster (1758-1843), father of the modern dictionary, was born in 1758 in West Hartford, Connecticut. From 1801-28, he wrote An American Dictionary of the English Language to standardize American vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation.

Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) was born in Hartford, Connecticut. A champion of the City Beautiful movement, he is recognized as the founder of American landscape architecture, designing with Calvert Vaux New York City’s Central Park and Prospect Park, Chicago’s Riverside subdivision, Buffalo’s park system, and the Niagara Reservation at Niagara Falls. Olmsted designed Connecticut’s Seaside and Beardsley Parks in Bridgeport, Walnut Hill Park in New Britain, Memorial Park in New London (one of only two cemeteries that he designed), and the Institute of Living in Hartford. He also made many sketches for the state Capitol in Hartford, which were never realized. Many other projects in the state were designed later by his sons through the Olmsted Brothers firm that he founded. In July 2005, the General Assembly passed a bill proclaiming April 26 of each year to be Frederick Law Olmsted Day to honor his betterment of American society through the creation of pastoral respites for all classes of people in crowded urban settings.

In 1662, King Charles II of England granted the Connecticut Colony a Royal Charter with liberal autonomy. His successor, King James II, asserted tighter control, and in 1687, overrode their rights by appointing Sir Edmund Andross, then governor of New York, as governor of the Dominion of New England. Andross demanded Connecticut relinquish the charter to him, threatening to split the state between Massachusetts and New York along the Connecticut River. He traveled from Boston to Hartford, and during a debate and scuffle at Butler’s Tavern, Captain Joseph Wadsworth with others snuck the charter from the room and hid it in an oak tree on Wyllys Hill. The Charter Oak is now celebrated as the state tree.

The Museum of Connecticut History displays a parchment that it regards as the original charter. (The Connecticut Historical Society is said to possess a "fragment" of it.) In addition, the ceremonial seat of the president of the Connecticut Senate is made from the oak tree, which was destroyed during a severe storm in 1856.

Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910) lived in Hartford, Connecticut, from 1871-91, where he completed some of his most famous works, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi, The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and Huckleberry Finn. He left the state to travel worldwide and to live in New York City, returning in 1908 to his "Stormfield" house in Redding, Connecticut, where he died in 1910. His Hartford Courant obituary claimed him as the city’s son, stating, "the feeling has never died out here that he belonged to Hartford, and this has been intensified by the fact that wherever any Hartford traveler went the first question asked of him was whether he knew Mark Twain."

Barry Moser created this frontispiece for the centenary edition of Huckleberry Finn published first by Pennyroyal Press in celebration of Samuel Langhorne Clemens.

The Old State House in Hartford, Connecticut, is the oldest state house in the United States, and served as the seat of state government until 1878. Completed in 1796, it was designed by Charles Bulfinch, the first architect to gain national prominence and the architect of the United States Capitol Building in Washington, DC. Throughout the 1790s, Hartford emerged from the post-Revolution depression as a stable center for commercial and social growth. Today the rich history of the Old State House remains a symbol of pride for Connecticut residents. On the site in 1637, the first written constitution guaranteeing the right to representative government was enacted by British colonists, earning the state its nickname, “The Constitution State.” In addition, the Old State House has welcomed many visitors, including Presidents Jackson, Monroe, Johnson, Ford, Carter, and Bush as well as Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Samuel Colt, P. T. Barnum, and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

© Housatonic Museum of Art • 900 Lafayette Boulevard • Bridgeport, CT 06604
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Brian Cronin has selected a diverse group of people whose individual accomplishments and passions merge to create a single portrait of a Connecticut native replete with all the qualities and characteristics ascribed to the Connecticut "Yankee." Although she was driven from her hometown of Canterbury for educating young African-American women, Prudence Crandall (1803-1890) embodied the history of Yankee reform movements begun in 1800, including abolition, temperance, and women's rights and education. Samuel Colt (1814-1862) displayed Yankee ingenuity, starting out as an indentured servant on a Glastonbury farm, and through hard work and resourcefulness, amassed both fortune and fame by inventing the revolver and the repeating firearm. Anson Dickinson (1779-1852) of Milton practiced the art of portrait miniatures for his clients who were both celebrated and ordinary citizens. Miniatures were extremely popular before being supplanted by the new art of photography, and Dickinson, renowned in his own time, is largely forgotten. Born in Cheshire, Samuel Augustus Foote (1780-1846) served as Governor of Connecticut in 1834 and 1835. Henry Shelton Sanford (1823-1891) of Woodbury built his fortune manufacturing brass tacks, served as a Senator in the Connecticut Senate, was an American Diplomat, and founded the town of Sanford, Florida. During the Civil War, Sanford coordinated northern secret service operations, coordinated the purchase of supplies for the Union effort, and on behalf of Secretary of State William H. Steward, offered the Italian patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi a Union Command. Bristol native and Yankee soldier Austin David Thompson (no dates) enlisted in the Connecticut 16th Infantry on August 11, 1862. Promoted from private to corporal and then sergeant, he fought at Antietam, Edenton Road, Fredericksburg, and Providence Church Road, and was captured and held as a prisoner of war at Plymouth, North Carolina. Samson Occum (1723-1792) was an elected leader of the Mohegans, a Christian missionary, and a teacher. Although white society betrayed Occum by breaking promises about Native American land agreements, education, and community development, history has recognized his contributions. Acknowledged as the Father of Native American Literature, he founded Dartmouth College, and is revered to this day by the Brothertown Indian Nation and the Mohegan, Shinnecock, and Montauk people.

The Industrial Revolution coupled with the decline of the whaling business brought workers to Colchester, Connecticut. The population doubled with the opening of three tanneries and a woolen mill (1819), a hatter (1828), a wheel and carriage factory (1858), a paper mill (1869), a creamery (1886), and a canning company (1893). The Hayward Rubber Company was established in 1847 by Nathaniel Hayward who, with Charles Goodyear, discovered the process of vulcanized rubber. The company manufactured rubber boots and shoes that were shipped throughout the country until its close in 1893. This promotional print was published by Kelloggs & Comstock of Hartford who, from 1830 until the end of the century, was the second largest producer of decorative prints for the American market behind Currier and Ives.

New London, Connecticut, founded in 1646 by John Winthrop, Jr., became an important port in Colonial America because of its protected harbor at the mouth of the Thames River, and it served as the base of American naval operations during the Revolutionary War. With its access to Long Island Sound, New London was America's third leading whaling port behind New Bedford and Nantucket, boasting over 30 ships and 900 whalers in 1834.

American engineer and naval architect, Simon Lake (1866-1945) founded the Lake Torpedo Boat Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1912, and built 24 submarines for the U.S. Navy during and after World War I. Although Lake was born in New Jersey, he nevertheless exhibited Yankee ingenuity by obtaining over two hundred patents for advances in naval design and by competing with John Holland to build the first submarines for the United States Navy.

This illustration, which appeared on the cover of the Connecticut section of The New York Times in May 2004, brings to mind the story of Israel Putnam who killed the last wolf in Connecticut in December 1742. Putnam and other farmers pursued the wolf which had preyed on their sheep and goats, cornering it after an overnight chase in a den in Pomfret, Connecticut. Putnam, with a rope tied around his legs so he could be pulled to safety, crawled into the den and shot the wolf with his rifle. The wolf den is located in Wolf Den State Park in Pomfret. Putnam later distinguished himself at the Revolutionary War Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775.

The sperm whale was selected as our state animal by the General Assembly in 1975 in recognition of the history of whaling in Connecticut and its present-day status as an endangered species. During the 1800s, Connecticut ranked second only to Massachusetts in the American whaling industry with numerous ports, including New London and Mystic. The sperm whale was the species most sought after for oil for lamps and other products.

Edwin Way Teale (1899-1980) was one of the best-loved naturalists of his generation. As a writer, he has been ranked with Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and John Burroughs. He was also an accomplished photographer who pioneered new techniques for creating close-up images of insects and other living things.

In 1959, he and his wife Nellie left the increasing suburbanization of their Long Island home for a 130-acre wooded estate in Hampton, Connecticut, which they named "Trail Wood." This became the subject of one of Teale’s most popular books, A Naturalist Buys an Old Farm (1974). Among Teale’s many other books are The Insect World of J. Henri Fabre (1949), North with the Spring (1951), Circle of the Seasons (1953), and Wandering Through Winter (1965), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize.

After Nellie Teale’s death in 1993, Trailwood passed to the Connecticut Audubon Society which maintains it as a public sanctuary and a memorial to two remarkable individuals and their appreciation for the natural world.

www.lib.uconn.edu/about/exhibits/carroll/ewteale

Benedict Arnold (1741-1801) is best known for his traitorous acts against General George Washington during the Revolutionary War. He was born in Norwich, Connecticut, into prominent New England families. With the failure of his father’s business ventures, he was withdrawn from school and apprenticed to an apothecary before establishing his own apothecary and shipping business in New Haven. His military career began with his service in the army during the French and Indian War. He served for the American cause during the Revolutionary War with some success that was tinged with failure and disreputable behavior. He felt embittered by his perceived lack of recognition by Congress and the Continental Army, and in 1780, plotted with the British to turn over the strategically-important West Point stronghold for a payment of 20,000 pounds. The plans collapsed when his British counterpart was captured and hung. Arnold sought refuge with British forces who appointed him a brigadier general, and he escaped to England after the war.

The Ivoryton Playhouse, Ivoryton, Connecticut, was the first self-supporting summer theater in the nation, and was built as an employee recreation center by the Comstock-Cheney factory in 1908. Katherine Hepburn, Cliff Robertson, Marlon Brando, Helen Hayes, and Groucho Marx, to name a few, performed there. The playhouse continues to provide first-class, year-round theater programs.

The Audubon Society was founded over one hundred years ago to protect birds from hunters who sold their feathers for use on hats and clothes. Birdsong was commissioned by National Wildlife Magazine with the Audubon Society to encourage bird watching in Connecticut. Birds and wildlife continue to be threatened today by uncontrolled development that fragments or destroys their habitat.

© Housatonic Museum of Art • 900 Lafayette Boulevard • Bridgeport, CT 06604
email • 203.332.5052