Special Collections & Archives at Wesleyan University
A place for news and information about rare books, manuscripts and university archives.
Leith Johnson Here’s a teaser about my next “Historical Row” column in Wesleyan, the alumni magazine: it’s about the night in 1906 that North College went up in flames. You’ll have to read the article after it’s been published to find out more…
As I was refiling some photographs, I came across this stereograph taken of Memorial Chapel in 1893. I’m afraid I don’t know what the event is. These cards are also called a steropticans, stereograms, or stereo views. When you look at them through a stereograph viewer (shown below), the two images merge into one 3-D … Read more
A reader was interested in class albums, including this one that belonged to Charles Washburn Church, Class of 1864. In the 19th century, before there were college yearbooks, Wesleyan students assembled albums and selected the photographs they wished to include. At first, the albums consisted of portraits, but in the 1870s and 1880s, photographs of … Read more
A reader asked to see 1650-1900. Mattabeseck. Middletown. A description of the exercises connected with the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, October 10 and 11, 1900. This booklet has a tremendous amount of detail about the celebration, including a full description of what we’re told was one of the longest parades yet assembled. The page … Read more
If you follow our picks of the week, you may remember a very similar image to the one above from a pick made last September. At the time, I didn’t know if or how the photograph was used, but as you can see, a slightly different shot was featured on the cover of the February … Read more
A researcher was interested in photographs of The Highwaymen, a group of Wesleyan undergraduates who hit the top of the pop charts with their single, “Michael (Row the Boat Ashore)” in 1961. (You can read more about them here, here, and here. ) We have a number of good shots, including a series of contact … Read more
In the course of pulling sample materials for a presentation to Prof. Ron Schatz’s Exploring Middletown’s History (HIST171) class, I came across this aerial view of downtown Middletown found in the SC&A “Middletown, Photographs, Main St.” vertical file. Main Street runs diagonally from top left to bottom right, and Court and College Streets are running … Read more
An association for the establishment of a rural cemetery in Middletown was organzied on July 3, 1850. It purchased property known as Indian Hill. The association charged Dr. Horatio Stone with laying out the grounds. The cemetery was dedicated on Sept. 30, 1850, and among the participants were the mayor, other city officials, clergymen, prominent … Read more
A researcher wanted to know if SC&A holds music programs for concerts performed during the Civil War era so he could analyze the compositions played. In the Wesleyan Music Dept. Records, four such programs are found, including the one shown above.
The Great Blizzard of 1888 is legendary throughout New England, and it remains the benchmark by which all subsequent storms have been measured, including the one that will probably be known as the Blizzard of 2013. Paralyzing the East Coast from the Canadian Maritime Provinces to the Chesapeake Bay from March 11 to 14, the … Read more
