FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 24, 2008
Fairfield Museum Contact:
Laura Roberts,
203-259-1598 or
Laura@fairfieldhs.org
The Fairfield Museum and History Center’s Library is one of Connecticut’s real treasures, and an invaluable repository of Fairfield’s rich historical legacy. The Library’s extensive collection of 8,000 reference works, monographs, and journals helps researchers contextualize individual documents and historical events. Its strengths include the areas of crafts and manufacturing, maritime studies, Fairfield genealogies, and historic preservation. But the best, most valuable part of the Library is its Special Collections which contain extensive manuscripts, rare books, and other “special” formats including historical photographs, maps, atlases, and ephemera. Collectively, the Fairfield Museum’s Library collection provides an important resource for the preservation and study of Fairfield’s history since its founding in 1639.
The museum’s ephemera collection is a special treasure trove of Americana. “Ephemera literally means ‘spanning a day’—that is, documents made to be used and discarded within a very short period of time,” explains Regine Heberlein, the museum’s librarian. The museum’s ephemera collection contains a wealth of materials including ticket stubs, broadsides, pamphlets, train schedules, advertisements, labels, road maps, menus, and postcards. Never intended to withstand the test of time, these documents were frequently produced cheaply, e.g. on thin and acidic paper that embrittles with age and can be extremely delicate and difficult to handle or exhibit. “Yet they hold a special appeal in primary source research because they afford us a glimpse of everyday life, a lingering sense of period atmosphere,” Heberlein says. “I think of them as time capsules.”
Another favorite of researchers who come to visit Special Collections is the Museum’s historical photograph collection. The over 3,000 items retrace the history of photographic processes, from daguerreotypes and calotypes to salted paper prints, albumen prints (which use egg white as a binder), ambrotypes, tintypes, gelatin prints and platinum prints. A collection-within-the-collection is the museum’s early photo album collection, a format that the invention of the tintype or ferrotype—a positive image on a tin backing—made popular in the 1850s. The tintype holds a special place in American history: due to its affordability, light weight, and durability, it became the prevalent keepsake of Civil War soldiers and their families. “A frequent misnomer for the tintype is ‘daguerreotype,’” explains Heberlein. “Daguerreotypes are negative images on a silver-coated copper plate. They are much rarer than tintypes and are immediately recognizable by their mirror-like surface. Owners of daguerreotypes sometimes think their photograph is faded because it is visible only at certain angles of light.”
The majority of documents in the Fairfield Museum’s Special Collections are donations from members of the community. And even after centuries, historical papers still turn up in nooks and crannies during house renovations and estate liquidations. “Earlier this year for example, we received a bundle of love letters from the 1940s that the owners of a house in Southport found inside an attic wall during remodeling,” says Heberlein. “Some had cement droplets on them.” The museum collects exclusively documents and objects that tell Fairfield’s history. Collections are often transferred to the museum by heirs or family members who wish to see the records cared for professionally in order to ensure their preservation and availability for future generations. A very significant collection acquired by the museum earlier this year is the Sturges Family Photograph Collection, which was donated by Elizabeth Meyer of Orange, CT. The collection seamlessly complements other collections of the Sturges family already housed at the Fairfield Museum. It documents one branch of the Sturges family, in particular some descendants of Philo Shelton, who was the first Episcopal priest ordained in North America (in 1785) and acted as a lay reader in Fairfield after the British invasion in 1779. The collection contains genealogical information, photographs, a scrapbook, and manuscript material pertaining to the family of Helen Hope Sturges, daughter of William Shelton Sturges and Julia Anna Thorpe Sturges. “What makes this collection a special pleasure to work with is that the donor meticulously annotated the photographs. That helps us tremendously in identifying the individuals in the pictures and assembling a more complete story,” says Heberlein. The collection is currently in processing and is anticipated to be available for study later this Fall.
Scholars travel from across the United States and abroad to consult the Museum’s Special Collections. Over the past year, the collections have been perused by visitors from 26 states and 4 countries. Researchers frequently work with the library’s extensive genealogical and local history collections to complete their genealogies, research family lore, locate a family property or grave site, or investigate the ownership history of their house. “The genealogy collection at the Fairfield Museum and History Center is unique. Its core was built from private collections starting in 1902, and it has grown to over 300 linear feet of sources from New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and other states with ties to Fairfield,” says Rod MacKenzie, Genealogist. “In addition, the museum has an extensive biography collection that helps researchers reconstruct the stories behind the dates. It’s a special pleasure to assist visitors who are looking for information about their Fairfield ancestors.”
In addition, scholars from research institutions use the collections for work on topics as varied as the history of an individual artifact which traces to Fairfield, the biographies of prominent national figures with family roots in Fairfield, and particular Fairfield events in the context of national history.
The Fairfield Museum and History Center’s Special Collections Library is open to everyone and access is free to Museum members. Hours are Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, 10-4; Thursday, 10-6, and Saturday and Sunday, 12-4; closed Monday. Manuscripts and other special collections items are made available upon request twice a day, at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., and research appointments are always available. The Fairfield Museum and History Center staff are happy to help and look forward to facilitating your exploration of our community’s rich history.
View of Southport Harbor from the Sturges House
(Image digitally stitched by library staff)
