Author Archives: Laura Smith

About Laura Smith

Archivist

The “Voice with a Smile” returns to her telephone switchboard

Posted on by
Reply

Mary Cullen Yuhas Anger and her niece Kay Cullen, visiting the reading room at Archives & Special Collections on Monday, February 13, 2012

In 1952 Mary Cullen, a 25-year-old telephone operator with the Southern New England Telephone Company, received the “Voice With a Smile” award, given to operators for superior public service and demeanor.  The award came with a distinctive white headset — Mary said allowed her to stand out and made her feel very special.

Mary Cullen, SNET operator and the “Voice with a Smile,” 1952

On Monday, February 13, 2012, the “Voice With a Smile,” now Mrs. Mary Cullen Yuhas Anger, visited Archives & Special Collections with her niece Kay Cullen to view photographs, documents and employee magazines in the Southern New England Telephone Company (SNET) Records in the archives.  Mrs. Anger reminisced about her happy days as an employee of SNET, from 1944 to 1956, and then off and on, on night shifts, when her children were young.

Mrs. Anger topped off her visit with the gracious gift of a dial pencil, a mechanical pencil with a metal ball at the end, which operators used to work the rotary dials (for efficiency as well as to preserve their manicures, she told us).

Laura Smith, Curator for Business, Railroad and Labor Collections

More about “The Bosses Songbook”

Posted on by
1

Satirical lyrics for "This Land is Their Land"

The booklet these lyrics are from, discussed in a blog posting I did on January 19, is a complex work, in many ways posing more questions than providing answers.  I asked our readers to analyze the lyrics and think about the intent of the authors.  Here is some more information to inform you about this item:

There is no published date for the book but from some lyrics it appears that it was published in 1947.

The lyrics in the booklet are highly satirical of the conflict between those in power, both polititians and others in control by virtue of wealth or ownership of businesses, and workers.  The lyrics are very bitter to those who own Cadillacs (a very fancy and expensive car, especially in the 1940s), are landlords, are on Wall Street and in Hollywood, as in the song “This Land is Their Land,” or to the President (at that time Harry S Truman), implying that he is playing golf while workers suffer, as in the song “The Right to Suffer Blues.”  Burning Tree is a reference to an exclusive golf club in Greenwich, Connecticut.

There are references to publications of the Communist Party, including The Daily Worker, and the Socialist Workers Party, who published Labor Action.

The lyrics to “The Right to Suffer Blues” has an interesting play on the word “putts,” with a note to those who speak Yiddish that it means “to hit the ball.”   It actually is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Yiddish word “putz,” which means a stupid person.

This primary source conforms to the Connecticut Social Studies Curriculum Framework for high school students, particularly Strand 1.1, grade level expectation 7 — compare and contrast various American Beliefs, values and political ideologies.

Laura Smith, Curator for Business, Railroad and Labor Collections

Class warfare or the working man’s discontent? Analyzing “The Bosses Songbook” — a source for teaching and learning

Posted on by
Reply

[slideshow]

Here are some pages from an odd little booklet in the Alternative Press Collection.  Examine these lyrics and try to devise the intent of the songs.  As you look at the pages of the “songbook” ask yourself these questions:

Who may have written these lyrics?  Do you really think it was people who were someone’s bosses?

What year was this booklet created?  What was happening in the world at that time?

Is this written as a satire or do you think the writers meant for the reader to take them at face value?  Who do you think the audience for these lyrics was?

What change do you think the writers of the lyrics hoped would take place?

Who is J. Edgar Hoover and why would the songbook be dedicated to him?  In the song “The Good Old Party Line” there are references to “’41,” “Willow Run,” and “Chiang Kai Chek.”  What do these mean?

I will add some information about the booklet in a post in a few days.  In the meantime, analyze this document and ask a lot of questions of it.  Let me know if you have other questions, or what your comments may be.

Laura Smith, Curator for Business, Railroad and Labor Collection

The Lyman Viaduct, a technological marvel

Posted on by
Reply

The Lyman Viaduct under construction, July 4, 1871

 
It’s hard to gauge just how high the Lyman Viaduct is until you click on the photograph to get a larger view and look closely at the bottom.  See the man and the horse (or maybe it’s a mule, it’s hard to tell)?  Then compare them to the enormity of the trestle, then under construction.  Amazing, isn’t it?
 
At 1100 feet long and 137 feet high, the Lyman Viaduct iron railroad trestle was built 1872-1873 to span the valley of Dickinson Creek near Colchester, Connecticut. Named after David Lyman, the man who built the New Haven, Middletown & Willimantic section of the Air Line Railroad, the trestle was a major link in a railroad line that was billed as the fastest route between Boston and New York City. 
 
In 1912, as trains became heavier and the railroad became concerned about the stability of the trestle, the Lyman Viaduct was filled in with sand and gravel. It is now part of the Air Line State Park Trail, on the Rails-to-Trails network.  It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in August 1986.
 
The Lyman Viaduct is a technological marvel, showing the great lengths Americans went to to take advantage of the most powerful mode of transportation of the time.  By the early 1900s almost every town in Connecticut had a railroad line easily accessible, enabling travel among the towns and cities as well as across the nation. 
 

This primary source conforms to the Connecticut Social Studies Curriculum Framework for Grade 8 students, particularly Strand 1.5 — weigh the impact of America’s Industrial Revolution, industrialization and urbanization on the environment.

Laura Smith, Curator for Business, Railroad and Labor Collections

December 2011 Item of the Month: The switchboard that launched the first public telephone company in the world

Posted on by
Reply

Blueprint for George Coy's switchboard, 1878

On April 27, 1877, George Willard Coy attended a demonstration at Skiff’s Opera House in New Haven, Connecticut, of an exciting new invention — the telephone — given by inventor Alexander Graham Bell.   Coy, a Civil War veteran and manager of the New Haven office of the Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Company, was fascinated by the possibilities of this invention.  In November 1877 he was awarded a Bell telephone franchise for New Haven and Middlesex counties and spent the next two months getting partners and financial backing.  On January 28, 1878, the New Haven District Telephone Company, in a rented storefront office in the Boardman Building at the corner of Chapel and State Streets, opened for business with 21 subscribers, each of whom paid $1.50 per month for the service.  It was the first telephone exchange in the world.

Prior to this time the first telephones were used privately on lines that allowed allow two people on each end to communicate over very short distances.  George Coy invented the first switchboard, which, according to a writing done by the Southern New England Telephone Company (the successor to the New Haven District Telephone Company) “consisted of a wooden panel about three feet wide and two feet high, with a little shelf at its base on which the operator’s telephone rested when not in use.  Across the top were four circles of contacts which resembled clock dials, each contact connected to a subscriber’s wire.  In the center of each circle was a metal arm like the pointer of a clock, which could be connected with any one of the eight contact points…”  Apparently Coy had to improvise in constructing the switchboard by using wires from ladies’ bustles.

This blueprint is one of several Coy made after the initial installation of the switchboard, in an effort to patent the design.  More information about George W. Coy and his switchboard can be found in the records of the Southern New England Telephone Company, a collection that was donated to Archives & Special Collections in 2003, the 125th anniversary of the founding of the company and the creation of the switchboard.

Laura Smith, Curator for Business, Railroad and Labor Collections

Documentation studies — a wealth of information about Connecticut’s historical properties

Posted on by
Reply

There are few sources as rich in information about the state’s historical properties as the Connecticut Historic Preservation Collection (CHPC).  While its architectural surveys for about two-thirds of Connecticut’s 169 towns and over 1800 archaeological surveys are worthy of discussion, the documentation studies will be the focus of attention in today’s blog post.

Former White Tower Restaurant at 123 East Main Street, Waterbury, Connecticut. Photograph taken by Geoffrey Rossano, 2001.

Documentation studies are generated when a federal or state-funded project has to take into account its affects on historical archeaological resources. The studies document the “before” structure or when changes in the structure mitigate adverse effects of changing or destroying the building. If the building is considered irreplaceable or very important historically then the State Historic Preservation Office decides whether or not to allow the project to proceed. 

White Tower Restaurant in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, ca. 1930 (as the Waterbury restaurant would have looked in its heyday)
 
Industrial historian Geoffrey Rossano conducted a historical overview and assessment of current conditions of the former White Tower Restaurant, built in 1935, in Waterbury, Connecticut, in August 2001.  The report gives extensive information not only about this particular property in Waterbury, but also shows how the property was significant to the formation of White Tower restaurants (a copycat from the more famous White Castle chain), and to the history of fast-food service in the United States.  The survey tells us about the history of the neighborhood of East Main Street, and how the structure, possibly the last surviving example in the U.S. when the study was done in 2001, was an example of  “the ‘kitschy’ vernacular commercial architecture that has appeared throughout the [20th] century.” 
 
My fellow librarian Norma Holmquist, who works at the UConn Waterbury campus library, verified for me that the old White Tower building at 123 East Main Street is no longer standing.  Thanks, Norma!  Located on that spot is the Coop bookstore for the UConn Waterbury campus library (that information is courtesy of Janet Swift, another Waterbury campus librarian — thanks, Janet!). 
 
This documentation study is just one of hundreds in the CHPC, with historical details about many properties that held a special place in their towns and cities across the state.  For more information about the contents of the collection, visit the listing at http://chpc.lib.uconn.edu/.
 
Laura Smith, Curator for Business, Railroad and Labor Collection
 

E. Ingraham Company and war work, part 2 — a source for classroom instruction

Posted on by
Reply

The blog post on November 14 showed a photograph and document from the E. Ingraham Company Records.  Here are two more documents and some more questions.

Telegram from the War Department, Hartford Ordinance District, to E. Ingraham Company of Bristol, Connecticut, December 13, 1944

Letter from E. Ingraham Company president to employees, December 15, 1944

What work is the company doing that is so important to the war effort? How has the E. Ingraham Company responded to the command from the government to step up production?  Do you think Edward and Dudley Ingraham were fair to not allow Christmas parties at the company during work time?

These primary sources conform to the Connecticut Social Studies Curriculum Framework for High School students, particularly Strand 1.2 — significant events in local and Connecticut history and their connections to United States history, grade level expectation 15 – describe how major events in U.S. history affected Connecticut citizens.

More information about the E. Ingraham Company can be found with the finding aid to the records at http://doddcenter.uconn.edu/findaids/Ingraham/MSS19800034.html. 

Laura Smith, Curator for Business, Railroad and Labor Collections

Child labor laws and war work — a source for classroom instruction

Posted on by
1

Army/Navy E award presented to the E. Ingraham Company, June 16, 1944

The E. Ingraham Company of Bristol, Connecticut, was a maker of clocks and watches from its founding in 1831 by Elias Ingraham, to its demise in 1967.  It was run by descendents of Elias Ingraham for all but the last 15 years of its existence.

Letter to E. Ingraham Company from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1944

Use this photograph and the letter to create a narrative of what was happening at the E. Ingraham Company, and in the United States, at the time.  Some questions to ask include:

What was happening in the country in 1944?  What conditions would have necessitated the need for hiring girls at the company?  What kind of work were the workers doing that was so important to the government? 

More information and some more documents will come in a couple of days.  For now, use the documents, and your own knowledge of the circumstances of the time, to describe what is happening.  Let us know what you think by leaving us a comment!

Laura Smith, Curator for Business, Railroad and Labor Collections

The History of the Railroad in Litchfield, Connecticut — photographs and a talk on Wednesday, October 26

Posted on by
1

Railroad station in Litchfield, Connecticut, ca. 1900

On Wednesday, October 26, at 7:00p.m. I will be giving a talk at the Oliver Wolcott Library in Litchfield, Connecticut, about that town’s railroad history.  The story starts with the Shepaug Valley Railroad, which opened for business on January 1, 1872, and traveled from Hawleyville to Litchfield in this mountainous region of western Connecticut.  After financial difficulties in the 1870s and 1880s forced the railroad to restructure, the line emerged in 1887 as the Shepaug, Litchfield and Northern Railroad, only to come under the control of the massive New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, better known as the New Haven Railroad, in 1892.  From that time to its final demise in 1948 it was known as the Shepaug Branch of the New Haven Railroad.

As the Shepaug, Litchfield and Northern Railroad it was nicknamed the “slow, late and noisy.”   The route contained almost 200 curves, one tunnel, and several stiff grades.  It was known as the “second most crooked railroad in the U.S.” (the most crooked was the Mount Tamalpais and Muir Woods Railway in Marin County, California), measuring 32 miles of track but was actually 17 miles as the crow flies.  Train speed could never exceed 20 miles per hour.

If you are interested in attending the talk at the Oliver Wolcott Library you can register at http://www.owlibrary.org/programs.php. 

You can find more photographs from Litchfield’s railroad past on Flickr, at http://www.flickr.com/photos/doddcenter/sets/72157627746164811/

Laura Smith, Curator for Business, Railroad and Labor Collections

The Communist Party in Connecticut — a source for classroom instruction

Posted on by
Reply

Portion of a flyer advocating for the release of seven members of the Communist Party of Connecticut jailed for subversive activities in 1954.

In 1954 seven members of the Communist Party of Connecticut were arrested on charges of violating the Smith Act.  The Smith Act, also known as the Alien Registration Act, was enacted in 1940 to set criminal penalties for anyone prosecuted for advocating the overthrow of the United States government.  In the 1940s and 1950s, a time of the fear of Communism in the country, the Smith Act was used against political organizations and persons who disagreed with the government, even those who did so in non-violent ways. 

[slideshow]

Questions to ask when considering these documents:

1) Is it right to jail someone just for his or her beliefs?  Would it be right to put someone in jail if the government thought his or her beliefs would cause harm to America?  Does the Smith Act violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution?

2) What is the purpose of this flyer?  Does this flyer show that the Communist Party of Connecticut was trying to overthrow the government of the United States?

3) How do people think and behave when they are afraid?  How does this flyer give evidence to the fears of the American people in the 1950s?

This primary source conforms to the Connecticut Social Studies Curriculum Framework for High School students, particularly Strand 1.9 — the rights and responsibilities of citizens, grade level expectation 47 — Analyze the tension between the need for national security and the protection of individual rights.

Larger images of the pages of this flyer are available here: page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4.

This flyer is from the papers of Jack Goldring, a member of the Communist Party of Connecticut and one of the seven arrested for subversive activities in May 1954.  Goldring was eventually released on a technicality.  By 1957 convictions under the Smith Act were deemed unconstitutional but the statute has never been repealed.

More information about the Smith Act can be found at this site from the University of Illinois: http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/jerome/smithact.htm; and the Encyclopedia Brittanica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/549923/Smith-Act.

Laura Smith, Curator for Business, Railroad and Labor Collections

Sources for teaching about the Vietnam War

Posted on by
1

Cover of the book Postage Due: Forever Stamps, by C. David Thomas.

The New England History Teachers Association (http://www.nehta.net/) were to have their Fall meeting here at the Dodd Research Center this Friday, October 14, but we just got word that it has been canceled.  Even so, I put together a list of resources that about the theme for the conference —  “The Vietnam War: Scholarly Views and Classroom Applications” that may interest any History or Social Studies teacher who is doing a unit on the Vietnam War.  Here are just a few of the many recently published sources about the Vietnam War available at the Dodd Research Center:

Foley, Michael S. Confronting the War Machine: Draft Resistance during the Vietnam War.  Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

Carroll, Andrew, ed.  War letters : Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars.  New York : Scribner, 2001.

Caputo, Philip.  Ten Thousand Days of Thunder.  New York : Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2005.  Written by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist for children, this book gives a full account of the war, from the reasons for intervention to the battles and those missing in action, to the war’s music and the protests at home.

Harrison-Hall, Jessica.  Vietnam Behind the Lines : Images from the War, 1965-1975.  London : British Museum Press, 2002.

O’Roark Dowell, Frances.  Shooting the Moon.  New York : Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2008.  A book for young readers, the story of this book is “When her brother is sent to fight in Vietnam, twelve-year-old Jamie begins to reconsider the army world that she has grown up in.”

Thomas, C. David.  Postage Due: Forever Stamps.  A series of unofficial postage stamps inspired by people and events from the Vietnam War era, self-published by the author in 2009.

Wachsberger, Ken, ed.  Insider Histories of the Vietnam Era Underground Press.  East Lansing : Michigan State University Press, 2011.

These publications complement our extensive set of journals and books about the Vietnam War in the Alternative Press Collection. 

Laura Smith, Curator for Business, Railroad and Labor Collections

More photographs of the Tariffville Dam

Posted on by
Reply
Tariffville Dam/hydroelectric station on the Farmington River in Simsbury, Connecticut, 1918Tariffville Dam hydroelectric station switchboard, photo probably taken soon after the station was in service on December 1, 1899Tariffville Dam hydroelectric station on the Farmington River in Simsbury, Connecticut, 1900Tariffville Dam on the Farmington River in Simsbury, Connecticut, about 1900Tariffville Dam/hydroelectric station on Farmington River in Simsbury, Connecticut, February 14, 1900Tariffville Dam, February 14, 1900
Tariffville Dam on the Farmington River in Simsbury, Connecticut, February 14, 1900Tariffville Dam on the Farmington River in Simsbury, Connecticut, possibly February 19, 1914Tariffville Dam on the Farmington River in Simsbury, Connecticut, possibly February 19, 1914Tariffville Dam and hydroelectric station from west side of Farmington River, possibly 1915Tariffville Dam on the Farmington River in Simsbury, Connecticut, January 15, 1918
Tariffville Dam hydroelectric station on the Farmington River in Simsbury, Connecticut, undatedTariffville Dam hydroelectric station on the Farmington River in Simsbury, Connecticut, 1948Walter Atkin with fish at the Tariffville Dam on the Farmington River in Simsbury, Connecticut, 1948Walter Atkin fishing out of a window at the Tariffville Dam on Farmington River in Simsbury, Connecticut, 1948Walter Atkin fishing from a window at the Tariffville Dam hydroelectric station on the Farmington River in Simsbury, Connecticut, 1948Tariffville Dam hydroelectric station on the Farmington River in Simsbury, Connecticut, December 1948
Tariffville Dam hydroelectric station on the Farmington River in Simsbury, Connecticut, December 1948Tariffville Dam, December 1948Tariffville Dam, December 1948Tariffville Dam, December 1948Tariffville Dam, February 1950Tariffville Dam hydroelectric station on the Farmington River in Simsbury, Connecticut, November 8, 1951

Tariffville Dam, a set on Flickr.

This week we’ve shown a handful of photographs of the old Tariffville Dam, which was built in 1899 on the Farmington River by the Hartford Electric Light Company, and lasted until 1955 when it was destroyed by floods. We’ve put more photographs of the dam on Flickr — check them out!

Laura Smith, Curator for Business, Railroad and Labor Collections