ASCH

The Association for the Study of Connecticut History

It has been a long, cold winter but it finally looks like spring is coming. With the coming of spring, we welcome Matt Warshauer as the new editor of Connecticut History.

Matt’s first issue will include an article by Bruce Fraser on “The State of Connecticut History”, as well as articles by Dave Gartner and David White, two document essays, three exhibition reviews, and four book reviews. The issue will be out later this spring.

Close to 100 people attended the November conference on “Native Americans and the Law.” Katherine Hermes put together an excellent program. Conference papers will be published in the Fall 2004 issue of Connecticut History.

Please see the enclosed program for the annual meeting of the Association. Our host is Litchfield Historical Society. In addition to an overview of the Society and its programs by Katherine Keene Fields, director of the Society, and tours after the meeting, it will feature presentations by Debra Pond, archivist for the Connecticut Judicial Records Project at the Connecticut State Library on the lives of Litchfield County women and Paul Baran, independent historian, on social libraries in Tolland County. Join us in the beautiful Litchfield hills on Saturday, May 1.

The November 2004 Conference will be held on Saturday, November 6, at Manchester Community College. The full-day conference, chaired by Guocun Yang, on “The African American Experience in Connecticut,” will consist of 90-minute concurrent sessions on a variety of 18^th to 20^th century topics. The speakers will address biographical, geographical, and subject topics. A tentative list of subjects includes the 29^th Connecticut (C.V.), African Americans before the bar, Connecticut slave codes, American Methodist Episcopal and AME Zion churches, the NAACP in Hartford, and the poor of Middletown.

Kathy Hermes at Central Connecticut State University is the book review editor for Connecticut History. If you have recently published a work on a Connecticut topic, please send her a review copy. Also, consider submitting a nomination for the Babbidge or Linsley awards to Awards Chair, David White. For guidelines and lists of past award recipients, see the ASCH website at: http://asch.ccsu.edu/

I want to encourage members to examine the information on ASCH website which has been expanding under Matt’s direction. The website includes membership information and a membership application, list of past programs and sites, names of current officers and contact information, links to other Connecticut history websites, as well as submission guidelines and tables of contents to back issues of Connecticut History.

Please feel free to contact me or any other member of the ASCH Board with questions, comments, or concerns. In addition, please consider the possibility of taking an active role in the organization through hosting a meeting, presenting a paper, or serving on a committee. A list of Board members and how they can be contacted appears below.