CT Humanities Council Grant Will Aid Upcoming

Mattatuck Museum Community-Based Exhibitions & Programs

WATERBURY — The Connecticut Humanities Council has awarded a $21,000 grant to The Mattatuck Museum Arts & History Center to support “Our City, Our Towns,” a series of community-based exhibitions and programs designed to strengthen the connections of city and suburban residents to their regional history and heritage.

Partnering with the historical societies of Harwinton, Litchfield, Northfield and Middlebury, Naugatuck Valley History Consortium, The Naugatuck Valley Project, and Literacy Volunteers, the museum will base new exhibitions on oral histories, artifacts, and images from private and partner organization collections.

The project will feature three exhibitions that focus, in turn, on the lost villages of Fluteville and Campville, the architecture of Middlebury, and the community action work of the Naugatuck Valley Project.

“The Lost Villages of Fluteville and Campville,” opening in April 2010, will take visitors back in time to the early 20th Century, before the villages were destroyed to make way for the flood control dam at Thomaston. Oral histories and photographs of residents who were raised in the villages, collected by Romily Cochrane Cofrancesco, combined with objects on loan from the historical societies of Litchfield, Thomaston and Northfield, tell fascinating stories about a way of life that is as lost as the villages.

Curators hope the exhibition will serve as inspiration for people of all ages to learn about collecting oral histories from their family elders while attending museum hosted Family History Days.

“From Colonial Village to Country Retreat II,” opening in November 2010, will feature the architectural history of Middlebury, one of the towns that broke away from the original Waterbury settlement. The exhibit, based on the work of architectural historian Rachel Carley, will examine town history through its built environment, adding two sections of town to Ms Carley’s 2007 work and including architecture ranging from the oldest extant house in Middlebury to several homes by modernist architect Joseph Stein. 

“Our City, Our Towns” will kick off on Saturday, October 24, with a tour of the Waterbury Brownfields. The opening reception for “Banded Together: The Story of the Naugatuck Valley Project” will follow on Saturday, November 7. Both explore regional consequences and critical issues in light of the legacy of the region’s industrial past. Rotating exhibit cases containing objects from partner organizations will further amplify the themes of urban/suburban interdependence and ethnic diversity.

The Connecticut Humanities Council is a public foundation incorporated as a state-based affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Its mission is to provide opportunities for all the people of Connecticut to rediscover the joy of lifelong learning, to see themselves in the full context of their history and heritage, and to explore the infinite varieties of human thought and experience contained in our literature and expressed in our arts that give shape and direction to our lives.

The Mattatuck Museum Arts & History Center is at 144 West Main Street, Waterbury. For more information call 203-753-0381 extension 10 or visit MattatuckMuseum.org.

In addition to the upcoming exhibitions the museum is also home to a permanent exhibit of The Waterbury Button Museum, a collection of 10,000 buttons assembled by Warren F. Kaynor for the Waterbury Button Company more than 50 years ago; home to a permanent collection that inclues great works by American Masters; and also home to “Coming Home: Building Community in a Changing World,” a 6000 square foot permanent history exhibit that offers dramatic you-were-there experiences of the history of the Waterbury region.