Into the Archives talk, 5/14
On Wednesday, May 14th, I gave a talk on the history of libraries in Farmington and Unionville through the 1950s to 1983, when the Main Branch at 6 Monteith Drive was completed and opened to the public. I really enjoyed sharing what I’d found in our archives and in our historic newspaper databases. We had a great crowd, some of whom remembered or were involved in this process, and participants asked interesting questions. It was also really nice to have the event in the Farmington Room, which I have never done before! Some of the materials from the presentation were made available to look at after the talk, so that participants could look at the photos and documents up close. We are hoping to make my slides available online.
I am grateful to all who came, and to my colleagues, who not only helped me gather all the items I needed, but who provided valuable feedback during a practice run earlier in the week. I’m very much looking forward to the next one, which will be on October 21st, National Archives Day, and will focus on the Farmington Room, its contents, and its keepers over the years.
New Acquisitions
I am pleased to share the addition of several fun gifts to our local history collection that have been donated over the last two months.
Farmington Valley Women’s Club Papers, 1949-1971
The first is a wonderful collection of materials from the Farmington Valley Women’s Club, spanning the club’s activities from its inception in 1949 up to about 1970. Meeting minutes, correspondence, annual reports, press releases, and more can be found in this collection. This club started in 1949 and became involved at the state and national Federations of Women’s Clubs, so there are state and national-level event materials in the collection as well. I have been enjoying processing and arranging this collection—my favorite items are the small “yearbooks” published every year. These snapshots of the Club include lists of officers and committees and outline major programs and events. The Farmington Valley Women’s Club was devoted particularly to purchasing books for libraries in the Farmington Valley, including school libraries.
Something I learned in researching the history of libraries in the United States during the 20th century is that school library funding had lagged public library funding a bit until the 1960s, making contributions from local civic organizations and clubs especially important. This is a very broad stroke and I’m sure there is more to the story (nothing is a monolith after all!), but it was fun to make that connection.
I found a fun connection between our own libraries and the FVWC that relates to the talk I just gave here last month: In 1964, officials from the Farmington Village Green and Library Association—who at that time owned both the Village Library in Farmington and the West End Branch in Unionville—had asked the Town to alleviate the majorly cramped Branch building (now the Unionville Museum) in one of two ways. They were asked to purchase a mobile unit just for the Children’s collection and programs, or to expand the library facility by about 3,000-4,000 square feet. At the time this building was woefully behind the national standard on library size for the town’s population. The FVGLA had hoped that library expansion would be included in the redevelopment of Unionville, which was then in the investigation phase. Later that year, the Town had decided to put off any decisions regarding the Branch building because the Unionville Redevelopment study was still underway.
I found a sweet thank you note from then Librarian Ruth Hyatt to FVWC President Honey Pascus from 1964, in appreciation of a planting the Club had placed outside of the “frightfully” overcrowded library (it could only fit 12 people in it at one time!). Hyatt’s expression of warmth and gratitude for “having such good friends” is such a testament to library support from the surrounding community.
We are grateful to Linda Arnold for donating this collection to the library. Lots of names, places, other clubs, businesses, and more can be found in these papers. As soon as the finding aid is done, background information and inventory will be made available online.
Community cookbooks
We love a community cookbook here at the Farmington Libraries! Our Program Coordinator, Heidi Schulz-Vendrella, is planning a program in the fall to create a new one, so there is a buzz around cookbooks in the Information Services Department lately.
The Farmington Room owns a small collection of cookbooks, and because of Heidi’s program, recently we’ve been interested in gathering others. While researching my library history talk, I noticed a call for recipes in a Book Ends issue from around 1980 (if you’re unfamiliar, Book Ends is the newsletter from our Friends of the Farmington Library group) and learned that there were two community cookbooks published by the Friends. I have received a copy of one of them, Cooking with Friends, donated by one of our very good friends, Betty Coykendall.
Since then, we have acquired two others! I received a phone call from a former teacher at the West End Elementary School the next day, asking if the library would like a copy of a cookbook the school put together as a fundraiser in the early 1980s—someone who had no idea I’d been on the hunt. I am grateful to Vicki Carey for thinking of the library as a new home for this item.
Our little collection of community cookbooks is growing nicely! It is interesting to see versions of recipes over the years, what was popular over time, and who contributed or participated in each project.
Another of our good friends, Sherra Palmer, brought her copy of the second Friends cookbook, “Cooking with Friends II.” It has many of her own notes in it, and she wondered if we’d be able to find another, less well-loved copy of it. So here is my call—if you happen to have a copy of this cookbook that is in good condition that you would be willing to add to the library’s cookbook collection, please get in touch!
Lewis Walpole Library exhibit booklets
Our friends at the Lewis Walpole Library put on wonderful exhibits and talks several times a year, for which they produce small booklets with images of the display items and background on the theme of the exhibition. These get digitized and are made available online, as do virtual versions of the exhibits themselves, but the physical booklets are fun to look through.
Recently, we received 13 of these booklets, that will get catalogued and added to our reference collection, among other art exhibit booklets we have here in the Farmington Room. They will be available to look at here during walk-in hours (Wed & Thur, 10-1) and you can also ask Information Services staff to bring them out to look at in the main room outside of those hours.
Exhibit for Summer
Starting in June, I will have a tiny exhibit in the display case next to the Farmington Room that will be up until September. Going along with the theme of our summer reading program this year, “Adventure Awaits,” I’ll be exploring a bit of the history on a few outdoor spaces in town, including Suburban Park, Shade Swamp Sanctuary, and the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail.
Much is always happening here and I’m happy to be doing what I can to make Farmington and Unionville history easily accessible to its supportive community.
Many thanks and happy research!
Jerusha Neely, Local History Librarian