History Day 2021

Communication in History: The Key to Understanding

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We’ve organized our IDEA BANK by TYPE OF COMMUNICATION and TOPIC. Scroll through to find a topic that interests you!

CT Explored Issues that focus on Communication in History

Winter 2020-2021
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Our Winter 2020-2021 issue is all about communication in history!

• A Brief History of Gay Media in Connecticut
• Spiritualism: Communicating with the Great Beyond
  • Theodate Riddle and Spiritualism
  • See also: “Isabella Beecher Hooker and The Spirits of Reform,” Winter 2008/2009. The surprising relationship between Spiritualism and reform.
  • The Pine Grove Spiritualist Camp, Spring 2020
• Amateur Radio and the American Radio Relay League
• World War I soldiers and the art they left behind in the trenches
• Mark Twain’s Scrapbook Invention and its contribution to his writing career

Fall 2014: The Power of the Pen

• “Just Like Georgia Except for the Climate”
  Novelist Ann Petry captured mid-20th-century African American Connecticut. By Elisabeth Petry 
• Once Upon a Time in Connecticut 
  Our history of award-winning children’s books. By Jennifer LaRue Huget 
• The Political Fires that Fueled The Courant
  For most of its 250 years, politics was the point of journalism. By Joseph F. Nunes
• Noah Webster: Father of American Copyright Law  By Elizabeth J. Normen 
• Ida Tarbell: A Muckracker Retreats to Easton By Karin Peterson 

Explore by TYPES OF COMMUNICATION

Primary Sources: Letters, diaries, personal narratives, Interviews—keys to understanding history

• The Hartford Chapter of the Black Panthers: An interview with Butch Lewis.
  How far have we come since the riots of the late 1960s?  By Joan Jacobs https://www.ctexplored.org/the-hartford-chapter-of-the-black-panthers-an-interview-with-butch-lewis/
• Radio host Bob Steele: primary source– World War II Howdy Men: Bob Steele https://www.ctexplored.org/howdy-men-bob-steele-in-world-war-ii/
• Primary Source: Civil War Witness to Gettysburg: Horatio Dana Chapman https://www.ctexplored.org/civil-war-witness-to-gettysburg-horatio-dana-chapman/
• Primary Source: Civil War Fighting for Freedom: Joseph O. Cross  https://www.ctexplored.org/fighting-for-freedom-joseph-o-cross/
• Primary Source: Civil War Andersonville Diary: Joseph Flower Jr. https://www.ctexplored.org/andersonville-diary-joseph-flower-jr/
• Shoebox Archives: James Mars.By Wm. Frank Mitchell
  Born into slavery in Connecticut, James Mars put pen to paper and proved a prescient commentator on issues of equality, racial privilege, faith, and citizenship. See also: https://www.ctexplored.org/did-slavery-just-happen-in-the-south/
• How Theodate Pope Riddle’s diary and letters reveal her first impressions of Impressionist art. https://www.ctexplored.org/impressions-of-the-impressionists/
• Venture Smith: Life & Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa. By Gene Leach https://www.ctexplored.org/life-and-adventures-of-venture-a-native-of-africa/
• Letters from the Gold Rush https://www.ctexplored.org/john-e-brockett-goes-for-the-gold/
• World War I soldiers and the art they left behind in the trenches (Winter 2020-2021)

Speeches and Speech-making

• A Quaker Firebrand Swings An Election. By Joseph Duffy (link to come)
• Abraham Lincoln’s speaks in Connecticut on the campaign trail. Glimpses of Lincoln’s Brilliance. By Gene Leach https://www.ctexplored.org/glimpses-of-lincolns-brilliance/

Art

• When Artists Owned Hartford’s Streets 
• Rivaling Currier & Ives: The Kellog Brothers. By Nancy Finlay (link to come)

Language

• Sign Language: American School for the Deaf
• American School for the Deaf: The Mother School of Deaf Education. By Gary Wait
• Noah Webster: Accent on an American Language. By Tracey Wilson (link coming)
• Noah Webster: Father of American Copyright Law By Elizabeth J. Normen 

Music

• See stories in Fall 2008 https://www.ctexplored.org/back-issues-fall-2008/
• What These Walls Have Heard! A photo essay on New Haven’s legendary Toad’s Place.
  By Mary M. Donohue https://www.ctexplored.org/what-these-walls-have-heard-a-photo-essay-on-new-havens-legendary-toads-place/

Banners, Buttons & Flags

• Flying the Banner for Temperance. By Julie Frey https://www.ctexplored.org/re-collections-flying-the-banner-for-temperance/
• re: Collections: The Stonington Battle Flag. By Susan J. Jerome https://www.ctexplored.org/re-collections-stoningtons-star-spangled-banner/
• Buttons worn and torches carried for our parties’ candidates. By Marianne Curling (link to come)

Protest, Parades, and Petitions

• The Anti-Income Tax Rally of 1991 https://www.ctexplored.org/sample-article-the-anti-income-tax-rally-of-1991/
• Petitioning for Black Suffrage https://www.ctexplored.org/no-taxation-without-representation-voting-petitions-in-connecticut/
• The Women’s Suffrage Fight https://www.ctexplored.org/the-long-road-to-womens-suffrage-in-connecticut/

MEDIA: Newspapers, Film, Television, Radio

• How ESPN Came to Bristol. By David Nagle
• How is Connecticut portrayed on film? Connecticut’s Star Turn in Film By Jeanine Basingerhttps://www.ctexplored.org/connecticuts-star-turn-in-film/
  The state sets the scene in movies old and new.
• Three Generations in the Newspaper Business: Waterbury Republican. By Michael C. Dooling
• Amateur Radio and the American Radio Relay League (Coming Winter 2020-2021)
• The Political Fires that Fueled The Courant
  For most of its 250 years, politics was the point. By Joseph F. Nunes
• A Brief History of Connecticut Gay Media (coming Winter 2020-2021 issue)
• The Muppets: New Ways of Communicating with Children
• Radio host Bob Steele: primary source– World War IIHowdy Men: Bob Steele, https://www.ctexplored.org/howdy-men-bob-steele-in-world-war-ii/

Lighthouses 

• Site Lines:Two if By Sea, The New London Harbor and Stonington lighthouses. By Elizabeth J. Normen https://www.ctexplored.org/two-if-by-sea-new-londons-harbor-light-stoningtons-old-lighthouse-museum/
• Stonington’s First Family of Lighthouse Keepers https://www.ctexplored.org/stoningtons-first-family-of-lighthouse-keepers/
• Kate Moore: Keeper of the Fayerweather Lighthouse in Bridgeport https://www.ctexplored.org/kate-moore-keeper-of-the-fayerweather-lighthouse/

Monuments, Memorials, and Gravestones: What do they communicate?

• Civil War: Memorials to a Nation Preserved By Matthew Warshauer and Mary M. Donohue
• Destination:The Living 9/11 Memorial. By Nicole Chalfant https://www.ctexplored.org/destination-the-living-911-memorial/
• https://www.ctexplored.org/elbert-weinbergs-enduring-monuments/
• Two controversial statues, including John Mason https://www.ctexplored.org/11059-2/
• Connecticut’s World War I Memorials https://www.ctexplored.org/site-lines-connecticuts-world-war-i-memorials/
• Beauty in a Gravestone. By Linda Pagliuco

Brochures, Advertising, and Signs

• Farms in Eastern Connecticut reinvented themselves as resorts for urban Jewish families from New York. How did they attract tourists? https://www.ctexplored.org/the-connecticut-catskills/
• Communicating through Ghost Signs and Neon
  https://www.ctexplored.org/the-sampler-give-me-a-sign/
• Coded communication was the key to segregation in 20^th century Connecticut. https://www.ctexplored.org/how-segregation-happened-in-west-hartford/

Books

• How Harriet Beecher Stowe Used the Novel to Communicate the Evils of Slavery
  • Harriet Beecher Stowe: The Most Famous American
    Adoring crowds waited for a glimpse of Harriet Beecher Stowe.
    By Katherine Kane https://www.ctexplored.org/harriet-beecher-stowe-the-most-famous-american/
  • From the State Historian: 2011’s “Must Read” Book is 160 Years Old.By Walter W. Woodward https://www.ctexplored.org/must-read-book-is-160-years-old/
  • Lincoln and A Key toUncle Tom’s Cabin. CLICK HERE TO READ By Katherine Kane
• Shoebox Archives: James Mars. By Wm. Frank Mitchell
  Born into slavery in Connecticut, James Mars put pen to paper and proved a prescient commentator on issues of equality, racial privilege, faith, and citizenship. See also: https://www.ctexplored.org/did-slavery-just-happen-in-the-south/
• Venture Smith: Life & Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa, by Gene Leach. 
• The Green Book was a critical tool if you were an African American traveler in 20^th century America.https://www.ctexplored.org/connecticuts-green-book-sites/
• “Just Like Georgia Except for the Climate”
  Novelist Ann Petry captured mid-20th-century Connecticut. By Elisabeth Petry https://www.ctexplored.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/JUST-LIKE-GEORGIA.pdf
• Once Upon a Time in Connecticut 
  Our history of award-winning children’s books. By Jennifer LaRue Huget https://www.ctexplored.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ONCE-UPON-A-TIME.pdf

Maps: What they Communicate

• Exploring Early Connecticut Mapmaking Who put our state on paper, and how. By Kristen N. Keegan and William F. Keegan https://www.ctexplored.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Early-CT-Mapmaking-Spring12.pdf
• Road Signs of the Air Wayfinding in the early days of aviation. By Jane F. Cullinane https://www.ctexplored.org/road-signs-of-the-air/
• From the State Historian:The Map That Wasn’t a Map.
  By Walter W. Woodward https://www.ctexplored.org/the-map-that-wasnt-a-map/
• The Two-Million-Dollar Map. By Nancy Finlay https://www.ctexplored.org/the-two-million-dollar-map/
• Site Lines:Mapping Rochambeau’s March Across Connecticut.
  By Robert Selig. https://www.ctexplored.org/mapping-rochambeaus-march-across-connecticut/

Posters

• In World War I, posters got the message out https://www.ctexplored.org/join-the-brave-throng/

Explore by TOPIC

How did communication help reformers and activists get their message out and make change?

• Audacious Alliances: Mary Townsend Seymour.by Mark H. Jones https://www.ctexplored.org/audacious-alliance-mary-townsend-seymour/
• Godmother of the Puerto Rican Community: Maria Sanchez.  By Jose E. Cruz https://www.ctexplored.org/maria-sanchez-godmother-of-hartfords-puerto-rican-community/
• A Family of Reformers: The Middletown Bemans
  An African-American family fights for equal opportunities in ante-bellum Middletown.
  By Liz Warner https://www.ctexplored.org/a-family-of-reformers-the-middletown-bemans/
• Women’s Suffrage: how women communicated their message Women’s Suffrage: Setting the Watch Fires of Liberty. By Mark Jones and Nancy O. Albert https://www.ctexplored.org/womens-suffrage-setting-the-watch-fires-of-liberty/
• James Pennington: A Voice for Freedom
  ByStacey Close  
• Ida Tarbell: A Muckracker Retreats to Easton By Karin Peterson 

The Emancipation Proclamation: What it communicated to the people of Connecticut

• Promise of Freedom: Reflections on the Emancipation Proclamation. By Elizabeth Rose https://www.ctexplored.org/reflections-on-the-emancipation-proclamation/
• Connecticut’s Response to the Emancipation Proclamation. By Matthew Warshauer https://www.ctexplored.org/connecticuts-response-to-the-emancipation-proclamation/
• When Norwich Celebrated the Emancipation Proclamation. By Emily E. Gifford https://www.ctexplored.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/NORWICH-CELEBRATES-EMANC-PROC-W1213.pdf

How marketing and communication created the first celebrity

• Tom Thumb and the Age of Celebrity 

How to communicate with birds

• The Genius of the Audubon Bird Call

An execution sermon sent a message

• The Hanging of Moses Paul

The Tragic Result of Poor Communication

• The Mysterious Case of Gershom Marx

Creating a Greeting Card Company

• Lilac Hedges: Say It With a Card

Oral History: What is it and how to do it

• Oral History: What is it and how to do it

Meeting in Person to Plan a Revolution

• American Revolution: Why is Connecticut sometimes called The Conference State? The “Conference” State. By Ann Harrison and Mary Donohue. https://www.ctexplored.org/the-conference-state/