A lot of famous authors are associated with Connecticut, from 19th century novelists Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe to 20th century playwrights Arthur Miller and Eugene O’Neill and the contemporary Vietnamese American poet and novelist Ocean Vuong.
In its wide-ranging “Connecticut’s Bookshelf” exhibit, on view until October, the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History pays tribute to those writers and many more but also explores the history of libraries and publishing companies in the state.
The show is really about the culture of books in Connecticut, primarily from the 18th through 20th centuries.
Comic books figure prominently in the exhibit. The very first American comic books — magazine-style anthologies of newspaper comic strips called “Famous Funnies” and “Funnies on Parade” — were printed in Connecticut. Framed examples of those historic documents are on the museum walls alongside those issued decades later by the Derby-based Charlton Comics company.
Children’s book superstar Richard Scarry gets his own corner of the exhibit, with a mural devoted to his cute animal creations overlooking a nook of beanbag chairs where you can sprawl out and peruse Scarry’s Busytown adventures.
There’s a section on banned books, with Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” offering an explanation that while nowadays the novel is challenged for its racist language, it was banned by schools and libraries when it was first published because it depicted what was considered the vulgar lifestyles of lower-class children. Also discussed is longtime Ridgefield resident Maurice Sendak’s “In the Night Kitchen.”
Other sections in the multi-room exhibit include Travel (including road journals) Family & Relationships (memoirs and diaries), House & Home (cookbooks), Music (sheet music), Bestsellers (including government publications, spelling books and almanacs), Antiques & Collectibles (like a first edition of Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”), Art (comic books, typefaces) and True Crime (which notes that the famous comedy play “Arsenic and Old Lace” was based on a real-life series of killings in Connecticut).
The Literary Criticism section has a glass case devoted to the work of Lydia Sigourney, described in an amusing text notice as “the best-known female poet in America in the early 1800s but … barely known today.” Her husband criticized her choice of profession, her biographer said he could find no examples in her work of good writing and Edgar Allan Poe questioned her popularity at the very moment he asked her to submit a poem to his magazine.
It’s not just shelves of books. There’s a chair that invites you to “Sit on me” for your reading pleasure. There’s a lever press on display. Some of the non-book items are a stretch, like a vacuum cleaner enhancing the selection of “Stepford Wives” volumes in the House & Home section, or a Katharine Hepburn pants suit in the Biography/Autobiography section. Others are deeply fascinating, like the battered boots Ocean Vuong wore on his trip to America, next to the writer’s portable Royal Fleetwood typewriter.
The Connecticut Museum of Culture and History is a colorful, accessible, family friendly place. “Connecticut’s Bookshelf” fits the museum’s general style of bright, friendly, informative displays. There are lots of non-book items amid the colorful book covers and photos, and you can access audio elements (including readings from some of the books on view) on your phone.
“Connecticut’s Bookshelf” is on display through Oct. 13 at the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History, 1 Elizabeth St., Hartford. Visiting hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m., with extended hours on Thursdays until 8 p.m. Admission is $12, $10 seniors, $8 students and youth and free on the first Saturday and Sunday of each moments. Museum memberships are available. connecticutmuseum.org.
