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Symposium: November 17, 2006
/Inventing Out Past: What, How, and Why We Remember/
Litchfield Historical Society, Litchfield, Connecticut

Registration Form: 
http://www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org/PDF/Symposium06.pdf

Myths pervade our culture and influence perceptions. As museum 
professionals, educators, archivists, and curators, our work has served 
to both perpetuate and dispel those myths. Join us for a day of 
thoughtful reflection and discussion about how memory and myth are 
created, shaped, and eventually altered.

Communities turn to anniversaries as reason to celebrate everything from 
the founding of a town to the night a famous person slept there. A 
longing to connect with the past drives a continued interest in memory. 
Scholars are increasingly studying not only our past, but the changing 
ways in which we remember it.

This symposium will explore that interest, and present varied 
perspectives on memory. The day will begin with an examination of the 
role of archives in shaping memory by keynote speaker Randall Jimerson. 
Subsequent talks will take participants from the Revolutionary War to 
the colonial revival, from the antiques show to the museum gallery, to 
learn about memory from the varied viewpoints of curators, professors, 
educators, and historians. The day will end with a reception and special 
tour of The Tale of the Horse: Spinning Litchfield’s Revolutionary 
Stories at the Litchfield History Museum.

Schedule:
8:30 Coffee and Registration at St. Michael’s Church House

8:45 Welcome and Introduction

9:00 Randall Jimerson: Keynote Address: /Archives and Memory/
Randall Jimerson is Professor of History and Director of the Graduate 
Program in Archives and Records Management, Western Washington 
University, Bellingham, Washington. He is a Fellow and past President of 
the Society of American Archivists.

10:00 Tom Denenberg: /Wallace Nutting and the Invention of Old //America///
Thomas Denenberg is Chief Curator of the Portland Museum of Art in 
Portland, Maine. While Curator of Decorative Arts at the Wadsworth 
Atheneum Museum of Art, he published /Wallace Nutting and the Invention 
of Old //America//./
/ /
11:00 Briann Greenfield:/ From Heirlooms to Aesthetic Objects: The 
American Antiques Market and the Construction of a National Heritage/
Briann Greenfield is Assistant Professor of American History and Public 
History Program Coordinator at Central Connecticut State University. She 
wrote her dissertation on public memory in Salem, Deerfield, Providence 
and the Smithsonian Institution.

11:45 Lunch

12:30 Margaret Piatt: /George Washington was Shorter Back Then: How 
Visitors Experience History/
Margaret Piatt has over over twenty years experience in museum 
interpretation and education. She spent eleven years in the Museum 
Education Department at Old Sturbridge Village working as a museum 
teacher, assistant director and associate director. She became an 
independent consultant in 1996.

1:30 Lynne Brickley: /Emily Noyes Vanderpoel and the Shaping of 
Litchfield’s Revolutionary Past/
Lynne Brickley received her Ed.D. from the Havard Graduate School of 
Education. Her dissertation, “Sarah Pierce’s Litchfield Female Academy” 
laid the groundwork for the LHS’s exhibit /“To Ornament Their Minds”: 
Sarah Pierce’s //Litchfield// //Female// //Academy/.

2:30 Timothy Compeau: /Forgotten Villains and Invented Saints: The 
Social Memory of Loyalists in //Ontario// and //Connecticut///
Timothy Compeau is Curator of Gananoque Museum Collections in Gananoque, 
Canada. He has spent several years studying Joel Stone, a loyalist who 
fled Connecticut and became a celebrated citizen of Gananoque, the 
Canadian town he founded.

3:30 Reception at the Litchfield History Museum

For additional information about speakers and their topics, please visit 
http://www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org/PDF/Details.pdf

For information about the Litchfield Historical Society, please visit 
http://www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org

Sponsoring Organizations:
The Litchfield Historical Society is a private nonprofit organization 
founded in 1856 to collect, preserve, and interpret the history of 
Litchfield, Connecticut. The Society operates the Litchfield History 
Museum, seven galleries of decorative and fine arts arranged to tell the 
community’s history; the Tapping Reeve House and Law School, the site of 
America’s first law school (1784-1833); and the Helga J. Ingraham 
Memorial Library, which contains research and archival collections. The 
Litchfield Historical Society is accredited by the American Association 
of Museums.

The Connecticut Humanities Council is an independent, publicly-supported 
foundation, established in 1973 as the state program of the National 
Endowment for the Humanities. The Council’s Professional Development 
grants support conferences, seminars, workshops, publications and other 
opportunities for museum professionals and Connecticut historians to 
engage in critical dialogue about issues of scholarship, museum 
practices, and the interpretation of Connecticut heritage.

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