SILENT GROUNDS COLLECTIVE · A NONPROFIT EDUCATIONAL ARCHIVEVisit SGC
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SILENT GROUNDS COLLECTIVE · THE CONNECTICUT ARCHIVE

Connecticut,
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Familiar streets. Forgotten places. The people who made them.
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1,180 images · 162 collections · All 8 counties

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THE COLLECTION CATALOG

Find your place in history.

162 collections

162 collections

Counties follow the historical geographic boundaries used in these records.

Factory A: Meriden Silver Plate Company · 1906Factory A: Meriden Silver Plate Company · 1906

COLLECTION 008Businesses

Meriden Silver

Meriden, Connecticut

Factory images and an illustrated 1883 trade catalog reveal the products, ordering systems and separate companies behind the Silver City.

Opening / first recorded · Meriden Silver Plate: 1869–1870 formation and operation

Beach Street at night, Savin Rock, Conn. · circa 1930–1945Beach Street at night, Savin Rock, Conn. · circa 1930–1945

COLLECTION 012Recreation & landscapes

Savin Rock

West Haven, Connecticut

Historic postcards, a stereoscopic photograph and an 1861 hotel menu follow the shoreline from resort grounds to crowded amusement streets.

Opening / first recorded · Memorial Day 1925 corporate park opening

Service building and floor plans · 1914Service building and floor plans · 1914

COLLECTION 015Hospitals & care

Undercliff Sanatorium

Meriden, Connecticut

Early building photographs, floor plans and state reports follow the hillside sanatorium and the development of its children’s program.

Opening / first recorded · Undercliff Association: November 15, 1907

Main Hospital, published 1888 · 1888Main Hospital, published 1888 · 1888

COLLECTION 017Hospitals & care

Connecticut Valley Hospital

Middletown, Connecticut

Read the founding act, early opening report and illustrated accounts of the hospital’s buildings, farm and daily operations.

Opening / first recorded · April 30, 1868: opening to male patients

Bridgeport: Ringling Bros. Circus Headquarters postcard · 1911 reported postmark; view undatedBridgeport: Ringling Bros. Circus Headquarters postcard · 1911 reported postmark; view undated

COLLECTION 024Entertainment and public life

Barnum & Bailey Circus: Bridgeport and New Haven

Bridgeport & New Haven, Connecticut

Bridgeport winter quarters and a documented New Haven circus day, told through nineteenth-century engravings, a touring poster, a postcard, and local newspaper evidence from June 1908.

Opening / first recorded · Local winter-quarters opening date not established

COLLECTION 034Businesses

Peschell’s Bakery

West Haven, Connecticut

Campbell Avenue’s family pastry shop, remembered for Italian breads, holiday pastries, and support of local baseball.

Opening / first recorded · 1946, according to the owner’s 2013 interview

Union School’s early buildings and school life · 1940Union School’s early buildings and school life · 1940

COLLECTION 039Schools

Union School

West Haven, Connecticut

The district’s earlier wooden schools, the 1890 brick Union School, and the building’s combined grammar- and high-school role.

Opening / first recorded · 1890 for the surviving brick building

COLLECTION 067Hospitals & institutions

Laurel Heights Sanatorium, Shelton

Shelton

A patient booklet and archival finding aid open a path into Shelton’s institutional health history.

Opening / first recorded · Twentieth-century tuberculosis institution

VIEW OF MIANUS RIVER RAILROAD BRIDGE LOOKING NORTHEAST FROM THE REMAINS OF THE COS COB POWER PLANT COALING DOCK. THE BRIDGE IS A ROLLING LIFT BASCULE TYPE BUILT IN 1894-1895. HAER CONN,1-GREWI,15A-21 · Jet Lowe / Historic American Engineering Record / Public domainVIEW OF MIANUS RIVER RAILROAD BRIDGE LOOKING NORTHEAST FROM THE REMAINS OF THE COS COB POWER PLANT COALING DOCK. THE BRIDGE IS A ROLLING LIFT BASCULE TYPE BUILT IN 1894-1895. HAER CONN,1-GREWI,15A-21 · Jet Lowe / Historic American Engineering Record / Public domain

COLLECTION 071Railways & transit

Mianus River Railroad Bridge

Greenwich

A movable bridge shows how rail traffic and navigation shared a constrained river crossing.

Opening / first recorded · 1904 railroad bridge

COLLECTION 078Shops & businesses

Hallock’s Furniture & Appliances

New Haven · West Haven · Branford

Advertisements and storefront photographs trace a retailer through downtown and later locations.

Opening / first recorded · Early 1920s origins reported

COLLECTION 079Shops & businesses

Carroll Cut-Rate Furniture

West Haven · New Haven

Allingtown’s furniture landmark, its earlier manufacturing life and the redevelopment that followed.

Opening / first recorded · Perfume business 1926; furniture from 1952

COLLECTION 081Hospitals & care

Hospital of Saint Raphael

New Haven

A Catholic hospital’s beginnings, expansion and later place within Yale–New Haven.

Opening / first recorded · 1907

COLLECTION 082Hospitals & care

Bridgeport Hospital & St. Vincent’s Image Records

Bridgeport

A hospital’s civic origins, its nursing school and a second institutional presence in the city’s postcard record.

Opening / first recorded · Bridgeport Hospital incorporated 1878; opened 1884

COLLECTION 096Military & civic buildings

Meriden Armory

Meriden

A monumental hall on East Main Street: military service and Meriden’s public gathering place.

Opening / first recorded · 1908

COLLECTION 097Military & civic buildings

West Haven Armory

West Haven

An Art Deco armory on Main Street, later adapted to a different kind of daily life.

Opening / first recorded · 1933 — recorded military service begins

COLLECTION 099People, freedom & civic life

New Haven Jail & the Fire of 1910

New Haven

Two jail sites and a deadly workshop fire: a history of confinement, work and loss.

Opening / first recorded · 1857 — Whalley Avenue jail occupied

COLLECTION 102Parks & historic lands

George Washington Trail

Wallingford · Durham · New Haven

Roads, taverns and bronze markers: following Washington’s journeys through Wallingford and Durham.

Opening / first recorded · 1932 — commemorative route markers

A Middletown punch service at the Centennial · Published 1876. Souvenir of the Centennial Exhibition (1876), p. 108; public-domain illustration; digital reproduction credited to Design Meriden / art design café.A Middletown punch service at the Centennial · Published 1876. Souvenir of the Centennial Exhibition (1876), p. 108; public-domain illustration; digital reproduction credited to Design Meriden / art design café.

COLLECTION 103Industry & working life

Middletown’s Silver Industries

Middletown · Meriden

Tableware, factory skills and a divided company history: the silver-plating businesses of Middletown.

Opening / first recorded · 1863–1864 — predecessor business; separate Silver Co. formed 1899

COLLECTION 133Storms & changing landscapes

The Middlesex shore and the hurricane of 1938

Old Saybrook · Westbrook · Clinton

Wind, coastal inundation and the storm’s imprint on the lower Connecticut River shore.

1938

COLLECTION 135Education & civic life

Wesleyan and Middletown: a changing campus

Middletown

College buildings, military training and the changing boundaries of access to education.

1850–1999

1.  Historic American Buildings Survey Joseph C. Berlepsch, Photographer March 23, 1934 NORTH EAST ELEVATION (FRONT) + SIDE - Richard Alsop House, Middletown, Middlesex County, CT · March 23, 19341. Historic American Buildings Survey Joseph C. Berlepsch, Photographer March 23, 1934 NORTH EAST ELEVATION (FRONT) + SIDE - Richard Alsop House, Middletown, Middlesex County, CT · March 23, 1934

COLLECTION 106Institutions & education

The Alsop House: a home becomes a place for art

Middletown

A High Street house links Middletown’s nineteenth-century domestic architecture with Wesleyan’s twentieth-century art collections. Period survey photographs bring its rooms and details into view.

1838–1952 and later

1.  VIEW, LOOKING SOUTH, SHOWING PROXIMITY OF RAILROAD DEPOT TO FREIGHT DEPOT - Hartford & New Haven Railroad, Depot, 35 Central Street, Windsor, Hartford County, CT · October 1985 (individual day not consistently specified in the caption index)1. VIEW, LOOKING SOUTH, SHOWING PROXIMITY OF RAILROAD DEPOT TO FREIGHT DEPOT - Hartford & New Haven Railroad, Depot, 35 Central Street, Windsor, Hartford County, CT · October 1985 (individual day not consistently specified in the caption index)

COLLECTION 107Railways, roads & rivers

Windsor’s railroad depots: passengers on one side, freight on the other

Windsor

Two neighboring railway buildings show how travel and commerce met in Windsor Center. The survey follows their façades, working spaces and relationship across the tracks.

c. 1865–20th century

1.  Historic American Buildings Survey (Fed.) Stanley P. Mixon, Photographer July 29, 1940 (B) EXTERIOR GENERAL VIEW FROM SHORE (EAST) END - Old Warehouse, Wethersfield, Hartford County, CT · July 29, 19401. Historic American Buildings Survey (Fed.) Stanley P. Mixon, Photographer July 29, 1940 (B) EXTERIOR GENERAL VIEW FROM SHORE (EAST) END - Old Warehouse, Wethersfield, Hartford County, CT · July 29, 1940

COLLECTION 109Places & community

Wethersfield in 1940: warehouse, meetinghouse and home

Wethersfield

A small group of federal photographs connects three different kinds of place: the Cove Warehouse, First Church of Christ and Simeon Belden House.

1890s–1962, with earlier context

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Research guide

Earlier editions: Town history research bundle · Health, transit and recreation bundle. Source links identify material held elsewhere; image credits explain dates and reuse terms.