Fascinating new history blog

If you love the mementos of history, check out The Vault, a new history blog on Slate. Here's how The Vault bills itself: 

Every weekday, we’ll publish one archival document or object of visual and historical interest. Here you’ll find carefully selected photographs, pamphlets, maps, buttons, toys, letters, ledgers, and the occasional lock of hair, along with a bit of explanation to give you some context for what you’re seeing. Just this week we’ll be looking at Benedict Arnold’s loyalty oath, a microscope set for girls of the 1950s, and a memo from a Nixon aide pleading with the president to call the Space Shuttle the Space Clipper instead.

So far, the postings have been amazing, especially this test color film that Kodak created in 1922:

A great Connecticut history blog

An absolute "must read" for anyone interested in our state's history is the Connecticut History blog published by the Connecticut Humanities Council. From the "today in history" posts to entries like a recent sampling of magazine ads run by Connecticut manufacturers during World War II, everything is interesting and well-written. There's nothing like day-in and day-out writing like this to help you appreciate the depth and variety of our history.

An excellent idea

On his WTIC-AM talk show this afternoon, Colin McEnroe offered a great idea for reviving downtown Hartford: build a museum dedicated to the written word. Sure, we're already building a science museum -- but so is every other city, he noted. A written-word museum would not only make Hartford unique, he said, but it would also allow the region to draw on its long heritage of great authors, like Mark Twain, Noah Webster, Wallace Stevens, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. McEnroe described a museum where visitors would learn about everything from the Gutenberg press to the latest developments in computing. He also spoke of making the building distinctive by designing it to look like a letter of the alphabet. That's fine too, but I'd be reluctant to enter a building shaped like the letter "V." Colin McEnroe's blog

New Blog Highlights Historic Buildings

If you're looking for photos and information on the Hartford area's most historic buildings, check out a blog called Historic Buildings of Connecticut, at historicbuildingsct.blogspot.com. It contains mini-profiles of dozens of buildings, including about 30 in Hartford.