Grant to Help Hartford Look Back to the Future

The Hartford History Center at Hartford Public Library was recently awarded an $18,830 National Film Preservation Foundation grant to restore and digitize a collection of early 20th-century films by radio pioneer, inventor, and Hartford resident Hiram Percy Maxim.

The films, which will be available on the Connecticut Digital Archive within the next year, feature Maxim and his wife, along with their family and friends.

Hartford is recorded in many ways, including footage of flooding in November 1927 and the view from the city’s first air mail plane. Maxim, according to the website ConnecticutHistory.org, “earned patents for his inventions in automotive design, noise abatement, and other fields. Also a passionate hobbyist, he left his mark on early aviation and wireless radio.”

Maxim’s broadly recognized achievements, ConnecticutHistory.org points out, “brought fame to Hartford, where he made his home from 1899 until his death in 1936.”  Among his noteworthy achievements was a role in the start of the American Radio Relay League, the national association for amateur radio, which to this day has its national headquarters in nearby Newington.

Maxim was born in Brooklyn, New York, and first came to Hartford in the 1890’s to work for the Pope Manufacturing Company, helping design the Columbia electric motor carriage. He later founded his own firm, creating the Maxim Silencer for firearms and adapting the technology to be used in early automobile mufflers.

The Hartford History Center at the Downtown Library, is located at 500 Main Street, Hartford. (The Downtown Library is temporarily closed due to water damage.)