Organizations to be Recognized for Work Highlighting Connecticut History

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Connecticut organizations that focus on aspects of the state’s history will be receiving 2021 Awards of Merit from the Connecticut League of History Organizations (CLHO), at a virtual awards on Tuesday, April 20, at 4:00 p.m. Awards are typically given to recognize projects, education programs, publications and individual achievements. 

Among those being recognized for their programs are:

  • Connecticut Democracy Center at Connecticut's Old State House (Connecticut History Day Virtual Contest)

  • Connecticut Historical Society (The Work Must Be Done: Women of Color and the Right to Vote)

  • East Haddam Historical Society (Saving Land, Saving History)

  • Greenwich Historical Society (An Unfinished Revolution: The Woman's Suffrage Centennial)

  • Keeler Tavern Museum and History Center, Ridgefield (SISTERS Project)

  • Madison Historical Society (Turning the Tide: Madison and COVID-19)

  • Weston Historical Society (Outdoor Historic Interpretive Signage)

  • The Westport Library (Westport's Suffragists—Our Neighbors, Our Crusaders: The 19th Amendment Turns 100)

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The full slate of award recipients will be announced on April 20. The virtual event is free with RSVP and is open to CLHO members and non-members.  Anyone who wishes to celebrate the award recipients is welcome to attend the event. Sign up is available on the CLHO website.

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Last fall, in response to “renewed calls for reckoning with America’s racial history,” CLHO indicated it “needs to do more at all levels of the organization—including programming, membership, and board composition—to ensure that we represent and support the history of all of Connecticut, not just of those who have traditionally been represented in museums and historic sites.”

Among the priorities established for 2021 are:

  • Expanding understanding of the CLHO audience to include people who “do history” in places like cultural, religious, community or ethnic organizations, as well as in traditional history organizations and institutions of higher education.

  • Enlarging the scope of the CLHO Membership Committee to include outreach to people and organizations not currently part of our membership.

  • Conducting a research project to identify cultural, ethnic, or religious organizations in Connecticut with whom CLHO should consider engaging, in keeping with their mission of serving and supporting small organizations.

  • Partnering on programming and outreach with organizations who are already engaged with Black, Latinx, and other histories, and addressing longer-term diversity in the history field by working with students

  • Focusing more programming on “underrepresented histories” to increase our constituents’ knowledge base and to highlight effective projects around the state.

The mission of the Connecticut League of History Organizations is to “strengthen the work of those who preserve and share the stories and objects of Connecticut’s past.”  Administrative offices are located on the campus of Central Connecticut State University in New Britain.