The New Canaan Museum & Historical Society’s new exhibition TALKING SHOP explores New Canaan’s long and rich retail history. It highlights many of the stores in New Canaan from the 19th century to the mid-1970s. The exhibition features the independent and family owned shops that have been the backbone of this community for generations. Curator, antique dealer and former New Canaan shop owner, Patricia Funt Oxman will lead Gallery Discussions on the following dates: Thursday, January 30 – 10:30 am, Tuesday, February 18 – 2:00 pm and Saturday, March 21 – 10:30 am. The exhibition and Gallery Discussions are free to members ($5.00 all others.) The show runs through April 18.
This week on 0684-Radi0, our free weekly podcast (subscribe here in the iTunes Store), we talk to Nancy Geary, executive director of the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society. Here are recent episodes of 0684-Radi0:
The New Canaan Museum & Historical Society and the New Canaan Library present “An Evening with Michael Waldman – The Bill of Rights: A History of the Second Amendment.” This lecture, the second in a six-part series on the Constitution, explores the history of the right to keep and bear arms and what that Amendment means in the 21st Century. Michael Waldman is president of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. A nonpartisan law and policy institute that focuses on improving systems of democracy and justice, the Brennan Center is a leading national voice on voting rights, money in politics, criminal justice reform, and constitutional law. Waldman, a constitutional lawyer and writer who is an expert on the presidency and American democracy, has led the Center since 2005. He is the author of numerous books, including The Second Amendment: A Biography.
The New Canaan Museum & Historical Society’s new exhibition TALKING SHOP explores New Canaan’s long and rich retail history. It highlights many of the stores in New Canaan from the 19th century to the mid-1970s. The exhibition features the independent and family owned shops that have been the backbone of this community for generations. The show shares the stories of these local shops through photographs, ephemera and artifacts. Stores such as Silliman’s Hardware that closed its doors in 1981 after 114 years of business and had everything from a tractor to a toaster, and the Whitney Shop, which opened after World War II, and at first sold vegetables and teapots.
One of New Canaan’s most venerable nonprofit organizations is running at a significant deficit, concerning some in town government, officials said last week. Asked about the New Canaan Historical Society’s financial situation during a Board of Selectmen meeting held Dec. 17 at Town Hall, the organization’s executive director, Nancy Geary, said its projected deficient this year is about $60,000. “We are a member-supported organization,” Geary said in response to a question from Selectman Nick Williams. “I apply for as many grants as I can find. Oftentimes the one thing about grants, though, is that they’re for very specific projects, so it’s hard to find general operating grants.
