I spent time searching through Connecticut Archives Online (CAO) database from the comfort of my favorite nook within Trinity College Library’s vast collection. CAO brings researchers like myself to important and rich collections of primary source materials held in Connecticut libraries, universities, museums, historical societies. It proved invaluable in my search for a 19th-century, “middle-class” woman who resided in Hartford. My hope is she will provide my reader a counter perspective, within the landscape of the vidual arts, to one of Hartord’s richest, social circle member Elizabeth Colt.
In my search that included key words like “women,” “art,” “hartford,” within the date range1840 to 1895, specific women names did not come up, however, a repository of archives of the Seymour Family did. The vast number of papers, spanning the years 1711 to 1969, include the daily lives and social customs of intellectually and socially prominent members; teachers, lawyers, two Yale presidents and a sculptor. The scope of these papers also include “childbearing and the roles of women.”
One member, married into the Seymour family, is Hartford born Elizabeth Day. “Born February 16, 1816, the second of the eight children of Thomas and Sarah Coit Day, Elizabeth attended a series of private schools, including Catherine Beecher’s Female Seminary. On September 7, 1841, she married Nathan Perkins Seymour, and in the years that followed they had four children: Charles (1843), Sarah Day (1845), Thomas Day (1848), and Harriet, who was born March 27, 1856, and lived for only two days. For fifty years Elizabeth made her home in Hudson, Ohio, though each year she made an extended trip to Hartford. When Western Reserve College moved to Cleveland (1881), Nathan was often away for days and weeks at a time, and Elizabeth, who found herself in a large empty house, became increasingly lonely and ill. In 1891 she and Nathan moved to join son Thomas in New Haven, but Nathan died within a few months. In the years following his death Elizabeth was often bedridden. She died September 7, 1900. She is buried in Grove Hill Cemetery in New Haven.”
The repository of papers for Elizabeth is in the archival collection at Yale University. I have set up an account and will be requesting an appointment to physical hold and read through papers associated with her life. I am so excited to learn about her and her upbringing in Hartford. Who did she associate with? How did her education at Hartford Female Seminary shape her intellect? And in what ways did art find its way into her life, from within the domestic sphere to museums and beyond.