By: Emma Sternloff (History major, Class of 2013)

My visit to the Connecticut Historical Society Research Center with Professor Wickman and Francis Russo offered a unique opportunity to connect with my thesis subject. I’m writing about James Hammond Trumbull, a nineteenth-century scholar and the first librarian of the Watkinson Library, and his study of Native American history and language. Trumbull was a polymath, interested in everything from botany to bibliography, but he had a particular passion for Connecticut’s colonial past. Accordingly, he was an enthusiastic member of the Connecticut Historical Society, joining the organization in 1847 and serving as president from 1863 to 1889. Given Trumbull’s long-standing connection to the CHS, I had high hopes for the archives, and I was not disappointed. I came across several Civil War-era letters written to Trumbull in his capacity as Connecticut’s Secretary of State.

Even after spending several summer days combing through Yale’s voluminous Trumbull papers, it was the first correspondence I had come across that illuminated this aspect of Trumbull’s life and times. However, my most exciting discovery in the CHS papers was a three-way series of letters between Trumbull, W.D. Whitney, and George Gibbs. All three men were involved in the Smithsonian’s efforts to collect and catalogue the languages of America’s indigenous peoples. The letters offer fascinating insight into Trumbull’s views on the linguistic project and the co-existence of scholarly competition and camaraderie; they also showcase Trumbull’s sharp wit and flair for prose. I believe that these discoveries are only the beginning, and I look forward to visiting the CHS archives again.