[Posted by Jennifer Sharp M’11, a Project Archivist with the Watkinson Library]

A few months ago the Watkinson was fortunate to receive the papers of Charles P. Wells. The image shows the contents of one of the boxes of material when I started working on it. Now, after an initial pass through the entire collection, all the papers have been unfolded and placed in folders.

Objects that came with the collection are currently in a separate box.

The next task is to make sure the papers are organized in a way that will make sense to researchers, and will help them find information that is pertinent to their work. What seems to make the most sense is to group them in three series: personal papers, business papers, and papers pertaining to the extended Wells family.

After all the papers have been organized, I will put together a guide to the collection. Called a finding aid, it is like a table of contents for the collection. This will be available online, and anyone who would like to study Charles P. Wells will be welcome to research the collection.

Over the course of the next few posts, I will detail some of the items in the collection to give you an understanding as to what is available, and what you can learn about Wells and his life here in Hartford.