Minnah

No matter how many I see, I still get the chills when reading and handling a bill of sale for a person.  We recently purchased at auction just such a document.  Benjamin Payne of Hartford sold a Negro Woman named Minnah to Samuel Forbes of Canaan for fifty-two pounds, ten shillings.  This particular bill of sale caught our attention because Samuel Forbes, of the iron manufacturing firm Forbes & Adam, freed his slaves sometime around the Revolution, and his account books (which was recently acquired) are filled with customers he identified as “Negro”, individuals who were obviously freemen.  One cannot help but wonder why Forbes had such a dramatic change of heart about owning human beings in an apparently short span of time.

Librarians and War Bond Workers

While perusing an unprocessed collection last week, I came upon a fascinating pamphlet published by the War Finance Committee.  Its title is “A New Way for Librarians and War Bond Workers to help their communities help their country win the War.”  Connecticut is used as one of the examples of how the program works.

“Public libraries in Connecticut, working with the State War Finance Committee, demonstrated that libraries could play an important part in the War Finance Program.  New professional and educational groups were reached through the libraries; and librarians, because of their special place and prestige in a community, made the best possible type of War Bond appeal to such groups.  Friends of the libraries and library trustees helped libraries win important literary awards for their communities.”

What struck me most was the statement the librarians hold a special place and prestige in the community.  Sometimes I am not sure we are held in the same esteem today.  I also found it a bit amusing that librarians were equated with war bond workers!

This publication and other documents related to suffrage and women’s role in World War II are part of a collection about Ruth Dadourian, a remarkable woman for her time.  A catalog record will be on the OPAC shortly.

Iron industry in Litchfield County

There are so many topics for research in this collection, I don’t know where to start. We just acquired 48 account books that belonged to John Adam and Samuel Forbes, both individually and as the partnership Forbes & Adam. These two men were instrumental in developing the iron industry around East Canaan, Connecticut. Adam lived in Taunton, Mass. before moving to East Canaan where he married Samuel Forbes’ daughter. Forbes and Adam owned interest in several ore mines, a sawmill and a paper mill, a slitting mill, a “nailery” and a general (company?) store. The volumes we have date from 1748-1875.

Many of the entries in the ledgers include not only the person’s name but his occupation and town of residence as well. Some of the occupations mentioned are ore digger, ore carter, anchor maker, bloomer and iron turner. Those customers of African heritage are so noted in the volumes. There is a volume entitled “Woman’s book”, a ledger that put me in mind of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s book Goodwives in that women, who are almost entirely identified by their relationship to men, paid their bills by nursing, spinning, making butter, and making and mending clothes.

The volume marked “Real Estate” includes notes about building a forge in Norfolk, 1760; to paying John Forbes for his 999-year lease of 1/32 of Salisbury Ore Hill; and the purchase of one whole right in the Susquehanna Purchase. Other entries give a fascinating look at the extent the iron industry impacted northwestern Connecticut–buying land for cord wood, investing in ore mines, hiring agents, investment in turnpikes, and on and on.

I got very frustrated reading through these accounts when I saw what I termed “scribbles” made by Charles S. Adam on the blank pages of the early volumes. However, I finally realized that, although he defaced the “sacred” 18th century volumes, he noted his financial transactions, local births and deaths, and national events such as the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. There is a lot to be mined from Charles’ scribbles with further examination. I have learned to not be so hasty in my judgments.

This collection is a rich resource we sincerely hope the scholarly community will mine.

Pomfret helps a prisoner of war

Things have been a bit hectic here as we reorganize the operation of the library and museum, and our accessions have not been as fast and furious as usual.  However, we did purchase in December a fascinating document related to a Revolutionary War prisoner.  Evidently William Dodd, of Falmouth, Maine, who had been held prisoner in New York and had finally been release, fell ill while traveling through Pomfret.  The town provided medical expenses, room and board for Dodd from August 1781 to January 1872.  They indicate they also had expenses for “carrying him out of the state.”  The town’s Selectmen and a Justice of the Peace sent a request to the Governor and Council of Connecticut for reimbursement for the town’s expenses of just over 15 pounds. It is this document that recently came into our possession and provides an interesting insight into the travails of former prisoners and the culture of assisting soldiers, even in a small rural town.

An Auerbach Family Christmas

During the holiday season, Beatrice Fox Auerbach sent out Christmas cards as was the custom at the time, a practice that is widely continued to this day. In our collection of Fox materials, we have a scrapbook that contains the Christmas cards she sent to friends and associates between 1929 and 1966. All of the cards were specially designed and featured subjects like her home on 1040 Prospect Avenue, her dogs, Auerfarm, and, in the later years, her grandchildren. The formats of the cards started off quite simple, but increased in complexity and creativity over the years. Pictured below is a sampling of a few of my favorites.

This one, from 1931, shows Mrs. Auerbach’s home on Prospect Avenue as well as her two dogs. The inside reads “Wishes you A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year”

Auerfarm is the subject of this card from 1945. The inside message reads, “To you and your dear ones - a very happy Christmas and all the goodness of life. Let us hope that peace now begun will spread its blessings more and more confidently into the New Year. With warmest greeting and much good cheer, Beatrice Fox Auerbach, Hartford Connecticut, December 1945″

This 1950 Christmas card was one of the first to depict Mrs. Auerbach’s grandchildren. After 1950, however, the majority of her Christmas cards featured her grandchildren in some way.

Christmas at Fox’s

Beatrice Fox Auerbach may have been Jewish, but she was also an exceptionally adept businesswoman and, as such, catered to her mostly-Christian clientèle by turning her store into a virtual wonderland every Christmas season. The children’s department was transformed into Toyland, much to the delight of children all over Connecticut. And, of course, Santa Claus was there, beginning the day after Thanksgiving, so that every little girl and boy could be sure to tell him exactly what they wanted to be waiting under the tree on Christmas morning.

However, the most memorable aspect of Christmas at G. Fox & Co. has to be the store’s marquee, which was decorated complete with lights during almost every holiday season. For several years, the marquee consisted of the Christmas village with accurate replicas of many of Connecticut’s most important historic buildings. Pictured below is the scene of the Connecticut village from the brochure that G. Fox & Co. produced as a guide to the historic buildings on the store’s marquee.

The buildings reproduced on the marquee that year (1959) were:

1. The Green Homestead in South Windsor
2. The Osbert Burr Loomis House in Windsor
3. The Joseph Webb home in Wethersfield
4. The Litchfield Congregational Church in Litchfield
5. The Noah Webster Home in West Hartford
6. The Nathan Hale Homestead in South Coventry

While the Christmas Village was by far the most popular display, there were others as well. During the energy crisis of the early 1970s, the marquee was decorated, but did not have its traditional light display. At other times, festive scenes took the place of the Christmas Village, whose buildings had to be restored or replaced several times due to the destructive forces of the winter weather.

Shay’s Rebellion in Connecticut

An obscure bit of New England and constitutional history recently came into our collections. Colonel David Humphreys of Connecticut was charged with raising a small army to suppress Shay’s Rebellion in Massachusetts. In a letter to Governor Samuel Huntington, dated December 18, 1786, Humphreys informed the governor “of all the resignations which have taken place, together with the names of such persons as might be proper to fill their vacancies.” Captains Clift and Robinson, Lieutenant Hart and Ensign Keeler “declined accepting their appointments. After making unsuccessful overtures to Captain Rogers, Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Mix,” Humphreys asked for Huntington’s permission to recruit Captain Moses Cleveland of Canterbury, Lieutenant Joseph Wilcox (then in service at West Point) to be a Captain, Mr. Russel Bissel of Windsor to be Lieutenant and Mr. John Thomson to be Ensign.

Humphreys further reported that “Tho’ no public money has been advanced, several officers have made considerable progress in enlisting men. About twenty recruits have arrived . . . [and] I made arrangements with Colo. Wadsworth to furnish them with all necessary supplies.”

Shay’s rebellion was an armed uprising in western Massachusetts from 1786-1787. The rebels, led by farmer and former soldier Daniel Shays, were mostly small farmers angered by crushing debt and high land taxes. Congress, operating under the Articles of Confederation, called for armed troops to suppress the uprising but had no power to recruit the men or pay them. Massachusetts managed to mobilize a privately financed army and eventually defeated the rebels on February 3, 1787. Connecticut was the only other state to respond, but obviously not without some effort and eventually without result. The small Connecticut force was never needed.

Look Who’s in the News!

As a premier in Hartford’s world of retailing, G. Fox & Co., and those at its helm, frequently made headlines. Many of these stories have been preserved in scrapbooks of newspaper clippings. In most cases, clippings concerning the store were kept in separate scrapbooks from those concerning the family, but there is some overlap.

A few of the scrapbooks act as memorials to Beatrice Fox Auerbach’s husband, George S. Auerbach. In these volumes, there are letters of condolences from area organizations in addition to the newspaper clippings of his obituary as it appeared in several different papers, including Salt Lake City publications.

The scrapbooks about G. Fox & Co. include articles from 1931-1968, almost the entirety of Beatrice Fox Auerbach’s presidency. There are even scrapbooks that were specifically created to house many the newspaper articles that resulted after the G. Fox & Co./May Co. merger.

If you’re just beginning to research G. Fox & Co. or if you’re looking for information about a specific event in Fox’s history, these scrapbooks are an excellent place to start. Additional newspaper articles can also be found in the collection. These articles are either duplicated in the scrapbooks or never made it into one, but are also a great resource for background information about G. Fox & Co. as well as members of the Fox family, particularly Beatrice Fox Auerbach and her father, Moses Fox.

The Tobé Award

In 1947, the same year that G. Fox & Co. celebrated its centennial, Beatrice Fox Auerbach was honored with one of retail’s most prestigious awards. At the 13th Annual Tobé Bosses Dinner, the fifth annual Tobé Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Retailing was bestowed upon Mrs. Auerbach “for demonstrating that a department store can and must exert a positive social force in its community.”

Beatrice Fox Auerbach, in her acceptance speech, said in part, “To be singled out by one whom I have so long esteemed as a woman in business, and so deeply regarded as a friend, as worthy to receive an award that bears her name is one of those rare experience in a lifetime that one cherishes and remembers. I accept it proudly, aware of the high standards by which its recipients are chosen. Yet my pride is tempered with humility. Whatever I may have done to be named for this distinction is not mine alone. It is but part of a heritage from the past, a partnership with the present, and a trusteeship for the future.” (More of the speech appears at the end of the post.)

The Tobé Award was considered to be the highest honor one could achieve in the field of retail and had previously been bestowed upon such prestigious individuals as Walter Hoving and Dorothy Shaver of Lord and Taylor, Adam L. Gimbel of Saks Fifth Avenue, H. Stanley Marcus of Neiman-Marcus, and Walter H. Rich of Rich’s in Atlanta. For Beatrice Fox Auerbach to be awarded such a distinction reflects greatly upon her importance in the world of retailing during the better part of the 20th century.

The image to the left depicts the letter from then-President of the Connecticut Historical Society, Edgar Waterman, who offers his own message of congratulations on behalf of the Society. This letter was one among dozens from institutions, businesses, and personal friends of Mrs. Auerbach that were included in the book, “A Tribute to Beatrice Fox Auerbach, Tobé Award Winner for 1947.” Telegram messages also fill the pages as do clippings of newspaper articles concerning the awards ceremony.

Richard Koopman Joins the Fox Family

On June 21, 1940, Richard Koopman became a member of the Fox/Auerbach family when he married Beatrice Fox Auerbach’s daughter, Georgette Auerbach. Two years later, on October 18, 1942, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Corps. In 1946, after being discharged from the service, Richard Koopman became a member of another Fox family when he began working for his mother-in-law at G. Fox & Co.

Among his materials in the collection, there is a training booklet, specially prepared to introduce Mr. Koopman to the store. The booklet contains a daily schedule that includes training assignments for his first six weeks of employment, divided into two categories: salescheck system & sales training and non-selling training. Because of the depth of this training program, it is possible to obtain from it a basic understanding of the responsibilities of each department.

Mr. Koopman continued working at G. Fox & Co. for several years until his retirement in 1979. During his thirty-three year tenure at the store, he served as both store president (from 1967-1969) and vice-chairman (from 1969-1979). In this way, he continued the family tradition of long-term service to the department store following in the steps of his mother-in-law, Beatrice Fox Auerbach and her father and grandfather, Moses and Gerson Fox, who devoted a total of 132 years (41, 58, and 33, respectively) to building and managing G. Fox & Co., Hartford’s largest department store.