Daylight Practice Air Raid

One of my favorite sources for historical content and context are diaries. Madeline L. Wells lived in Danielson, Connecticut, when she kept a diary that recently came into the collection here at CHS. She was about 22 in 1943 and kept a meticulous record of the major news stories of the day, all recorded in clear block print. For example, on Tuesday, April 20, 1943, she noted that Adolph Hitler’s 59^th birthday was celebrated with “little enthusiasm” by the German people and that the British Army continued its advance toward Tunis. Only rarely do we get an idea of her personal activities.

A Connecticut “Monuments Man”

A “Monuments Man,” Captain Deane Keller, ca. 1944. Deane Keller Papers Yale University

Over the past year there has been any number of news accounts concerning artwork apparently seized by the Nazis during their occupation of Europe in World War II. Adolph Hitler and Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering were particularly rapacious in this regard. Recently a large collection of paintings and other works believed to have been taken during the war turned up in a private German collection, sending investigators and attorneys scrambling to sort out the mess.

More Than One Man’s Story

A boyish William J. Quish, Jr. wears his new Army Air Force uniform during a visit to Hartford, probably 1941

As a museum curator I am of course interested in the big picture, the sweep of events that bear on us all to one extent or the other. But the stories of individuals also have an undeniable lure, because sometimes in the story of one person we can better understand some of the larger forces at work.