The Great River; Art & Society of the Connecticut Valley, 1635-1820.

In 1985, the 350th anniversary of the first permanent settlement by Europeans of Connecticut and the river valley bearing that name, Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum staged an exhibition on the "Great River." It recognized that an important aspect of the historiography of New England: its cultural regions do not always coincide with its political regions. By bring various disciplines together for the first time, the Atheneum hoped to emphasize the cultural unity which characterized the region during its formative period. The exhibit and the research leading to it were the most comprehensive ever undertaken by the Museum. The exhibition represents an unusual approach to the study of the past, an approach inspired by several disciplines. The book and exhibition were conceived primarily as an effort to gain insight into the creations of Connecticut Valley's early artists, tradesmen, and mechanics. It depends on making the cultural context of these objects understood. For almost 100 years, the Connecticut Valley has been recognized as an area of regional culture by students of the arts and linguistics who have explored the overlapping distribution patterns of regional forms. The task is to explain why and for whom this regional style and aesthetics were created and by what methods they were disseminated. Approximately 370 objects were chosen from among 7,000 or more that were photographed during the course of field research preparatory to the exhibition.