Dan Antion

Connecticut History – #ThursdayDoors

Museum entrance.

A week ago, I visited the Connecticut Historical Society Museum and Library. As I mentioned on Monday, I went to see maps, but, well, you know – it’s a museum. Old things. In abundance. I need a little more time to piece together some of what I saw, but one thing is certain – some of those things have doors.

This post is part of Norm Frampton’s wonderfully fun blog series, Thursday Doors. Each week, Norm gathers doors from door lovers around the world. They bring their doors o Norm’s place and they share them. If you want to see their doors, and Norm’s doors, head on up to Norm’s place.

I’ve tried my best to describe the structures and artifacts in the gallery captions. Please enjoy and thanks for dropping by.

There’s a door in there, but I would have included this on anyway, just for the stairway.
This doorway leads from the living room of the house, which is dedicated to information about the home’s original owner, into the museum.
This is an exhibit highlighting Connecticut’s early alcohol industry. If you zoom in, there’s a door at the bottom of the photo in the background.
Simple doors, but this was my destination.
Exterior of the museum. This was a private residence.
The museum is located in the house of one of Connecticut’s industrial pioneers. The interior woodwork is amazing.
Not what we expect, but it’s an early American door.
Every tall clock has a door. This one is beautiful.
Cast iron wood stove. I think my wife would enjoy cooking on this.
Those two arched glass panels are actually doors. I like this because it’s hard to get the proportions right when you put multiple arched doors inside an arched frame.
One of the early electric stoves
“Tavern Signs” – There’s a hint about an upcoming post.
Of course, I’m following the arrow on that red sign.

78 comments

  1. Great images, Dan. The cast iron wood stove brought back lots of memories. For a few months about 50 years ago, I lived in a cabin in Canada that had a woodburning stove. I came to love the stove, though baking was an adventure. :)

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    • I can only imagine the effort involved in baking something in one of those stoves, Gwen., I’m glad you enjoyed this. Cooking seems relatively straight forward – we’ve had to make coffee on our (for heat) wood stove during power outages, but something that calls for a precise temperature for a precise time? I’m not sure how that works.

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  3. Wonderful images Dan. Loved that electric stove. I remember a similar one in my Grandmother’s home, although she also had a big coal stove. I suspect the electric stove was a later model, although they look similar. Do we know what year you’re talking about here? Also, love the muted colours in some of the photographs. Looks like a fascinating place.

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    • Thanks Don. The museum is a fun place to visit. A lot of what is on display are items that were invented or made in Connecticut.

      I think the stove dates to the late 1920s. It’s hard to know for sure, as the exhibits covered ranges of dates (and I was moving fast, ahead of a school group).

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  5. You hit a jackpot today, Dan. The first, I ignored the door, because the staircase is a show-stopper!! But then I saw the grand, wooden entryway – to top that off, I feel in love with the cast-iron stove!

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  7. Love the cast iron wood stove, and the electric stove is a beauty too. That staircase is a show stopper, and so is the door. Very interesting place, and so beautifully maintained. Thanks for the nice tour.
    🐾Ginger 🐾

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    • I’m glad you enjoyed this quick tour, Ginger. The stoves were amazing, but the woodwork really caught my eye. This was a private house – I can only imagine growing up and playing on that staircase.

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      • I know that these kind of exhibits inspire a sense of nostalgia with folks of our age. I wonder how the school kids view them–probably as ancient history. (By the way, I think a glitch happened in the text of the third sentence of the second paragraph.)

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        • Thanks for pointing that out, Mike. That’s when my fingers get ahead of my brain. This was such a short post, I didn’t ask my wife to proofread it.

          I can only imagine what school children think of these displays. I was able to hear some of the questions they were asking about very early life in New England, but I had pulled ahead of them when we got here. The museum is pretty cool. They have activities the kids can do, like changing a bobbin on a textile knitting machine, or sewing tobacco leaves, or wearing some historic outfits.

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  11. Hmmm auditorium or pub, auditorium or pub, … pub. Now a note to who ever decided to use a yellow sign set on the diamond orientation. You would think a museum staff would know that is used to designate caution. Or did one too many crowds hit Guinness book record levels packing the coat room ? curiouser and couriouser…

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  12. I do love my own cast iron cook stove. When I was younger, it resided in my grandma’s cabin on the property, and every Thanksgiving for many years she would cook the turkey in it. Best turkey I’ve ever had! (The stove is beyond dirty to keep though. It’s the one thing I can’t stand about it being in my kitchen now. It’s very difficult to add wood without it letting smoke into the room, and I’m constantly cleaning black fly ash — it’s messy to have one!)

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    • I was waiting for this comment, Wendy. You’re the only person I know who has one. I’m too busy trying to imagine how good that turkey was to worry about the ash. I would guess that adding wood would be a smokey affair. We have to be careful with the damper/vent settings on our wood stove to prevent smoke from entering the room. Well, my wife has to be careful, she controls the fire.

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  16. That staircase is beautiful! The old wood stove and early electric one are just lovely to look at, but cooking on the wood-burning one was work! I knew woman years, and years ago that had one. I helped prepare a few meals with her using it, but oh how it warmed the house in winter! I loved that, but it would be awful in the summer.

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    • Thanks Deborah. I can imagine how that kitchen felt (and smelled) in the winter. My grandmother kept an old stove, very similar to the electric model, in her basement so she could do things like canning in the summer without heating up the house.

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  18. Certain things come to mind when I looked through your photos twice. The doors are great, all of them, and the craftsmanship just shines through. I couldn’t help but be reminded of how skilled our ancestors were without the tools of today. I was also reminded of how creative they were in looking at the very early rounded home. They were made of strong stuff. :-)

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    • Thanks Judy. I thing the craftsmanship and attention to detail in the building and in the items on display are what I find appealing. I started thinking about how/which items from our “era” might be displayed in future museums.

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  19. In-doors are doors, too, Dan, and you got some good ones here. Today as we get a bit of snow (Chicagoans get crazy over such a small amount of snow!!!), that cast iron stove looks quite attractive. The staircase is beautiful. My grandmother cooked on a wood-burning stove that looked much like the electric one you show here, although by the time I was old enough to know much about it, she had a regular stove, although she kept the other one as well.

    janet

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    • Thanks Janet. The stove doors have been popular today. My grandmother had an early electric stove, like the one on display. We had relatives in Virginia that had a wood-burning stove. Every time I see one of those stoves, I think I must think about the people I knew who used them.

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  20. Great post, Dan! And I thought it to be very different then your norm. Just really enjoyed the gallery. That electric stove triggered a memory I did not know I had. My Grandmother who died when I was 7, used to have a stove very similar to this one in her home. Now that is going back a long time! I have so many good memories from that home. The smells, what I saw, and how I felt all came rushing back when I saw that stove here. Thank you!! My Grandmother was the world to a little girl Amy.

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  21. Love the staircase, as well as the green framed door. Yeah, it would be neat to try out these old fashioned stoves. they look so quaint. My strategy of getting to your blog with a different blog theme is working. No troubel, yay!

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    • Thanks Teagan. I like these doors. I admire how these craftsmen paid so much attention to the way these things looked as well as the way they operated. This was a good day. I hope yours was, too.

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  26. Love your doors. I so enjoy looking for doors as I’m traveling, it gives you a different perspective. Example – Instead of seeing the same palace everyone is looking at, I find myself peering at the fancy door hinges I noticed when photographing the door! Thanks for sharing your museum doors.

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  30. I love the wooden panels/doors the best. And the — I’m going to say Mississippian — home with the open doorway. As dirty as our basement wood-burner made the whole house, I hate to think what a kitchen cook stove would kick out, or how it would irritate my sinuses and tendency to bronchitis. But there’s no heat as cozy as wood heat, or food as delicious as wood-cooked food.

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    • The interior of this house was amazing, Marian. It would be worth the admission price to tour the empty building. They offer a “behind the scenes tour” periodically. I need to sign up for one of those. A kitchen wood-fired stove would be a challenge, but it might feel good in the winter.

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  34. Oh, Early American electric stove! What a joy that would be! Like being at grandma’s house. Why don’t they bring those back? They could at least imitate the style. At the very least. Wood stoves are beautiful, but the dust, Ah-choo!
    Early American door doesn’t seem to fit, but I concur, it is accurate and therefore suitable.

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