Liberal Arts Blog —Connecticut (Part One) A Little Geography, A Little History, A Little Culture
Liberal Arts Blog — Sunday is the Joy of Humor, Food, Travel, Practical Life Tips, and Random Stuff Day
Today’s Topic: Connecticut (Part One) A Little Geography, a Little History, A Little Culture
Did you know that Connecticut is the third smallest state (after Rhode Island and Delaware) but, with a population of 3.6 million, the fourth most densely populated? Did you know that Bridgeport is its largest city? Do you know why it’s called the “Constitution State”? Did you know that Mark Twain wrote most of his best work in Hartford in a home rated one of the ten best historic homes in the world?
Have you ever lived in Connecticut? Did you grow up in Greenwich? Passed through? Did you go to Yale? the University of Connecticut? Connecticut College? Hotchkiss? Choate Rosemary Hall? What do you know about the state that the rest of us may not? Please share.
This is the 42nd post in a zigzagging cross-country tour of the United States. So far we’ve been to Biloxi, Mississippi, Mobile, Alabama, St. Louis, Missouri, and Madison, Wisconsin. We’ve been to Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. More recently we’ve been to Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New York, Georgia, Tennessee, Maryland, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Alaska, Hawaii, Oklahoma, Virginia, Rhode Island, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Ohio, Arkansas, and last time North Carolina.
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
GEOGRAPHY — A Suburb of New York City, the Connecticut River, Long Island Sound
1.Six of Connecticut’s seven largest cities are in the New York metropolitan area in the southwestern corner of the state.
2. Long Island Sound — 110 miles long, 21 miles at its widest point, from the East River and Throgs Neck Bridge in New York to the Block Island Sound. Depth from 65 to 230 feet.
3. Connecticut River bisects the state, runs through the capital of Hartford, and gave the state its name. The Connecticut River is the longest river in New England, at 406 miles and its watershed includes parts of five states and some of the most fertile farmland of the northeastern United States
NB: “Connecticut has a long maritime history and a reputation based on that history — yet the state has no direct oceanfront (technically speaking). The coast sits on Long Island Sound which is an estuary. The state’s access to the open Atlantic Ocean is both to the west (toward New York City) and to the east (toward the “race” near Rhode Island. Due to this unique geography, Long Island Sound and the Connecticut shoreline are relatively protected from high waves and from storms.”
“Despite Connecticut’s relatively small size, it features wide regional variations in landscape: for example in the northwestern Litchfield Hill, it features rolling mountains and horse farms, whereas in areas to the east of New Haven along the coast, the landscape features coastal marshes, beaches and large scale maritime activities.”
THE FUNDAMENTAL ORDERS OF 1639 — the basis for the moniker “The Constitution State” (from Wikipedia) — below is a portrait of Thomas Hooker (1586- 1647) “Father of Connecticut” and champion of “universal Christian suffrage” (not of separation of Church and State)
1. “The fundamental orders describe the government set up by the Connecticut River towns, setting its structure and powers. They wanted the government to have access to the open ocean for trading.”
2. “The Orders have the features of a written constitution and are considered by some authors to be the first written Constitution in the Western tradition.”
3. “The document is notable as it assigns supreme authority in the colony to the elected general court, omitting any reference to the authority of the British Crown or other external authoriy.”
NB: “In 1662, the colony petitioned the king for a royal charter, which substantially secured the colony’s right to self-govern following the same form of government established by the Fundamental Orders.”
For a brief history of modern and pre-modern Constitutions, see the fifth link below.
MARK TWAIN — lived there from 1874 to 1891) in a house in Hartford described as “part steamboat, part medieval fortress, and part cuckoo clock” (Justin Kaplan, historian and biographer)
1. It was here that he wrote, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, “ “Huckleberry Finn,” “Life on the Mississippi,” “The Prince and the Pauper,” and “A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court.”
2. “Poor financial investments prompted the Clemens family to move to Europe in 1891. The Panic of 1893 further threatened their financial stability, and Clemens, his wife Olivia, and their middle daughter, Clara, spent the year 1895–6 traveling so that he could lecture and earn the money to pay off their debts. He recounted the trip in “Following the Equator (1897). Their other two daughters Susy and Jean, had stayed behind. during this time, and Susy died at home on August 18,1896, of spinal meingitis, before the family could be reunited. They could not bring themselves to reside in the house after this tragedy and spent most of their remaining years living abroad. They sold the house in 1903.” Olivia died in 1904. Jean died in 1909. Twain himself died in 1910. Clara lived until 1962.
3. The house “later functioned as a school, apartment building, and a public library.” It faced demolition in 1929 but was preserved and was “declared a National Historical monument in 1962.” In 2012, it was “named one of the “Ten Best Historic Homes in the World” by National Geographic.
NB: Have you been? What is your most loved historic home on the planet? How about your favorite quote from Mark Twain?
How about: “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter — tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”
Do not miss the last link below — chock full of delectable quotes as well as no less delicious misattributions.
Below: Twain in 1909
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut — Wikipedia
Mark Twain — Wikipedia
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED THEMATICALLY:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Anything miscellaneous to share? Best trip you ever took in your life? Practical life tips? Random facts? Jokes?
Or, what is the best cartoon you have seen lately? or in the last 10 years? or the last 50?
Or what is your favorite holiday food? Main course? Dessert?
Fondest food memories? Favorite foods to eat or prepare? This is your chance to make someone else’s day. Or to cement in your mind a memory that might otherwise disappear. Or to think more deeply about something dear to your heart. Continuity is key to depth of thought.
