Member Spotlight

In this continuing series, CLHO spotlights some of our member organizations and the exciting, creative, and groundbreaking activities that are happening all the time at historic sites around the state.

The Old Lyme Historical Society, Inc. (OLHSI) has 125 members, mounts popular exhibits, holds sell-out programs, hosts an informative Web site, and publishes popular and beautifully illustrated histories. However, you won’t find it on a map of Old Lyme and you can’t visit it on Saturdays. OLHSI may well be the only historical society in the state without a home. In fact, the Society counts its current lack of physical roots as an asset.

Q. How old is Old Lyme Historical Society and how did you come to be without a home?
A.In 2004, a group of people got together to talk about ways to promote Old Lyme history. We incorporated as the Old Lyme Historical Society in 2005 with a mission to collect, preserve and interpret the town’s rich history. We started doing exhibits and programs at different locations in town and people got to know us. Our membership grew and people started coming forward with stories, ideas, and offers of help.

We realized that we had filled a need in our community—people wanted to know about the town’s past and they wanted to see it preserved. Our first thought was that we should find or build a museum, but that seemed like a tall order for such a new group.

A grant from the Connecticut Humanities Council enabled us to step back and think through our options. We asked our community and our members what they thought. We all agreed that we’ll need a home someday, but for now it’s more important to keep building an appreciation for Old Lyme history and having people involved at a grassroots level in the interpretive part of our mission: sharing the cultural, economic, social and architectural aspects of life in Old Lyme through the internet, exhibits, walking tours, and original publications. It’s working well for us and the community. We’re looking for a small space to keep an office, but we’re thinking modestly while we build our constituency and our record of accomplishment.

Q. Museums and historical societies usually focus on having “stuff.” Are there any benefits to not having “stuff”?
A. You might think we’re held back by a lack of buildings and collections, but we look at it another way: we’re unencumbered by buildings and collections. We can help people learn about Old Lyme’s past, even without collections. We use the community as our learning lab: buildings, landscapes, cemeteries, neighborhoods, stories, genealogies, local histories, and lore—there are many resources that we can mine for information and share without having to own them. We give cemetery tours, conduct oral histories, publish a newsletter, and provide educational programs.

In other words, because we don’t have to pay for heat or acid-free boxes, the funds that we raise can go right back to the public in the form of programs, exhibits and other services that bring people together around the lessons of history. It wouldn’t work if every historical society functioned this way, but it’s working for us right now.

Q. What are some of the publications that you have produced?
A. We’ve launched a series of monographs that tell stories about life in Old Lyme. They include Poverty Island, a memoir of a young man’s adventures and hard times on a small island off Griswold Point during the Great Depression and This Ancient and Interesting Town, a reprint of an 1876 article about Old Lyme, originally published in Harper’s magazine. Local bookstores sell both books.

Our upcoming monograph on the impact of the1938 Hurricane on Lyme/Old Lyme includes taped histories, as well as memoirs of residents who lived through that devastating storm. We’ll commemorate the event on September 21, 2008 with an exhibit featuring photos, newspaper accounts, and recorded voices of local residents as well as never seen before photographs.

We’ll follow that with another monograph, celebrating efforts by local residents to support land preservation through the O.L Conservation Trust and other organizations. The Old Lyme Historical Society, the Old Lyme Conservation Trust, and the Florence Griswold Museum are collaborating on an exhibit which will have its debut in the spring 2009.

Q. All historical societies struggle with visibility. Isn’t it hard to make yourself known if people don’t know where to find you?
A. Surprisingly, the reverse seems to be true. In order for the OLHSI to host exhibits and programs, we have to reach out, find common ground with other groups, and pool our resources to bring the best to the public. People don’t have to find our museum—they can stumble across us at other, unexpected venues. Presenting programs in the community gives us remarkable flexibility and visibility. We also work hard to make ourselves visible on the Web, in parades, in frequent PR and through programs and publications—and it is working. People find us and join us.

Q. Any last thoughts on being a new historical society in an old town?
A. It was interesting to read Harold Skramstad’s fall conference keynote address, “What Makes a Museum?” in the most recent NEMA News. He said:
 “…increasingly the quality of the individual museum enterprise is dependent less on the quality of its collection and more on the quality, creativity and imagination of its staff. We need to remember here that some of our most successful museums do not even have collections… what they do have are engaging, mission-related programs and experiences.”

This kind of thinking reminds us that we can provide important services to our community and to the historical record if we focus on our mission and our grassroots efforts to engage people in the study of our history.

For details about the OLHSI, please contact Bob Dunn through the OLHSI Web site at http://www.olhsi.org/.