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W hen I first cameto Waterbury 25years ago, themall was our
promised salvation.The Brass Mill Center, herald-
ed as an economic Paraclete,promised deliverance from thepost-industrial ruin that wasScovill Manufacturing Co. Theold economic model — industry— would be replaced by another— retail.
In the past, we grew by mak-ing things. In the future, we
would prosper by buying them.Anybody who didn’t see those
shaky foundations was eitherdesperate or naïve and probablya little bit of both. Retail jobsnever paid what factory jobs did.The hours were erratic, the ben-efits were iffy and the career tra-jectory was bumpy.
Still, the most cynical couldnot have predicted what’s beingcalled the Retail Apocalypse.
America’s malls, once the greatgravitational pull that generatedcommunity and commerce, are in
free fall. Thousands have closedin the last two years and anotherquarter of them are expected toclose by 2022. No new enclosedmall has been built since 2006,reports Time.Once rock-solid retailers — J.C.Penney, Radio Shack, Macy’s,Sports Authority, Payless, Sears— have all either closed or filedfor bankruptcy. Profits for mall-based clothing retailers — whichinclude trendy shops like Gap,
accentTHE SUNDAY REPUBLICAN SEPTEMBER 1, 2019
TRACEYO’SHAUGHNESSY
SUNDAY REFLECTIONS
ESECTION
THERESA DOFFING / TNS
The mall rats are abandoning ship
See REFLECTIONS, Page 2E
BY TRACEY O’SHAUGHNESSYREPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
In 1839, abolitionist JohnGunn of Washington,Conn., invited the socialactivist, Abby Kelley, aQuaker, to speak againstslavery in his hometown.
It did not go well. The Rev. Gordon Hayes
of the Congregational Church de-nounced Kelley as a “Jezebel” and a“servant of Satan.” For his part in fo-menting the controversy, Gunn, theelder brother of Frederick, was ex-communicated from the church, for,in the words of Hayes, calling hischurch “a three hundred headedmonster without soul or conscience— and the synagogue of Satan.”
A replica of that incendiary letter,and pictures of the two men, comemidway through the Gunn HistoricalMuseum’s exhaustive and spellbind-ing “Washington: An AmericanTown.” The new exhibit, whichexplodes with 1,000 artifacts, fiveinteractive iPads and three videoscreens, is as sophisticated andexceptional an exhibit as you willsee in any local history museum inthis state. In part, that stems from
A town asAmerican
as theymade them
Exceptional exhibition at Gunn Museum examines
Washington through its artifacts
REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
I n today’s edition ofThe Sunday Republi-can is a 24-page spe-cial section, Autumn
Lifestyles Almanac, with sto-ries about the coming seasonand the activities that givefall its unique signature.
The cover story deals withthe history and traditions ofOctoberfest, particularly itsassociation with beer. Withthe proliferation of craftbreweries in Greater Water-bury and Litchfield County,there are plenty of places toquaff a toast in the true spiritof Octoberfest.
And speaking of beer, don’tforget the wine, with a storyabout fall activities at onearea winery in New Hartford.
Food is another hallmarkof fall, from pumpkins topeaches, plums to pears,from tarts to tailgating, andapple pies to apple fritters.The tailgating story includesa handy checklist on things topack when heading off toparty before the game.
Activities abound in thefall, from zip lining above thetrees at one of the state’scasinos, to taking in the fallfoliage to getting ready forHalloween.
There’s also a story thatlooks at some of the remain-ing country fairs in our area,ending with the RivertonFair, which is celebrating its110th anniversary this year.
Along with the change ofcolors comes the threat ofhurricanes and other weath-er events, including snow, sothere’s a story that highlightssome of the things you canexpect from fall weather.
And in the back of the sec-tion is a handy series of cal-endars highlighting some ofthe coming events this fall.
Autumnmagazinein today’sedition ofthe paper
The Rev. Gordon Hayes, pastor of the Congregational Church in Washington, Conn., in 1839 excommunicated John Gunn
for allegedly calling the church ‘the synagogue of Satan.’
JOSEPH WEST PHOTO
A scene from a new exhibit at Gunn Historical Museum shows horses, an automobile and train tracks — under what appears to be anelm tree — at Washington Supply Co., circa 1910. The hardware store, at 2 Calhoun St. in Washington Depot, is a Washingtoninstitution founded in 1893 and now in its 126th year of operation.
See GUNN, Page 2E
Email:
SEPTEMBER 1, 2019THE SUNDAY REPUBLICAN L M2E
Urban Outfitters andAmerican Eagle — plum-meted 41% in the firstquarter, the biggestdecline since the 2008recession, according toRetail Metrics.
Many malls havedevolved into woebegoneclumps of phone stores,tattoo shops, piercingkiosks and thoroughfaresfor seniors getting in theirmorning stroll. The mallrats are abandoning theship.
It’s customary to blamethe online economy forthe demise of the mall,and much of that is legiti-mate. Why get in a car (orput clothes on! Or do yourmakeup!) when you cansit on your duff and clickyour way through the cos-mic casbah?
But it’s more than that.Increasingly, customersare not seeking out goodsbut experiences. This“experience economy,”aided and abetted by asocial media stream thatinfects its users with theFOMO (Fear of MissingOut) virus, rejects acqui-sition as its chief ambi-tion. Today’s consumerswant fun — vacations,time with their friends,yoga with goats — themore unusual the better.
Moreover, millennialssimply don’t have themoney to pay mall prices.Four in 10 Americansunder 30 describe theirfinancial situation aspoor. Nearly half doubtthey could handle anunplanned bill.
The malls that oncewere an adornment of ourcities may soon becomean albatross, anotherswath of vacant spacepleading for tenants. Wecertainly have to do a bet-ter job of using this space
than we’ve done with ourvacant factories anddowntown office build-ings.
Malls were based onmore than the need forefficient shopping. Theywere also places wherepeople could and did con-nect and converse. Somemalls have already recog-nized that draw and jetti-soned retail in place ofyoga spas, cycling studiosand gym space. Othershave become entertain-ment venues. Still othersmight consider using thebuildings for communalwork space.
If I had my druthers,we’d demolish the build-ings and return the acresto green space. Let kidsplay. Let them run andwrestle, play kickball andcapture the flag. Don’tworry about the sketchyneighborhood. Don’t buyinto the fear mongerers.Station a few police offi-cers and let the kids frol-ic, tumble, skip, inventand otherwise figure outwho they are on a clean,safe, grassy field awayfrom joy sticks, cellphones and the infernaltechnological pollutionrotting their bodies andsouls.
But communities aretoo dependent on the tax-es these leviathans gener-ate for that. In this econo-my, we need a new deliv-erer, one that will lastlonger than a mere quar-ter of a century. Let’shope it does more todevelop community thanthe mall’s consumeristgluttony did.
Tracey O’Shaughnessyis an award-winningcolumnist who writes“Sunday Reflections” forThe Sunday Republican.Email her at [email protected].
REFLECTIONS: Malls are closing upacross the countryContinued from 1E
the vision of its creator, cura-tor Stephen Bartkus, and itsdesigners, Julia Nable andZoltan Csillag of SandorMax.But mostly it stems from thelabor and generosity ofWashington residents whocontributed artifacts, timeand ideas to an extraordi-nary exhibit in which thetown casts itself as an ordi-nary American town whosefledgling growth mirroredthe country’s own. Thatmeant battles, often vituper-ative, over abolition, deathand loss in a series of wars,agrarian wealth and industri-al innovation and a struggleto carve out its own identity.
THE EXHIBIT, MADE POSSI-BLE by a $100,000 Good toGreat grant from the state,succeeds largely because ofthe depth of its collection —1,000 artifacts culled from15,000 pieces — that tell sto-ries that are astonishinglyvivid and achinglyintimate.This is not historyfrom a distance but closeenough to mourn.
Take this story from thelife of Civil War veteran Ab-ner Mitchell, who was draft-ed in 1863 when he was 42,only months after PresidentAbraham Lincoln had insti-tuted the country’s first draft.It was a call that cappedmany tragedies to befallMitchell and his family.
In 1860, Mitchell and hiswife lost one of their fivechildren, Willie, in a sleddingaccident. Distraught,Mitchell’s wife, Lydia, diedshortly thereafter. In Decem-ber 1862, three of Mitchell’sremaining four childrendeveloped diphtheria. Fanny,15; Charlie, 11; and Matthew,3, died within three days ofone another. All three wereburied together in the Wash-ington cemetery the dayafter Christmas.
When Mitchell was sum-moned to the battlefield, thetown, recognizing hisadvanced age and recenttragedies, offered to send asubstitute instead. AbnerMitchell refused. He joinedthe 6th Infantry RegimentConnecticut Volunteers inAugust 1863. A photographof Mitchell, and his remain-ing child, Mary, surround areproduction of a letterMitchell sent her from thebattlefield.
On Aug. 18, 1864, AbnerMitchell was shot by a sharp-shooter in Deer Bottom, Va.,and died two days later, leav-ing Mary an orphan. In lessthan a year, she had lost herentire family.
These kinds of stories,replicated and folded into thelarger narrative of the town,make the exhibit so engross-ing that it rewards more thana single viewing. The digitalcomponent, which allows vis-itors to take a “deeper dive”into the town’s people, ob-jects and history through aseries of iPads, will swell asmore artifacts are added.
AMONG THE MANY UNUSU-AL FEATURES of Washing-ton’s legacy is its long historyof human habitation. Archeol-
ogists have found the earliestevidence of habitation in thearea dates back 10,300 years.That makes Washington oneof the earliest Native Ameri-can sites discovered in NewEngland. Yet, the 38-square-mile town, which began in1673 as Pomperaug Planta-tion, is not so much exception-al, in the curator’s mind, astypical. Its founders bartered,bickered, prospered, innovat-ed, failed, fought and sufferedin a line roughly parallel tothat of the country.
“There are these greatAmerican stories that con-nect to a larger theme,” thecurator, Bartkus, said.
That’s a generous asser-tion. Washington may havestarted in typical fashion, butit hasn’t ended that way. Atone point, Washington boast-ed so many mills, factories,dairy farms and manufactur-ers that local historianWilliam Bader boasted,“Once, almost anything a lifeneeded was made in Wash-ington.” Yet, nearly four cen-turies after its founding,Washington remains a star-tlingly small, picturesquetown of 3,500 with a smaller-than-average business foot-print and higher-than-aver-age cultural output. It ishome to two dance compa-nies, five private schools, aprominent art association, a1,000-acre land trust and oneof the state’s last independentbookstores.
HOW DID THE TOWN PULLTHIS OFF? That’s not a ques-tion this exhibit necessarilyanswers, and that’s probablyfor the best. Instead, theexhibit reminds viewers ofhow ordinary the town was,struggling to succeed as thecountry did the same.
Nevertheless, Washingtonbenefited from early andunusual strokes of good for-tune. In 1673, settlers madethe first of nine purchasesfrom natives that would formthe Pomperaug Plantation.The man facilitating thosepurchases was the Yale-edu-cated Capt. John Minor —who just happened to speakEastern Algonquin. It’s alsodifficult to escape the contri-bution of the Gunn brothers— John and Frederick — whomust have seemed like wild-eyed extremists when theybegan lecturing the town
about abolition and moraleducation. But they clearlydeveloped a culturally mind-ed, outdoorsy spirit that hasremained with the town.
OPENING WITH ONE OFTHREE INFORMATIONALVIDEOS, the exhibit early onincludes a vibrant artisticrendering of Chief Wara-maug, the powerful nativesachem from whom much ofthe land that is now Wash-ington was purchased.Among the last families topurchase land from ChiefWaramaug’s heirs were theAverill family, which settledin Washington in 1746 andare still on the same land,doing the same thing: farm-ing.
In fact, three families inWashington remain on thesame land in the same hous-es they’ve called home sincethe 18th century. In additionto the Averills, who now runa popular fruit orchard, theLogan family (1738) and theCogswells (1745) haveremained in town and havefurnished curators with someof their choice heritageitems, from family photo-graphs to spinning wheels,foot warmers, tin candlemolds, tavern signs and evenrare epaulettes from theMarquis de Lafayette.
Slaves were a part ofWashington history, at leastsince the beginning of the18th century, and severalWashington ministers pro-duced texts defending thepractice. In the case of theRev. N.S. Wheaton, justifiedit on biblical grounds. Theexhibit includes his pamph-let, “Discourse on St Paul’sEpistle to Philemon; Exhibit-ing the Duty of Citizens ofthe Northern States inRegard to the Institution ofSlavery,” delivered in 1850.
“I am an abolitionistamong a slave-holding com-munity,” said FrederickGunn, who established hisschool, The Gunnery, in thesame year. Its focus — on theimportance of building char-acter, the need to abolishslavery and reverence fornature — was not universallyshared, Bartkus said. “Aboli-tionists were in the minorityhere,” he said. “They wereconsidered heretics and radi-cals. The ministers herewere preaching a biblical
justification for slavery.”The last census that lists
slaves in Washington was in1810 when six labored there.Curators have traced 20slaves who toiled in Wash-ington, but say there werelikely more. The exhibitincludes the bill of sale for a24-year-old “male Negro”named Sefer, who was pur-chased for 80 pounds in1773. Among the slaves wereJeff Liberty, owned by JohnFarrand. When Farrandenlisted in the RevolutionaryWar, so did Jeff Liberty — inexchange for his eventualliberty, which Farrand grant-ed at the end of the war.
THOUGH IT BEGAN AS AFARMING TOWN, Washing-ton’s nearby Shepaug andHousatonic rivers encour-aged the proliferation ofmills. Though renowned forits fine Holsteins, Washing-ton produced everythingfrom corn to twine, axe han-dles, batting, cigars, marbleand hat boxes. As the exhibitreads, “Once peaceful andbucolic, ‘The Flats,’ (Wash-ington Depot) becamesmoke-filled and bustling. In‘Factory Hollow,’ noise,ambition and industryreign.”
The arrival of the ShepaugRailroad in 1872 not onlyfacilitated the movement ofgoods, but began the town’sentry into the tourist trade, a“get-away” from the noxiouscity. The arrival of theMayflower Inn in 1920 onlycemented that reputation.Photographs of baseballgames, tennis and croquetmatches and waterskiing onLake Waramaug add to theimage of a healthy, hard-working arcadia nourishedby fresh milk from thetown’s farms and fruitsplucked from its orchards.Precisely how it avoided thebig-boxification of the rest ofthe country remains an enig-ma.
Certainly, Washington’s isnot the story of every town inAmerica. But “Washington:An American Story” makesvisitors wish it were.
Gunn Historical Museumis at 5 Wykeham Road,Washington, Conn., at Route47 and Wykeham Road. Forinformation go to gunnmuse-um.org or call 860-868-7756.
GUNN: Extraordinary townContinued from 1E
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MOVIE THEATERS
NEIL NAKAHODO / TNS
Image shows partof a two-page
spread in‘Connecticut Life’
magazine fromJuly 2, 1964,titled ‘When2,764 Were
Slaves.’ It had ashort story about
slavery in Connecticut and
a map showingthe number ofslaves in each
town or region,based on the1790 census.
Beneath the storywas a list of the
leading slave-holders in the
state. ElijahMason Sr. of
Lebanon was thetop slaveholder,
with 28. RulefDutcher of
Litchfield madethe list with 7.
Washing-ton’s con-tributionsto the artsare high-lighted ina new,long-termhistory ex-hibit atGunn His-torical Museum inWashing-ton.
IMAGESCOURTESY OF GUNN HISTORICAL MUSEUM
