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All collections/The Old State House: Connecticut’s civic rooms

Hartford COUNTY · Places & community

The Old State House: Connecticut’s civic rooms

The same Hartford building served state and city government. HABS photographs preserve its elevations, stairs and public rooms during the 1930s and in 1967.

Historical focus · 1796–20th century

Explore the photographs Read the story
1. Historic American Buildings Survey Everett H. Keeler, Photographer March 1, 1937 EAST ELEVATION - Old State House, Main Street & Central Row, Hartford, Hartford County, CT
1. Historic American Buildings Survey Everett H. Keeler, Photographer March 1, 1937 EAST ELEVATION - Old State House, Main Street & Central Row, Hartford, Hartford County, CT · March 1, 1937

THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTOGRAPHS

People, places, and change.

One building, changing responsibilities

The Old State House was used as one of Connecticut’s state capitols from 1796 to 1878, then as Hartford City Hall from 1878 to 1915. Those changes place an eighteenth-century building firmly within the archive’s nineteenth- and twentieth-century story. Rather than ending when state government moved, its civic life continued in a different form. [2]

Architecture through the camera

The HABS survey associates the Federal-style building with Charles Bulfinch and records several later building campaigns, including work in 1879 and 1918. Its photographs move between exterior elevations, entrances, stairs and rooms. Specific views were made by Everett H. Keeler, Joseph C. Berlepsch and James Rainey in the 1930s. These dates belong to the images, not to the original construction. [1]

A public interior worth examining

The sequence makes it possible to compare public-facing façades with the interior spaces behind them. Look at the relationship between entrances, stairs and galleries: the building organized movement as well as symbolizing government. Its layered construction history means that a photograph of a room should be read alongside the survey, rather than automatically described as the room’s untouched eighteenth-century appearance. [1]

Sources & further reading (3)
  1. Library of Congress: Old State House, Main Street & Central Row, Hartford, Hartford County, CT
  2. Connecticut General Assembly: About Connecticut’s Old State House
  3. Library of Congress: original photograph captions and dates (ct0098)

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Building dates and photograph dates are recorded separately. Later photographs are identified in their captions; unknown exposure dates remain unknown. Follow each image’s credit and reuse terms.