HIS259: Digital New Haven

In the Spring 2018 semester, students of HIS259 Digital New Haven visited the Local History Room of the New Haven Free Public Library Ives Branch. Librarian Alison Botelho introduced students to a number of primary sources in New Haven history, including fire insurance maps and historic newspaper clippings (pictured below). Thanks to SCSU University Photographer Isabel Chenoweth for joining us and taking some great shots!








In Fall 2019 students also traveled to the top of West Rock Ridge Park to view the city from above and think about the ways we can see the evolution of New Haven and the various forces and elements that have created the city over time. From West Rock, we moved to the Green to examine the various purposes of this public space by looking at the urban landscape surrounding the Green.






In Fall 2020, students of HIS259 participated in a walking tour of Westville, a neighborhood in New Haven adjacent to the SCSU campus and illustrative of much of New Haven's history from the colonial era through industrialization and early twentieth-century suburbanization. Finally, students participated in a walking tour of monuments and memorials, which augmented their research projects and gave them a sense of New Haven's urban artscape.





In Fall 2021, students in HIS259 participated in a walking tour of Sandy Point Beach and Bird Sanctuary in West Haven, Connecticut. After reading pieces by Gaddis Smith on New Haven's maritime history and an article in the Yale Daily News on "The Lost New Haven Fish Market," students got an unparalleled view of New Haven and New Haven Harbor, reflected on the ways the city's relationship with the water affected its historical evolution, and used the readings to think about the ways New Haven's maritime dimensions today are different or similar to the past.





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