The Fall Conference is almost upon us! This conference, titled The Constitution of 1818 and its Times, is jointly sponsored with the Connecticut Supreme Court History Society and UCONN Law School. It will be held Saturday, November 3.
Registration can be found here.
Program is below. All events are in Starr Hall on the UCONN Law campus. Please find directions and a campus map here. Parking is open, but Lot A is closet to Starr Hall, where we’ll be.
The Connecticut Constitution of 1818 and Its Times
Registration and breakfast: 8:30-9:00
Starr Hall Lobby. Tables for seating in Starr Hall Reading Room.
Opening Remarks: 9:00-9:15.
Starr Hall Reading Room
Wesley Horton, CHCHS President
Darcy Kirk, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, UCONN Law School
Jennifer Cote, ASCH President
Keynote Address: 9:15-10:00
Starr Hall Reading Room
Walter Woodward, Connecticut State Historian: “Trouble in the Land of Steady Habits: The Constitution of 1818”
Concurrent Session #1: 10:15-11:15
Session A: Connecticut Society in the Era of Constitutional Reform
Starr Hall 108: Koskoff, Koskoff and Bieder Courtroom
Moderator: Jeffrey O’Leary, Mitchell College
- “Turnpikes, Stagecoaches and Wagons: Transportation in Connecticut in the Early 19th Century”. Marshall Atwater, Ph.D., New York University
- “The Great Swamp Society: The Intersection of Politics, Religion, and a Slave-Powered Economy in Post-Revolutionary Farmington.” Robert E. Pawlowski, M.A. Public History, Central Connecticut State University
Session B: Intellectual Ordeals in the New Constitutional Climate
Starr Hall 204: William Davis Courtroom
Moderator: Don Rogers, CCSU
- “Lyman Beecher and the Climate of Change from the Hartford Convention to the Constitution of 1818”. Steven S. Berizzi, Professor, History & Political Science, Norwalk Community College
- “A Period of Strong Political Excitement: The 1832 Libel Trial of P.T. Barnum”. Betsy Golden Kellem, Juris Doctor, University of Connecticut School of Law. B.A. History, Yale University.
Concurrent Session #2: 11:30-12:30
Session A: Minority Religion under the New Constitution
Starr Hall 108: Koskoff, Koskoff and Bieder Courtroom
Moderator: Lance Goldberg, Farmington High School
- “From Politics to Education: The Constitution of 1818 and the Growth of the Educational Institutions of Minority Religions”. Steve McGrath, Adjunct Professor of History, Central Connecticut State University
- “A Liberal Bias: American Values and the Roman Catholic Church in Connecticut, 1855”. Gerald Reidy, Fairfield College Preparatory School
Session B: At the Constitutional Convention
Starr Hall 204: William Davis Courtroom
Moderator: Steve Armstrong, CCSU/CT Department of Education
- “The Enigmatic John Treadwell, Former Governor of Connecticut: An Analytic Study of his Participation in the 1818 State Constitutional Convention and His Impact on Its Legacy”. Janet M. Conner, Avon Historical Society
- ”Alexander Wolcott and Judicial Tenure at the 1818 Convention.” Michael Polito, M.A. Political Science, University of Notre Dame
Lunch: 12:30-1:30
Lobby. Tables for seating in the Starr Hall Reading Room.
Session #3: 1:45-2:45 The Constitution of 1818: How Much of a Constitutional Watershed?
Starr Hall 108: Koskoff, Koskoff and Bieder Courtroom
Moderator: Hon. Henry Cohn
- “Disestablishment and the Connecticut Constitution of 1818”. Scott Douglas Gerber, Visiting Professor of Political Theory, Brown University
- “Reenvisioning the 1818 Constitution”. Robert Imholt, Professor Emeritus, Albertus Magnus College