{"id":237836,"date":"2025-11-13T07:38:27","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T12:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=237836"},"modified":"2025-11-13T07:39:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T12:39:13","slug":"uconn-humanities-project-helps-bloomfield-preserve-its-cultural-mosaic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2025\/11\/uconn-humanities-project-helps-bloomfield-preserve-its-cultural-mosaic\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn Humanities Project Helps Bloomfield Preserve Its Cultural Mosaic"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Bloomfield marks its 190th anniversary, a UConn research team is helping preserve the stories that define the town\u2019s cultural identity, capturing the voices of residents who built their lives there in the 20th century.<\/p>\n

On Oct. 30, residents gathered at the Alvin and Beatrice Wood Human Services Center for the opening of \u201cBloomfield Mosaic: Stories from our Jewish, African American, and West Indian Communities.\u201d The exhibition was created in partnership with UConn Engaged, Public, Oral, and Community Histories (EPOCH)<\/a>, led by Fiona Vernal<\/a>, associate professor of history and Africana studies and associate director of the Africana Studies Institute.<\/p>\n

The exhibition features more than 40 oral histories collected by Bloomfield volunteers and UConn collaborators, highlighting the personal experiences, traditions, and community legacies that define the town. Through photographs, recorded interviews, and multimedia displays, visitors can explore the intertwined histories of the three communities that comprise the majority of Bloomfield\u2019s population.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really important that we weave those stories together into one narrative,\u201d Vernal says. \u201cThe exhibit shows why they\u2019re proud of their town, why they\u2019re proud of their heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBloomfield Mosaic\u201d continues Vernal\u2019s work to preserve local history in towns across the state, following projects in Enfield, Hartford, and Windsor.<\/p>\n

Founded by Vernal in 2015, EPOCH is a community-engaged scholarship initiative in the Department of History that supports oral history training, research, and public storytelling. The impact of the program has grown over the past decade, thanks in part to funding from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a partnership grant<\/a> from Connecticut Humanities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe provide faculty expertise and oral history training, we write the exhibition text, and we work with a professional design team,\u201d Vernal says. \u201cOur goal is to put UConn on the map for having the biggest oral history collection of representatives from Connecticut communities, one town at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Fiona
UConn historian Fiona Vernal delivers the keynote remarks at the \u201cBloomfield Mosaic\u201d opening on Oct. 30, 2025. (Bri Diaz\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The seeds of exhibition were planted in 2022, when members of the Bloomfield Humanities Committee attended a previous EPOCH-led exhibition, \u201cHome Away From Home: Greater Hartford\u2019s West Indian Diaspora,\u201d<\/a> at the Windsor Historical Society. Inspired by that project, the committee members approached Vernal about documenting Bloomfield\u2019s evolving history and cultural diversity.<\/p>\n

They also asked Vernal to train local volunteers to conduct the oral histories themselves, a change that deepened the community involvement, according to Donna Wnuck, a member of the Bloomfield Humanities Committee who spoke at the exhibit\u2019s opening.<\/p>\n

The project launched in early 2023 with about 20 volunteers, including members of the Bloomfield Humanities Committee and the Wintonbury Historical Society. Vernal led training sessions on oral history collection and interview techniques, working with Timothy Brown, a Ph.D. student in UConn\u2019s Department of History and a research assistant with EPOCH.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dissertation focuses on the 19th-century antislavery movement in Connecticut, but this project looks at the consequences of that period and how communities interact with history,\u201d Brown says. \u201cThis was an opportunity for me to be in the community, and for us to learn together about what it means to do oral histories.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Vernal, the group organized scanning days, where residents contributed family photos and artifacts that were included in the collection. Volunteers also conducted long-form interviews with participants, whose stories were curated into the exhibition. Vernal\u2019s team wrote the exhibition text and worked with professional designers to organize the collected materials.<\/p>\n

The result of this community effort highlights Bloomfield\u2019s role as a microcosm of Connecticut\u2019s changing cultural landscape. Interviews with residents trace the town\u2019s evolution as a place that embraces diversity as a core part of its identity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From the early and mid-1900s, when Black and Jewish families found refuge here amid housing discrimination, to the mid-century arrival of West Indian immigrants seeking new opportunities, Bloomfield has long been a place of welcome and strength.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– From \u201cBloomfield Mosaic: Stories from our Jewish, African American, and West Indian Communities\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s incredible to see this exhibition come to life, especially at a time when the work of documenting historical heritage can feel so uncertain,\u201d Vernal says. \u201cProjects like this show how we can sustain the work and keep it going.\u201d<\/p>\n

The traveling exhibition will next appear at Seabury, a Bloomfield-based senior living community, where it will be on display for residents \u2014 including several who participated in the project as interview subjects. The long-form interviews will also be archived with the Wintonbury Historical Society.<\/p>\n

For Vernal, \u201cBloomfield Mosaic\u201d is more than an exhibitionit\u2019s an example of how research in the humanities creates real-world impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis project shows what UConn is doing in the community, and how we are helping communities tell their own stories,\u201d Vernal says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The \u201cBloomfield Mosaic\u201d opening exhibition was made possible with support from Connecticut Humanities, Seabury, and Seabury-at-Home.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new exhibition celebrates community history and highlights how UConn humanities research, led by professor Fiona Vernal, is helping Connecticut towns preserve and share their stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":237837,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226,1715,2460,2193,2235],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1858],"class_list":["post-237836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clas","category-community-impact","category-faculty","category-hartford-county","category-today-homepage"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 11:08:33","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237836"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":237905,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237836\/revisions\/237905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/237837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237836"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=237836"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=237836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}