Join us on August 9 at 7 p.m. for an author talk with Eric D. Lehman, whose recently published book, Connecticut Vanguards, prominently features founding father and lexicographer, Noah Webster. The year 2018 is notable for Noah Webster anniversaries. April 14 was the 190th birthday of Webster’s dictionary. On October 16, 2018, Noah Webster celebrates his 260th birthday. And on May 28, 2018, we commemorated the 175th anniversary of Webster’s death. Lehman’s book talk will contribute to the “Year of Noah Webster” at the Noah Webster House & West Hartford Historical Society, placing his legacy alongside other Connecticut luminaries.
Noah Webster, Charles Goodyear, P.T. Barnum and Katharine Hepburn all have
Connecticut in common. Like so many other residents, they had an inventive spirit and drive that changed the course of history for the rest of the state. Some of the state’s natives, like Eli Whitney and Henry C. Lee pioneered new methods. Prudence Crandall and Helen Keller championed the rights of the underprivileged. Some, like Frederick Law Olmsted and Sol LeWitt, changed our perception of the world.
Author Eric D. Lehman chronicles the lives of two dozen men and women who left their marks on Connecticut and the world as a whole.
Eric D. Lehman is the author of 12 books of history, travel, and fiction, including “The History of Connecticut Food,” “Literary Connecticut,” “Homegrown Terror: Benedict Arnold and the Burning of New London,” and “Becoming Tom Thumb: Charles Stratton, P.T. Barnum, and the Dawn of American Celebrity,” which won the Henry Russell Hitchcock Award from the Victorian Society of America and was chosen as one of the American Library Association’s outstanding University Press books of the year. His 2016 book “Shadows of Paris” was chosen as novella of the year from the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, earned a silver medal in Romance from the Foreword Review Indie Book Awards, and was a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award. He teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Bridgeport and lives in Hamden with his wife, poet Amy Nawrocki, and their two cats.
This event is free and open to the public, but reservations are recommended as space is limited. Visit noahwebster.yapsody.com to save your seat.
The museum would like to thank the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving and the Greater Hartford Arts Council for their continued support.
