Down Sodom: The Impact of Rapid Industrialization on Everyday Life

Down Sodom: The Impact of Rapid Industrialization on Everyday Life in Late 18th- and Early 19th-Century Connecticut - Jamie Eves, Mill Museum
In the 17th year of the collaboration between Wilton Library and the Wilton Historical Society, the scholarly lecture series will focus on the theme of “Innovation, Disruption, Revolution: The Impact of Technological Advancement.” In this lecture, Jamie Eves, Senior Curator of the Mill Museum in Willimantic, CT, will discuss how New Englanders dealt with the rapid evolution of many industrializing towns during the 18th and 19th centuries in the face of changing technologies. New innovations brought new businesses, wealth, and people to many Connecticut towns, in some cases even building entirely new communities with their own distinct identities. However, with change comes resistance and resentment as people connected to these communities embraced or rejected the new reality that technology enabled.
Jamie Eves is the Mill Museum's Senior Curator and Historian in Residence, as well as the Town Historian of Windham, CT. He earned a PhD in American History at the University of Connecticut. His doctoral dissertation, "Valley White With Mist," examines the relationships between people and environment in the Piscataquis River Valley in northern Maine. He has an MA and BA in History from the University of Maine. He is Executive Director Emeritus of the Mill Museum, having served in that capacity from 2011 until 2021. Jamie has been teaching history at the university level for more than twenty-five years with research specialties including 18th, 19th, and 20th century American environmental and industrial history, the history of New England, and public history. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Connecticut League of Museums.
As a "coda" to this year's series, a special guest speaker will present at the opening of the Wilton Historical Society's newest exhibition "Wilton Works", opening in April 2024. This exhibition will explore how the jobs that Wiltonians do have affected the town's history. The nature of how jobs are done, and who does them for whom, has profoundly impacted the town through to modern times. The technology discussed in this year's series plays a prominent role in how we have looked at occupations historically and how we will view them in the future.
This series is sponsored by Laureen Mody. The moderator for this lecture is Nick Foster.