Connecticut's Revolution exhibition

The Museum of Connecticut History at the Connecticut State Library announces a new exhibit commemorating the nation’s 250th anniversary. Connecticut’s Revolution explores the ideas and experiences of the people who made history: Connecticut’s soldiers and statesmen, Patriots and Loyalists, painters and printers, farmers and sailors—men, women, and children from America, Europe, and Africa. To try to see the world through their eyes, the Museum of Connecticut History’s exhibit team has drawn on the tens of thousands of documents and objects in the Connecticut State Library’s museum, archival, and printed materials collections. Some of these materials make it possible to retell old stories in new ways, others make it possible to recover previously untold stories. Taken together, they reveal how Connecticut changed during this revolutionary time and how Connecticut, in turn, changed the world.
Connecticut’s Revolution will open to the public from Saturday, July 4, 2026 through Friday, July 9, 2027. The exhibit's regular hours will be Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with select Saturdays.
Family Saturday schedule:
August 15, 2026 sponsored by Robinson+Cole
September 19, 2026 sponsored by the Schmid Family
October 17, 2026 sponsored by DataMail
November 21, 2026
December 19, 2026
January 23, 2027
February 20, 2027
March 20, 2027
April 17, 2027
May 15, 2027
June 26, 2027
Admission is always free!
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About the exhibit:
Exhibited through a 21st-century lens, this grouping of over 100 Revolutionary War-era objects and documents has never before been collectively displayed. Highlights include the Connecticut State Archive’s “Goddard Broadside,” one of only nine copies of the Declaration of Independence printed by Mary Katharine Goddard; Connecticut’s resolution of June 14, 1776 sanctioning the state’s Continental Congressional delegates to vote for independence; the Museum of Connecticut History’s Second Regiment Light Dragoons Standard, one of only 30 extent flags from the war; a fragment of the King George III sculpture that was torn down in 1776; a pocket watch that crossed the Delaware River with its owner and George Washington; the plow that General Israel Putnam dropped when he heard the Lexington Alarm (loaned by the Connecticut Military Department); a powder horn gifted to Benedict Arnold (loaned by the Henry Whitfield State Museum); a cloak worn by Deborah Champion on a mission across British lines (loaned by the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History); a cannon and other period armaments; a military uniform and accoutrements; and much more.