With Halloween upon us, we're promoting all things sugar-coated and spooky!

Index
-Announcements
-Exhibition Connection: Rationing and "Fighting Foods"
-Featured Upcoming Programs: Poetry Panel
-Recommended Reading: Two Halloween-themed novels
- Recommended Reading: Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book
-Special Collections: Hans Holbein the Younger's Dances of Death 
-Community Corner: Colonial Field Day
- Shop for Books Online

Did you know - we're now open on Thursday nights until 8 p.m.!

In our current exhibition, The Lure of the Garden: The Enduring Desire to Work and Shape the Land, we display memorabilia from the home front pertaining to the need to ration and the role of smart food consumption and home gardens during World War I, when backyard “war gardens” made their first appearance. Charles Lathrop Pack, a wealthy businessman and principal organizer of the war garden movement, became president of the National War Garden Commission. He and President Woodrow Wilson called on Americans to plant vegetable gardens to help combat a growing threat of food scarcity due to labor shortages, supply chain disruptions, and natural causes. Groups dedicated to this cause mobilized at a local and national level, including here in Connecticut, to offer instruction on planting war gardens and recruit young people to work on farms.

What about the soldiers on the other side - what did they consume? Hint: the answer provides a link to Halloween.

Chocolate consumption among soldiers dates back to George Washington's troops, who drank it in beverage form. During World War I, it was a natural choice for soldiers' canteens because of its caffeine and high calorie content. The American Army Quartermaster Corps gathered 20-pound chocolate blocks from American confectioners and distributed them to troops. GIs returned from the war with a newfound love of chocolate in the lead-up to Prohibition, during which time candy became a sought-after alternative to alcohol. Production boomed; 40,000 different bars were soon available for sale by the end of the 1920s. Click here for more information.

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