From its founding, the state of Connecticut has attracted and welcomed people from around the world. Documentation of the variety of ethnicities represented in the population in, and the stories of their migration to, the state are preserved through oral histories, photographs, organizational and personal paper collections beginning with the research of the WPA sponsored Peoples of Connecticut and the Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian Alliance in the 1930s through the most recent oral histories of the Armenians in Connecticut (2014). Related documentation may also be found in the personnel records of the Cheney Brothers and Wauregan-Quinebaug companies and several congressional collections, among others.
Collection highlights include:
- Personnel cards of workers at the Cheney Brothers Silk Manufacturing Company of South Manchester, Connecticut. These cards provide details of the ethnic origin of workers in the early 1900s.
- Individual narratives and life histories and studies of customs of social and ethnic groups residing in Connecticut from the Connecticut Federal Writer's Project of the Works Projects Administration in the 1930s.
- Transcripts of UConn's Center for Oral History interviews, many of which are with Connecticut residents who speak about their ethnic origins.