Newtown, Connecticut, like most small communities, was unprepared to handle the staggering number of items that flooded the town after the Sandy Hook shooting. What should you do with truckloads of paper snowflakes, blankets and teddy bears?
The hands of archivist Kathy Craughwell-Varda rest on a ledger she created of a small portion of the gifts sent to Sandy Hook in the wake of the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Thousands of teddy bears, toys, school supplies, cards and letters were sent to Newtown from all over the world.
“As a historian, as someone who tells history through objects, I wanted to make sure we would be able to have these items for the future,” she said. “How do people handle these moments of intense grief and cultural shock?” In Newtown, people ran several independent projects to document and preserve the condolence materials. Some objects stayed in the town. Selected items were photographed, digitized and became the “Condolence Archive Project of the C.H. Booth Library, Newtown” on the Connecticut State Library’s website. Certain artifacts were sent to a private offsite storage facility. A photo gallery of curated materials was published on the"Embracing Newtown" website.
Memorializing tragic death is not new, but the scale of public reaction has changed. In our connected information age, people quickly learn about mass shootings and many feel an urgency to respond, Alpin said. They may leave a memento at a shrine or send a gift or condolence message.
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