Kazimiera Kozlowski spent 30 years shaping the Prudence Crandall Museum in Canterbury, CT. During our conversation, we discuss her first experience working in a museum as an undergrad, her change of plan from becoming an art educator to undertaking museum studies after graduating, and her fateful acceptance of a position as a museum guide at the Prudence Crandall house. We also discuss the work she’s been doing since leaving the museum in 2018.
Left: The Prudence Crandall House in Canterbury where Crandall opened up her academies.
Above: Sarah Harris. Harris asked Prudence Crandall in the fall of 1832 if she could formally become a student at Crandall’s academy, which had opened in 1831. Crandall agreed. Harris studied alongside the other students until parents of the white students objected and pulled their daughters out of the school. Crandall closed down the academy and subsequently opened up a school for the daughters of the free black community along the eastern seaboard, Harris being one of them. The townsfolk became even more incensed; violence ensued, Crandall was thrown in jail and tried, the state encactied “The Black Law.” Eventually, the school closed down and both Crandall and Harris left Connecticut. Harris later became a teacher and remained friends with Crandall.
Kaz standing beside a painted portrait of Prudence Crandall in the foyer of the Crandall Museum.
Interview recorded on March 8, 2020. Musical theme: “Cascades” Podington Bear, Soundofpicture.com
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