Archives

The Leslie D. Manning Archives contains materials reflecting the history of the Taft School from its founding in 1890 to the present. The archives consists of Head of School’s and Trustees’ records, books, correspondence; faculty and committee reports, financial, academic, and athletic records and memorabilia, school and student publications, selected Independent Study Projects, and Reardon Prize U.S. History Term Papers, audio and video tapes, blueprints and architectural drawings, and over 50,000 photographs and slides. The collection also contains objects, including founder Horace D. Taft’s top hat, political buttons from his brother William Howard Taft’s presidential campaign, and a bicycle brought back from a 1981 Taft trip to China.

The purpose of the Archives is to conserve and catalogue these items, and to make them available to the school community through changing exhibits and for their creative use in the curriculum and as a rich resource for studying the school’s history. Inquiries regarding school history are welcome.

Location: L 107 (Lower level of the Library)
Hours: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: 10:30am-11:30am
and by appointment
Tel: 860 945-7792

Beth Lovallo, School Archivist
The Taft School
110 Woodbury Road
Watertown CT 06795
Archives@taftschool.org